Wordless Wednesday

A Symbol of Peace - The Sisters of Life.

Who except God can give you peace?
Has the world ever been able to satisfy the heart?
~St Gerard Majella

Happy All Saints Feast Day

How shining and splendid are your gifts, O Lord

which you give us for our eternal well-being

Your glory shines radiantly in your saints, O God

In the honour and noble victory of the martyrs.

The white-robed company follow you,

bright with their abundant faith;

They scorned the wicked words of those with this world's power.

For you they sustained fierce beatings, chains, and torments,

they were drained by cruel punishments.

They bore their holy witness to you

who were grounded deep within their hearts;

they were sustained by patience and constancy.

Endowed with your everlasting grace,

may we rejoice forever

with the martyrs in our bright fatherland.

O Christ, in your goodness,

grant to us the gracious heavenly realms of eternal life.

Unknown author, 10th century

This doesn't surprise me: Anglican Bishop Confirms St. Therese is Behind Anglican Ordinariate

This is great news: Some of Our Anglican brothers and sisters are wanting to unite back to the One True Catholic Church and you know the claim that St Therese is in the centre of this doesn't surprise me.

St Therese always wanted to be a missionary before entering Carmel. That spirit of mission didn't diminish for her once entering, it only increased. Now that she is in her heavenly home she is living out her missionary passion with zeal and amazing results according to this article:

From the Catholic Key Blog

Anglican Bishop Confirms St. Therese is Behind Anglican Ordinariate.

Yesterday we conveyed the suspicion of former Episcopal and now Kansas City Catholic priest, Father Ernie Davis, that the intercession of St. Therese of Lisieux was behind the Vatican’s move to provide a structure to welcome Anglicans into full communion. Now, the Anglican Catholic Bishop of Canada strongly confirms that thought.

Father Davis, who leads St. Therese Little Flower parish in Kansas City which hosts an Anglican Use community, wrote of the news from the Vatican:

Anglicans and Catholics flocked to visit the relics of Saint Therese of Lisieux as they made a very recent pilgrimage to England. Her relics rested on her 2009 feast day at York Minster, the Cathedral of the Anglican Archbishop of York. When I read about that, I told the people here at St. Therese Little Flower that she was working on something big. In other words, preparations for this Apostolic Constitution have been in process for 170 years, and some of the preparations have been made at levels that are higher than popes.

The Traditional Anglican Communion Bishop of Canada saw the claim and sent an email today to Father Davis with remarkable details of St. Therese’ intercession. Here’s the email:

Dear Father Davis,

Your story about the Anglican Ordinariate and St Therese (which came to me via England this morning) is very interesting. And I can tell you another connexion with her.

I am the Anglican Catholic Bishop of Canada in the TAC. I was present at the Synod of TAC Bishops in Portsmouth England in October 2007 which voted unanimously to ask for full communion, and signed the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The first full day of the Synod was October 1st, the 'new' date of St Therese's feast, and the actual vote to ask for full communion was taken on October 3rd 'old' date of her feast.

I also accompanied the Primate and Bishop Robert Mercer CR to deliver the Letter to the CDF where we had been directed by the Holy Father. My friend Mother Teresa of the Carmel in Edmonton had given me some holy cards with a piece of cloth touched to her relics. Each of us carried one of these cards, and we asked St Therese's prayers on our venture. We also had similar cards from Poland of the Servant of God John Paul II.

I have continued 'to bother her' about a favourable response to our request, and now thanks to the generosity and love of the Holy Father who has taken a personal interest in us for many years, and the prayers of St Therese, something wonderful has come about.

God bless you,

+Peter Wilkinson, OSG

Bishop Ordinary

Anglican Catholic Church of Canada

Amazing!!

"My mission to make God loved will begin after my death.I will spend my heaven doing good on earth.

I will send a shower of roses."

~ St. Thérèse

You have kept to your word, Oh wonderful St Therese!

Pope Benedict's Beautiful and Consoling Words.

"If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful, and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed."

- Pope Benedict XVI

 

  This link will take you to the officail portrait of Pope Benedict the XVI by Igor Babailov.

 

Here is a colouring in picture of the Holy Father that may be used with children.

 

 

 

  Let us pray for this beatuiful Shepard that Our Lord has given to us.

 

Pray for Pope Benedict XVI prayer intentions for 2009

 

A Prayer for the Holy Father 
(can be said after the Rosary)

V. Let us pray for our Pontiff, Pope Benedict.

R. The Lord preserve him, and give him life, and make him to be blessed upon the earth, and deliver him not up to the will of his enemies (Roman Breviary).

Our Father, Hail Mary

(From the old Raccolta: A plenary indulgence on the usual conditions, when this prayer has been devoutly said every day for a month (S.C. Ind., Nov. 26, 1876; S. P. Ap., Oct 12, 1931).

Let us pray.

Almighty and everlasting God, have mercy upon Thy servant, Benedict, our Supreme Pontiff, and direct him, according to Thy loving-kindness, in the way of eternal salvation; that, of thy gift, he may ever desire that which is pleasing unto thee and may accomplish it with all his might. Through Christ Our Lord.

Amen

St Gerard Majella's Feast Day. Happy Feast Day to all Mothers!!!

St Gerard is one of my favourite saints in heaven, we share the same birthday and my dearest friend's birthday falls on his feast day. Sometimes saints just pick us we don't pick them. I have prayed to St Gerard through so much of my Catholic life, during my conversion to the faith, through pregnancies some of which have been very difficult. I continue to call on him for intercession in my vocation as a mother now. He was so humble and is not called a wonder worker for nothing.

God has given us as mothers this beautiful saint for good reason and his spiritual help and tangible results for many women speak for themselves. I am one of those women who will always be devoted to him.


Here is a link where you can subscribe to a The Desert Flower Press. We receive Good Philip which is a magazine about St Phillip Neri. Here is a good link on a redemptorist order in the UK where you can purchase these magazines. This month with our normal Good Philip magazine we received a beautiful magazine called Gerardo by Rev Fr William Frean, C.SS.R all about wonderful St Gerard. I can't seem to find a link to it or much about it but it is just beautiful. I will continue to try to find out more information and post about it in the future so it can be shared with all. I will also start posting from it about stories from wonderful St Gerard Majella life.

Here a some lovely prayers to celebrate his feast day!

For Special Blessings

Dear Saint Gerard we rejoice in thy happiness and glory; we bless the Lord Who endowed thee with the choicest gifts of His Grace; we congratulate thee for corresponding so faithfully with them. Obtain for us, we pray thee, some part of thy angelic purity, thy burning love for Jesus in the Tabernacle, thy tender devotion to Mary Immaculate. In thy brotherly love which made thee the support of the poor, the comforter of the afflicted and the apostle of the most forsaken souls, grant me the favors for which I now pray. (Here mention them privately)O most Powerful Patron, who hast always helped those who prayed to thee intercede for me before the Throne of God. O Good Saint, to thee I confide my fervent prayers; graciously accept them and, before the end of these days of prayer, let me experience in some way the effects of thy powerful intercession.
Amen.

He is also a wonderful patron for life through the unborn, who need all the intercession that we can give them, which is all and everything.

A happy little baby safe in it's mother's womb.

For the unborn

A Prayer for Life

Almighty and Eternal Father, in your all-wise providence you have raised up St. Gerard Majella to be the glorious protector of the mother and her unborn child Humbly we ask you that, through the powerful intercession of this, your faithful servant, we might have the courage to oppose the forces of anti-life in this world and to stand firm in our support of life in all stages of its development Grant that the ideal of the Christian family may flourish to the praise and glory of your Holy Name We ask this through Christ, our Lord.

Amen

Also beautifully and aptly today is the day established for Remembering Our Babies that we have lost through death, miscarriage, still born and pregnancy.

St Gerard Majella pray for us!!

Of all the unborn that were not loved enough by their parents to be given life.