Divine Mercy Painting Finds A New Home

A painting of the Divine Mercy put up for adoption last year by the man who commissioned it more than a decade ago has finally found a new home at St. Francis de Sales Church in Ajax, Ontario.

Back in December The Register reported that Roger McCrorie, who commissioned the painting in 2004 at a cost of $4,000, was searching for a new home for his beloved piece of art. Although the painting spent more than a decade hanging inside McCrorie’s cottage in Bobycaygeon, Ont., his main stipulation was that wherever it ended up, that it not be a private home.

“That isn’t where it belongs any more,” he said. “I want to find a ... church that is really into the Divine Mercy.”

St. Francis de Sales fits the bill.

“We’ve always had an image of the Divine Mercy but this opportunity came and it is more beautiful,” said Fr. Joseph Grima, pastor at St. Francis de Sales. “The other one was simply a print, a poster that got framed, where as this one is a painting and it carries with it a particular weight.”

What gives this rendition of the famous Divine Mercy image, originally painted by Eugene Kazimierowski, “weight,” besides its size of about 2.2 metres by 1.4 metres, is the painter — Josyp Terelya, a well-known Ukrainian artist.

The St. Francis de Sales’ community has a strong attachment to the Divine Mercy. Each Friday faithful parishioners have been coming to their parish at 7 p.m. to pray the Divine Mercy as a group.

Grima said the evening prayer service now attracts between 200 and 250 parishioners each week.

“It holds a particular importance to all of us, me included,” said Grima, adding that it is a popular devotion worldwide. “We’ve been trying to give it more and more importance over the years. We’ve kind of built it up for it.”

Origins of the image date back to the 1930s when St. Faustina Kowalska is said to have received instructions from Jesus Christ regarding His desire the image to be painted with the inscription “Jesus, I trust you,” a feast day on the first Sunday following Easter known as Divine Mercy Sunday and the reciting of the Chaplet of Divine Mercy at 3 a.m. or 3 p.m., all to be done with the intention of spreading mercy.

“We can’t do it at 3 o’clock kind of when we should because people actually work in Toronto but we try to do it some time,” said Grima. “People have it close to their hearts. It is special to them that they can actually come to Mass and congregate and say it together as a Catholic family, a family of believers to pray it together.”

Credits : The Catholic Register, Canada 

The Miracle Of The Divine Mercy Diary

Brendan O’Neill is a very successful businessman who comes from a very religious family.

His mother, in fact, had always a great devotion to Divine Mercy and was a great friend of Fr. Berchmans Walsh, who was the first priest to promote Divine Mercy in Ireland.

However, because of his business commitments, Brendan never really had much time for religion himself. He had heard a lot about the devotion to the Divine Mercy from his mother and when he had time for a prayer he found himself praying to St.Faustina to intercede for him in different matters.

He had received a gift of the Diary of Saint Faustina and intended to read it when he had time, but he never really got around to reading it. Brendan lives in the West of Ireland but his business affairs meant he had to travel a lot and he put the diary in his car with the intention of reading it in some hotel room some night when he had time on his hands.

This never seemed to happen for he was always looking over some documents or other at night, connected with the next days business, when staying away from home.

One day when on business in Dublin his car was stolen with the diary of St. Faustina in an overnight bag with a lot of other items and personal papers. Besides this bag he had his golf clubs and other golf apparel as well. When Brendan first was given the diary, for some reason that he could not explain, he put his name on the inside cover.

Three days later, a man that came from the same town as Brendan, but had been living in Dublin for a some time, phoned Brendan to say that a bag had been thrown into his back garden and the only item that was in the bag was a book with Brendan’s name on it. The book of course was the diary, but the extraordinary thing was, that in an estate of hundreds of houses, this house was chosen by the thieves to dispose of the bag, and the only man in the whole estate that knew who Brendan O’Neil was.

When Brendan got the bag with the diary in it back from the man, he then vowed to read it, as he felt he must be meant to read it. But again business intervened and the diary was left on the seat in his car with the intention of reading it at the next opportunity, which never seemed to happen.

One night Brendan parked in a public car park. When he returned his car had been stolen again. He reported it to the Guards and some days later they called on him to say they had found it, but it was completely burned out. Not only was the car burned to a cinder, but everything that was in it was burned to a cinder as well, except for one item which they said was totally unbelievable, a book that they found on the remains of a seat that had not a screed of upholstery left on it, and nothing else in the car was recognizable.

The Guards could not believe that any book could survive in what they said must have been a fire that raged at 2000 degrees. Brendan had a number of books and papers in the car, all of which had been incinerated in the fire, but there on the remains of a seat was the Diary of St. Faustina, burned around the edges which meant it had caught fire like everything else, but the fire stopped when it reached the text, which was the message of Divine Mercy. As Brendan stared at the burned wreck he thought he heard the words  “How long are you going to keep me waiting?”   

Brendan is now a Great Apostle Of Divine Mercy in Ireland distributing Copies of The Diary of Saint Faustina as many as he can and whenever he can.

Credits : Divine Mercy Scotland 

The Gift Of Gifts -- The Feast Of Corpus Christi 2020

Standing at the crowded table in the dim candle light of the Upper Room during the Last Supper, Jesus Christ did not hand out Bibles to the Twelve Apostles and solemnly tell them, “Take this, all of you, and read it. This is my book, written for you.” Jesus gives us Himself, not a book. On today’s Feast, we commemorate God’s greatest gift to mankind, the person of Jesus Christ. God gives us His Son, and then Christ gives us Himself, body and blood, soul and divinity, under the accidents of bread and wine in the Holy Eucharist.  Gift, gift-giver, and receiver meld into one in this sacrament of sacraments.

In the era of the early Church, it was customary for an excess of bread to be consecrated at Mass so that the Eucharist could be carried to the sick who had been unable to attend the Holy Sacrifice. This practice led to the adoption of the pyx as the first sacred vessel for reservation of the Eucharist. Some modern churches pay homage to these Eucharistic origins by hanging an oversized pyx on their wall to use as a tabernacle, imitating the early Church custom. Permanent reservation of the Eucharist led, over the centuries, to enthroning the Lord amidst the greatest splendor in churches. By the early medieval period, the time had long passed when the Eucharist was reserved merely to be brought to the sick. 

Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, street processions, chants, confraternities, songs, flowers, and all the splendid trappings of a feast day covered this dogma in glory by the High Middle Ages, and continue to wrap it in honor today. 

Saint Thomas Aquinas taught that the most necessary sacrament was Baptism but that the most excellent was the Holy Eucharist. This most excellent sacrament has been, for some, too excellent. In the Gospel of John, when Jesus tells His disciples that they must eat His body and drink His blood, many are incredulous and walk away. But Jesus does not compromise or say He was misunderstood. He lets them keep on walking. This initially hard teaching for the few was destined, over time, to be lovingly welcomed by the many.

The Old Covenant of the Old Testament was gory. In a kind of primitive liturgy, Moses had goats and sheep slaughtered on an altar and their blood gathered into buckets. He then splashed this blood over the people, sealing their acceptance of the written law. Flying droplets of animal blood splattered against people’s skin to remind them of their promise to God. No such bloody drama breaks out at Sunday Mass. We each bless our head and torso with holy water and receive a pure white host on the tongue. The New Covenant is based not on the blood of goats, bull calves, or on the ashes of a heifer. It is rooted in the generosity of the Son of God, who “offered himself as the perfect sacrifice to God through the eternal Spirit.” Christ’s Covenant with his people is established verbally and liturgically at the Last Supper and physically on the cross the following day. 

The consecration of the Sacred Species at Mass continues Christ’s physical presence among us, while adoration of the Blessed Sacrament suspends the consecration of the Mass, stretching it out into hours, days, months, and years.

We naturally desire to leave a part of ourselves to our loved ones. We send photos, solemnly pass on a cherished memento, or give a baby a family name. Soldiers used to carry a locket holding a few strands of their wife’s or girlfriend’s hair. We need to be close, physically close, to those we love in concrete, tangible ways. Jesus desired the same, and, not being constrained by the limitations of human nature, He did the same, and more. He has left us Himself! 

That dogma processing down the street is a person! And that dogma behind the golden doors of the parish’s tabernacle is the same person! So bend that body low and set that heart on fire, for the Saving Victim opens wide the gate of heaven to all below. 

We stand as close to Christ in the Holy Eucharist as the Apostles ever did on Mount Tabor.

Lord of the Eucharist, we venerate You with heads bowed, as the old form of worship gives way to the new. With faith providing for what fails the senses, we honor the Begetter and the Begotten, loving back at what loved us first, apprentices in the school of love.

What Holy Week Looks Like In A Remote Indian Diocese

In the Diocese of Miao, located in India's northeasternmost state of Arunachal Pradesh, Bishop George Pallipparambil does not stay quietly in his Cathedral for Holy Week, but rather holds services across the diocese in an effort to better serve his people.

“What we're trying to do is to reach to as many places as possible. I'm not confining myself to the main church in Miao,” the bishop told CNA in a 2015 interview. “I'll be there only for the Easter Sunday Mass.”

“I finished today in one place, tomorrow I'll be in a big community called Khonsa, and for Good Friday I'll be in another district headquarters. For the [Easter] Vigil I'll be in another place, and then for Sunday Mass I'll be in Miao.”

The Miao diocese covers a vast area of nearly 17,000 square miles, and it is home to the easternmost portions of the Himalayas.

The terrain ranges “from the very low plains to the high snow-covered Himalayan peaks,” Bishop Pallipparambil explained. “Some of the biggest rivers in the world are in this region, coming down from the Himalayas flowing down to the plains.”

Mountainous terrain coupled with a lack of infrastructure explains why the diocese held its Chrism Mass entirely outside of Holy Week, that year on March 26.

The Chrism Mass is traditionally said on the morning of Holy Thursday, and it gathers all the priests of a diocese together with their bishop to emphasize their common ministry. The bishop blesses three kinds of oil – chrism, oil of the catechumens, and oil of the sick – which are distributed to the priests and used in sacramental anointings throughout the following year.

However, the Diocese of Miao has had to change this practice to adapt to its needs. The diocese was established in 2005, and Bishop Pallipparambil is its first ordinary.

“The first year we had [Chrism Mass] on Tuesday of Holy Week, and we found many of the priests could not reach back to their own places for Holy Thursday,” he explained. “So, we started in the last eight years to have the Chrism Mass in the previous week.”

Bishop Pallipparambil himself is sometimes beset by travel difficulties: in 2015, heavy rains had made the road to Kulagaon village extremely muddy, and on his way to Holy Week services there, he had to get out and push his jeep along with passersby.

Another adaptation: the Chrism Mass was not held in the cathedral at Miao, but rather in Minthong parish in the Longding district.

“It is one of the decisions we made when the diocese was created,” Bishop Pallipparambil said.

He explained that “having the Chrism Mass in the cathedral, at least for me, didn't make sense,” because each year, the same people would attend and carry the holy oils back to the distant villages and parishes, where the local people “just don't know what it is.”

“(W)hereas if the Chrism Mass is held in their place, they come to know because it is always done in their language, and so they know what it is. And when it's time to have an anointing, whether it be for baptism or confirmation or another occasion, they know the sacredness of this oil.”

He added that “it brings all the priests and religious to pray together with the people the whole day before the Mass, so that also has a positive catechetical influence.”

That year, the Chrism Mass was the occasion for Bishop Pallipparambil to present the first translation of the entire New Testament into the Wancho language.

At the bishop's request, Father TJ Francis spent three years working with Wancho leaders in preparing the translation, which will serve the 60,000 Wancho people who live in the Longding and Tirap districts.

Fr. Francis' work “must inspire many of us to take up a similar responsibility to translate the Message of the Gospel to the language of the people we serve,” Bishop Pallipparambil said at the Mass.

The Miao diocese is home to more than 100 distinct tribes, many of which have their own language.

Bishop Pallipparambil told CNA that the Wancho, of whom 95 percent are Christian, now have printed in their own language only the Bible and a few prayer and hymn books.

As the language had no written form, it also lacked its own script, the bishop noted, and Fr. Francis wrote the works with Latin letters. The priest has also produced a Wancho grammar.

Despite lacking access to written Scripture until now, many of the Wancho have converted “just by hearing and seeing” the Gospel.

“Some of their children in the '80s and '90s travelled outside their area and attended Christian schools, and when they got knowledge of Christianity they helped by teaching Bible in their own language,” he explained.

The diocese also hold four to five-day Bible camps in which biblical stories and the catechism are explained.

Asked if the diocese hopes that the Old Testament will now be translated into Wancho, Bishop Pallipparambil affirmed “yes, we want to do it by all means at the earliest.”

Credits : Catholic News Agency 

Saint Faustina Kowalska -- The Saint For The Third Millenium

St. Faustina Maria Kowalska was born on August 25, 1905, the third of ten children of a poor, pious Catholic family in small Polish village. She was baptized two days later as “Helena.” At the early age of seven, Helen first heard the voice of God calling her to the religious life. When she approached her parents with her desire, her parents quickly disapproved. As a result, in trying to adhere to the will of her parents, she tried to stifle and ignore the call.

Helena would help around the house with the chores in the kitchen, milking the cows, and taking care of her siblings. She began her primary education when she was 12 years old, due to the closing of the schools in Poland during the Russian occupation. She was only able to complete three trimesters. In the spring of 1919, all the older students were notified that they had to leave the school, in order for the younger students to come in.

At the age of 14, she began working outside the home to earn money in order to support herself. 

However, when she was sixteen, her prayer life had grown to such an extent that work and sleep became difficult, and she left her job as a housekeeper. Again, she went to her parents to leave and enter a convent, they said no, citing financial difficulty as their reason.

After another refusal by her parents, she abandoned her spiritual life to an extent and began to live a worldly life: buying fashionable clothes, attending dances and parties, all in an attempt to ignore the call she felt deep inside.

At the age of 20, while dancing at a party one night in Lodz, where she was currently living, Jesus appeared to her, stripped and covered with wounds. Everything surrounding her disappeared and she only saw Jesus, who asked her, “How long shall I put up with you and how long will you keep putting me off?” (Diary 9). She ran to the cathedral to pray.

In Lodz's Cathedral, St. Faustina heard these words from our Lord: "Go immediately to Warsaw, and there you will enter a convent." She got up from prayer, went to her house and as best she could, confessed to her sister what had happened. She asked her sister to say goodbye to her parents on her behalf, and with only one dress and nothing else, she arrived in Warsaw. 

She asked the Blessed Mother to guide her and to let her know where to direct herself. That is how she arrived at St. James the Apostle Church in the outskirts of Warsaw. After mass ended, she spoke to a priest who sent her to Mrs. Lipzye, a very Catholic woman, and she lodged with her. During her stay with the Lipzye family, she visited various convents but all the doors were closed to her. She asked the Lord not to leave her alone as she sought an answer to her prayer, but the Lord wanted to teach her that He always answers our prayers in His time, not in ours. 

St. Faustina directed herself to the doors of the Mother House of the Congregation of the Sisters of our Lady of Mercy on Zytnia street, in Warsaw, where the Mother General interrogated her. Mother Micaela told her to go ask the Lord of the house if He accepted her. St. Faustina went to the Chapel and asked the Lord if He accepted her and she heard in her heart: "I accept you, you are in My Heart." She addressed the Mother General and told her what she had heard, and the Mother responded, "If the Lord accepts you, I also accept you; this is your house."

Nonetheless, a few weeks after her entrance, she felt a strong desire to leave and find another, stricter order that dedicated more time to prayer. However, Jesus appeared to her again, tortured and wounded and said to her, “It is you who will cause me this pain if you leave this convent. It is to this place that I called you and nowhere else, and [it is here] I have prepared many graces for you” (Diary 19).

RELIGIOUS LIFE:

In the beginning of 1926, Saint Faustina was sent to the novitiate in Józefów (St. Joseph’s Place) in Cracow-Lagiewniki, to end her postulancy. On April 30th she took the religious habit of a novice and received her new name: Sister Maria Faustina. During this ceremony, the Lord revealed to her the magnitude of her future sufferings and all to which she was committing herself. This lasted for a short while, and the Lord filled her with great consolation.
 

Saint Faustina suffered the majority of her novitiate with constant inner struggles. She couldn’t meditate, nor feel God’s presence. She suffered great torments and temptations, even inside the chapel. On more than one occasion, while she was in Mass, she felt she was blaspheming against God, she was not happy with anything. Even the simplest truths about the faith were difficult for her to understand.

During all this time, Saint Faustina was not alone. She had the help of her Directress of Novices, Sister Joseph Brzoza, who saw in her great graces coming directly from God. Even though, Saint Faustina felt at that moment totally abandoned by God, Sister Joseph would tell her: “know dear sister that God wants to have you very close to Him in Heaven. Have great trust in Jesus”.

During her third year in the Novitiate, it was revealed to her what it meant to be a Victim Soul. She wrote in her Diary: " Suffering is a great grace; through suffering the soul becomes like the Savior; in suffering love becomes crystallized; the greater the suffering, the purer the love.” (Diary #57)

After taking her temporary vows, for the next 8 years she lived in many different convents of the order – Warsaw, Vilnius, Walendow, Plock, and some others. Finally in 1936, she returned to the convent in Cracow, where she remained for the rest of her short life on earth. In this convent of Cracow-Lagiewniki, Saint Maria Faustina completed her novitiate, professed her first vows and her perpetual vows, served as a cook, gardener, doorkeeper, and spent the last years of her earthly life.

Saint Faustina was a simple religious without many studies. Based on outward appearance, none would have known of the deep mystical life that she led. She faithful went about her duties, kept mostly silent, and was always kind, cheerful and charitable toward all. She was completely abandoned to the will of God and was very valuable to Him. Her life is characterized by her deep trust and obedience to the Lord. 

She was a model of religious obedience and submission, always submitting all her visions and mystical experiences to the direction of her superiors and confessors. Her deep mystical life and union with God was revealed during her life to only a few superiors and confessors. The depth of this union was known to all only after her death, revealed by the contents of her Diary, which the Lord had instructed her to write. To her, the Lord Jesus confided a great mission: to make known the message of Divine Mercy to the whole world. 

The Lord said to her: “In the Old Testament I sent prophets wielding thunderbolts to My people. Today I am sending you with My mercy to the people of the whole world. I do not want to punish aching mankind, but I desire to heal it, pressing it to My Merciful Heart.” (Diary #1588). As well, “You are the secretary of My mercy; I have chosen you for that office in this and the next life (Diary, 1605)... to make known to souls the great mercy that I have for them, and to exhort them to trust in the bottomless depth of My mercy” (Diary, 1567).

The mission that the Lord entrusted to St. Faustina, however, cost her very much. She suffered greatly in fulfilling her mission as the Apostle of Mercy. In her novitiate, she was visited by painful mystical experiences and underwent a dark night of the soul. She also was very weak physically her whole life, and was often plagued by severe illness, which hospitalized her for months at a time. 

She suffered many spiritual and moral suffering related to the mission to which she had been entrusted. Many people, including her sisters, believed she was delusional and crazy because of her deep communion with God and her desire to have the image painted and propagated. As well, the Lord allowed her sisters to often misinterpret her intentions and true state of health; this caused her deep sufferings, for she was often look upon as weak and one who was feigning illness. 

For years, she did not have a confessor or spiritual director that understood the workings in her soul, and this left her in an almost constant state of confusion. The Lord asked her to found a new congregation (which never happened in her lifetime). 

Because of all these requests that Jesus placed on her (the image, the feast day, and the congregation), she was often doubted by her superiors, priests, and bishops. She was a “sign of contradiction” just like her beloved Spouse. She became a victim soul, suffering for the salvation of sinners; this entailed diverse sufferings which included the “passive night” of the spirit and hidden stigmata. Often she would take on spiritual battles and punishments in order to save sinners and prevent people from committing mortal sins. 

She also prayed and suffered greatly for the souls in purgatory. Eventually, she contracted tuberculosis, and finally succumbed to the disease, physically ravaged by its effects on October 5, 1938 at the age of 33 years. 

She died physically exhausted, but united mystically with God, totally mature in spirit, and in the odor of sanctity. She had lived thirteen of her 33 years in the convent. Her funeral took place two days later, on the Feast Day of Our Lady of the Rosary, which in that year was the First Friday of the Month.

HER MISSION:


The mission of Saint Faustina consisted of three tasks:

First, proclaiming and bringing the world closer to the truth of the merciful love of God for every human being, as revealed in the Scared Scriptures.

Second, imploring God’s mercy for the entire world, and particularly for sinners, through the practice of the new forms of devotion to The Divine Mercy asked for by the Lord Jesus.

Third, initiating the apostolic movement of Divine Mercy whose devotees and apostles shall bring about a religious renewal among the faithful in the spirit of this devotion, namely, acquiring an attitude of childlike trust in God and actively living the commandment of love and mercy toward one’s neighbor.

In obedience to her spiritual director, she wrote a diary of about 600 pages in which she gives account of the revelations she received on the Mercy of God. The devotions and methods proposed are as follows:

1. Veneration of the Image of the Divine Mercy:

The pattern for the image was revealed to St. Faustina on February 22, 1931. From her Diary: “In the evening, when I was in my cell, I saw the Lord Jesus clothed in a white garment. One hand [was] raised in the gesture of blessing, the other was touching the garment at the breast. From beneath the garment, slightly drawn aside at the breast, there were emanating two large rays, one red, the other pale...

After a while, Jesus said to me, Paint an image according to the pattern you see, with the signature: Jesus, I trust in You (Diary 47). I want this image…to be solemnly blessed on the first Sunday after Easter; that Sunday is to be the feast of my Mercy (Diary 49).” He promised to her, “By means of this Image I shall be granting many graces to souls” (Diary 570).

2. The Chaplet of Divine Mercy:

This prayer is a powerful means of intercession in order to atone for sin and appease the justice of God. God promises that those who say this with faith, confidence and trust in His Mercy will obtain their requests, especially those requests related to the graces of conversion and peaceful deaths. 

About the chaplet, the Lord told St. Faustina, “When this chaplet is said by the bedside of a dying person, God’s anger is placated, unfathomable mercy envelops the soul” (Diary 811)…”It pleases me to grant everything they ask of Me by saying the chaplet” (Diary 1541)…”If what you ask is compatible with my will” (Diary 1731).

3. The Great Hour of Mercy:

The Hour of Mercy is 3pm. This is the hour that Jesus died on the Cross, and it is the moment in which “Mercy triumphed over justice” (Diary 1572). Jesus asked St. Faustina, at this hour, to immerse herself in His mercy asking it to cover the whole world, especially sinners. Jesus promises, “In this hour you can obtain everything for yourself and for others for the asking” (Diary 1572). 

Prayers at this hour should be addressed to Jesus, they should appeal to His mercy and the merits of His passion, and they should be made at 3pm in the afternoon.

4. The Feast of the Divine Mercy:

This devotion ranks the highest in the all the forms of devotion to the Divine Mercy. Jesus asked Sr. Faustina to have this Feast of Divine Mercy instituted on the first Sunday after Easter Sunday. This Sunday is to be a time of great graces for all, especially sinners. The Lord promises, “…whoever approaches the Fount of Life on this day will be granted complete remission of sins and punishment” (Diary 300). 

As well, “On this day the very depths of My tender mercy are open. I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the fount of My mercy…Let no soul fear to draw near to Me, even though its sins be as scarlet” (Diary 699).

To reap the benefits of these great graces, one must have trust in God’s mercy, be in the state of sanctifying grace (gone to Confession), and receive Holy Communion.

5. The propagation of the Devotion to the Divine Mercy:

To those that spread the honor of the Divine Mercy, Jesus promises to “shield through their entire life as a tender mother her infant, and at the hour of death I will not be a Judge for them, but the Merciful Savior” (Diary 1075). Spreading the honor of this to others does not necessarily mean many words (though it does require speaking about it). It primarily means living it. This means living in a spirit of faith and trust in God, and being merciful and kind in your actions and attitudes toward others.

THE SPREADING OF HER MESSAGE:


Her body was placed in the common grave in the Community Cemetery in Krakow- Lagievniki. Later in 1966, during the investigative process to gather information on her virtues, her remains were transferred to the chapel. Sister Faustina’s mission really began after her death, just as she had announced it would.

One day in 1935, Saint Faustina wrote to her spiritual director: "There will come a time when this work, which God is demanding so very much, will be as though utterly undone. And then God will act with great power, which will give evidence of its authenticity. It will be a new splendor for the Church, although it has been dormant in it from long ago" (Diary 378).

This did happen. On March 6, 1959, the Holy See, because of inaccurate information that was presented to it, prohibited the distribution of images and writings that propagated the devotion to The Divine Mercy as proposed by Saint Faustina. As a result of this action, there was a period of silence for about 20 years regarding the devotion. 

Then on April 15, 1978, the Holy See, after a careful examination of some original documents that were not available before, overturned their decision and again permitted the practice of the devotion. 

The man who was prominently responsible for this turnaround was Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, the Archbishop of Cracow, the diocese in which St. Faustina was born. On October 16, 1978, Cardinal Wojtyla was elevated to the Chair of Peter under the name “Pope John Paul II”.

On March 7, 1992, the “heroic” virtues of Sister Faustina were declared; on December 21, 1992, a cure that came about through her intercession was declared “miraculous”; and on April 18, 1993, Pope John Paul II had the honor of declaring the Venerable Servant of God, Sr. Maria Faustina, “Blessed.”

In 1997, Pope John Paul II made a pilgrimage to the tomb of Blessed Faustina in Poland, and called her: “The Great Apostle of Mercy in our times.” The Holy Father said at her tomb: “The message of The Divine Mercy has always been near and dear to me... and which in a sense forms an image of this Pontificate.”

On March 10, 2000, the date of the canonization was announced after the acceptance of the second miracle obtained through her intercession. The Secretary of the Mercy of God was elevated to the altars by the Holy Father on April 20, 2000, Divine Mercy Sunday. She was the first saint to be canonized in the year 2000 and also in the new millennium. On this occasion the Holy Father pronounced that the Second Sunday of Easter would be known from then on as “Divine Mercy Sunday.”

On June 29, 2002, H.H. John Paul II, established that Divine Mercy Sunday should be enriched with a plenary indulgence.

SHRINE OF THE DIVINE MERCY:


On the hill of Lagiewniki, next to the city of Cracow, is the Shrine of The Divine Mercy. It used to be the old chapel of the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy. There, in a side altar underneath an image of The Merciful Jesus, are the mortal remains of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, to whom Pope John Paul II gave the name, “Apostle of the Divine Mercy.”

During World War II the chapel was open to the public. From that time forward, her remains have been visited by people of all societies: by those who desired to ask for her intercession, others in thanksgiving for a favor received, or others simply to pray. The devotion to the Divine Mercy became a great sign of fortitude and hope for many, especially for those in concentration camps in and beyond Poland. As time progressed, the devotion was spread by soldiers and refugees around the whole world. The Novena, the Litanies and the Chaplet were soon translated to other languages. The central areas of the devotion’s spread are France, USA and Australia.

In the year 2002 John Paul II returned to Cracow and consecrated the New Basilica of Divine Mercy, which was constructed next to the original Shrine and the Convent of the sisters. There are plans to build a Retreat House, a Pilgrims House, and a parking lot. Following are some words from the Homily given by His Holiness:

"I wish solemnly to entrust the world to Divine Mercy. I do so with the burning desire that the message of God’s merciful love, proclaimed here through Saint Faustina, may be made known to all the peoples of the earth and fill their hearts with hope.

“I have come to Lagiewniki to dedicate this new church. I am convinced that this is the special place chosen by God to sow the grace of his mercy. I pray that this church will always be a place where the message of God’s merciful love is proclaimed; a place of conversion and repentance; a place for the celebration of the Eucharist; a fountain of mercy; a place of prayer and of constant appeals for mercy for ourselves and for the whole world. I pray in the words of Solomon: ‘Have regard to the prayer of your own servant and to his supplication, O Lord my God, hearkening to the cry and to the prayer which thy servant prays before you this day; that your eyes may be open night and day towards this house... Hearken to the supplication of your servant and of your people Israel, when they pray in this place. Hear in heaven, your dwelling place; and when you hear, forgive’ (1 Kg 8:28-30).

“I firmly believe that this new church will always be a place where people will come before God in Spirit and truth. They will come with the trust which accompanies all those who humbly open their hearts to the working of God’s merciful love, to that love which is stronger than even the greatest sin. Here, in the fire of divine love, human hearts will burn with desire for conversion, and whoever looks for hope will find comfort” (John Paul II, 8/17/2002).

Divine Mercy Sunday In The Time Of Coronavirus

Divine Mercy Sunday, also known as the Feast of the Divine Mercy, is celebrated on the Sunday after Easter during the Octave Day of Easter, but more specifically on the eighth day of Easter. On this special occasion we celebrate the Divine Mercy of Jesus Christ as revealed by Christ himself to St. Maria Faustina Kowalska, a Polish nun of the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy.

In the Convent this Religious Sister contemplated the mystery of the mercy of God in the words of the Bible as well as in her daily activities which forms the basis for her spirituality. In her spiritual life she distinguished herself with a great love of the Eucharist and a deep devotion to Mary, the Mother of Mercy.

Sister Faustina had a definite child-like trust in God as well as having mercy for others. She wrote in her famous Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska that “I desire to reflect your compassionate heart, full of mercy, Jesus. I want to glorify it. Let your mercy, O Jesus, be impressed upon my heart and soul like a seal, and this will be my badge in this and the future life.”

Her life spent in the convent was filled with extraordinary gifts such as revelations, visions, a hidden stigmata and even participation in the Passion of Jesus Christ. In one vision she saw two rays of light shining from the heart of Jesus and illuminating the world. Jesus, himself, explained to her one day that these lights represent “Blood and Water.”

On hearing or reading these words, we immediately think of the testimony of Saint John the Evangelist describing when a soldier pierced the heart of Jesus, and water and blood came spilling out of his side. At that critical moment, we recall the sacrifice of the Cross, the foundation of the Church, the Holy Eucharist and of course, Baptism.

Divine Mercy reaches humanity through the Heart of Christ crucified as Jesus tells Sister Faustina, “My daughter, say that I am love and mercy personified. Every soul believing and trusting in my mercy will obtain it.”

The mission of St. Faustina was three-fold.

First, she was charged with reminding the world of the truth of our faith revealed in the Bible about the merciful love of God towards everyone.

Secondly, her writing showed God’s mercy for the whole world and especially for sinners through new forms of devotion presented by the Lord, himself. These acts of popular piety include veneration of the image of Divine Mercy with the inscription: Jesus, I trust in You; the Feast Day celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter and the praying of the Chaplet of Divine Mercy at 3 p.m., the Hour of Mercy.

These promises by Christ provide us with our life entrusted to God and to loving our neighbor.

The third task of the saint’s mission was in starting an apostolic movement of Divine Mercy by proclaiming God’s mercy for the whole world.

As apostle and scribe of Jesus, Sister Faustina was asked to describe and record her encounters with  him.

Jesus Christ’s words to her were: “Secretary of my most profound mystery, know that your task is to write down everything that I make known to you about my mercy for the benefit of those who by reading these things will be comforted in their souls and will have the courage to approach Me.”

In these difficult days of this unprecedented virus, my joy is truly great in presenting the life and words of St. Faustina.

By Divine Providence, this humble religious sister is linked to us, witnesses and participants in these days of horrible sufferings, sickness and even death from the coronavirus.

Jesus prophetically told Sister Faustina, “Humanity will never find peace until it turns with trust to Divine Mercy. Divine Mercy! This is the Easter Gift that the Church receives from the Risen Christ and offers to humanity.” Divine Mercy from God is further underscored by the opening prayer of the Mass on Divine Mercy Sunday as it emphasizes that mercy is the key element in the plan of God for our salvation and the whole world:

“ Heavenly Father and God of Mercy, We no longer look for Jesus among the dead, for He is alive and has become the Lord of Life.” Divine Mercy is our beacon of light during this terrible pandemic we are living.

Saint John Paul II canonized Sister Faustina on April 18, 1993 and she now rests in the Sanctuary of the Divine Mercy in Krakow, Poland.

In April of 2005 Pope John Paul II died on the vigil of Divine Mercy Sunday and he himself was beatified on Divine Mercy Sunday in 2011 by his successor, Pope Benedict XVI.

Three years later, John Paul II was canonized together with Pope John XXIII on Divine Mercy Sunday by Pope Francis.

For us who are quarantined these days, on Divine Mercy Sunday we may obtain a Plenary Indulgence with the recitation of one Our Father and the Creed before the image of Divine Mercy with the words “Merciful Jesus, I trust in you.”

One should also pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy and plan to fulfill the sacramental requirements of Confession and Communion at a later date.

These words of Sister Faustina that she wrote in her Diary are quite appropriate today: “I feel tremendous pain when I see the sufferings of my neighbors. All my neighbors’ sufferings reverberate in my own heart. I carry their anguish in my heart in such a way that it even physically destroys me.

Only the love and mercy of God will save us.” Today, focusing our gaze on the statue of Divine Mercy, let us make our own Prayer, the prayer of St. Faustina trusting in God with firm hope:

“For The sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.”

Jesus, I trust in you.

Credits : Father Gus Puleo

Maltese Jesuits in India

When a family living in the Dumka diocese in India became Catholic, their neighbours did not allow them to draw water from the village well because they were deemed to have betrayed their ancestry.

 But the villagers, who believed in good and evil spirits, saw the family peacefully going to the neighbouring village for water.

They realised there must be something “valuable and beautiful” in the family’s new-found faith, Jesuit priest Fr John Scicluna recounted.

 The tremendous growth of the Santal mission, which has developed from nothing, is a miracle of grace. 

The Maltese Jesuits have been working since 1925 to spread their faith among the Santals, the largest aboriginal tribe in India.

 As the new diocese grew, by 1998 Dumka was divided into three. Before the Maltese Jesuit fathers and brothers arrived, there were a few hundred Catholics that now number 350,000 in three dioceses.

 Fr Scicluna recounted how the Santal mission started when the Belgian Jesuits asked for help because they could not cope with the workload. The Jesuit province of Sicily, of which the Maltese formed part, wanted to be assigned a foreign mission.

 Since 1925, 73 Maltese Jesuits have worked in India. Today there are more than 80 parishes, a university college, 20 colleges, 70 primary schools, 165 village schools, 70 hostels, 68 adult learning centres, eight orphanages, five hospitals, 43 health centres and pharmacies and two old people’s homes.

Bangladesh's Catechists --- True Catholic Missionaries

They pass their busiest time of year during Lent serving Catholics in rural, remote areas

 Onarai Tripura treks through the hilly roads and rivers of Bangladesh's Chittagong Hill Tracts to meet some 1,000 tribal Catholics and offer spiritual and pastoral care in 15 remote villages.

"Sometimes I take vehicles and boats but I mostly walk because it's only way to reach villages. It takes two-days to reach the farthermost one," said Tripura, a catechist.

Each village has about 80 Catholics and he tries to meet them all during his monthly visits. He listens to their problems, offers solutions and keeps them in touch with the church.

During Lent, he stays with them for a whole day and night, leading prayer services and the Way of the Cross. "Sometimes, people are upset as they can't access priests but we encourage them and help them keep their faith alive," said the catechist with 25 years of experience.

During Lent's 40 days, Tripura returns home to Antaha Para village near Bandarban district town, for a day and a night, to spend some time with his family.

"Catholics living in nearby villages see priests three or four times a year but Catholics in remote areas don't see a priest once in a year. I meet them to offer catechism, spiritual and pastoral care in lieu of them," he says.

During Lent and Easter, he helps conduct various paraliturgical services.     The three hill districts are the only mountainous regions of Bangladesh and home to some 25 ethnic tribal groups who are largely Buddhist.

Catholic missionaries reached the hills in 1950s and today there are over 20,000 Catholics in seven parishes in all three districts. The growth of the church in the hills is largely due to catechists like Tripura.

There are 28 salaried catechists and 65 teachers who serve as volunteer catechists in the area. Across the country, about 1,000 paid and voluntary catechists offer similar services to Catholics in eight dioceses. 

A catechist's life of vocation and service is tough economically with hardships for their families. Tripura struggles to run his six-member family on his 5,410 taka (US$68) monthly wage.

To support the family, Tripura relies on jhum (slash and burn agriculture) to run a small plantation. "It is really hard to maintain family on our wages. My children have grown up and I need to support their education.

Yet, I am happy and satisfied as a catechist as it gives me the pleasure of serving people," Tripura says.

Lalmoni Tripura has worked as catechist in neighboring Rangmati district for nearly 28 years. He takes care of some 1,200 Catholics in 18 villages and, like Onarai, he also has a busy time during Lent.

"People are devoted and they eagerly await our visits. During Lent, I fast with them, take part in liturgy, night vigils and Way of Cross. It gives them a spiritual boost ahead of Easter," he says. Despite the difficulties of low pay, Lalmoni says he loves the job.

 "Through my works, I can spread Jesus' love among people and put them on the right track.

In return I get immense respect and love from the people and it gives me unbounded joy and satisfaction," he added.

The local church has grown thanks to catechists and they keep the church alive in remote corners," said Holy Cross Father Dominic Sarkar, from the parish of Queen of Fatima Catholic Church in Bandarban, the largest in the hills with over 8,000 Catholics.

"Priests cannot make pastoral visits to villagers more than once or twice a year. Catechists keep their faith alive and help the church survive among them," the priest said. Father Sarkar said due to limited resources and funds they could not offer better pay to the catechists. "Catechists deserve much more than they get and what they do for the church is a tremendous service.

They are the true missionaries and the church needs more people like them to survive and grow," the priest added.

Credits : UCA News 

Father Thomas Thengumpally --- A Pioneer Missionary in Tripura

Fr. Thomas Thengupally was a successful missionary to the Kok Borok speaking people of Tripura.

He was the first Catholic Priest to preach the gospel among the Kok Borok people.

Holy Cross Missionaries continued evangelizing in Mariamnagar, Agartala, Kumarghat, and Kathalchara till 1980 and the Gospel did not reach the Kokborok people through any Catholic Priest prior to 1980.

It was Fr Thomas Thengupally who brought the Gospel to the Kokborok people.

Fr. Thomas moved to Moharpara a Jamatia Tribal Village in 1982 and was stationed there in a small Bamboo made Hut from where he spread the Gospel to many kok borok tribal villages of Tripura,like Twithampui, Tuidu,Tuichalong,Tuimairang, Singling, Belchara, Manaichara, Ratila, Sirdu, Belbari Mandwi. Duski, Champaknagar etc.

He continued Preaching The Gospel in Moharpara till he was seriously ill in 2016.

The People of Tripura will remember him for many years.

RIP August 2018.

FYI

1) Tripura is a State in North - East India.

2) Kokborok is a Language spoken by the Tribals in Tripura.

3)  Holy Cross Missionaries were the Pioneer Missionaries in Tripura as far as The Spread of Catholicism was concerned. Catholicism is now being spread in Tripura by Salesian Missionaries.

The Precious Blood Is A Precious Treasure

On the night before His most sorrowful Passion, Our Lord gathered His apostles around Him. On that night, the last night of His mortal life, Our Lord Jesus Christ, as a father, called His children in order to make known His “Last Will.” Every word, every gesture here is full of importance.

So He took bread into His holy and venerable hands, and raised His eyes towards heaven, unto God, His Almighty Father, and giving thanks, He blessed it, broke it and gave it to His disciples saying: “Take and eat, you all, of this, for this is my body.”

In like manner He took the chalice into His holy and venerable hands, He blessed it, and gave it to His disciples saying: “Take and drink, you all, of this, for this is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal testament, which shall be shed for you and for many unto the remission of sins.”

Through these words, through these gestures, Our Lord gave His own Body and Blood to His apostles. In His poverty, Jesus Christ did not have anything to give but Himself. And that’s what He left for His children: the treasure of His Real Presence in the most Holy Eucharist.

And it was the will of Our Lord that all of His children, from all places and all times, would be able to partake of this precious gift. And for this reason, He gave an order to His apostles:

Do this in commemoration of Me.

By these words, Our Lord gave His apostles the power to do what He Himself had done: to change the bread and the wine into His own Body and Blood. By these words, the apostles were ordained Priests of the New Law, in order to offer the Sacrifice of the New Law. “Do this in commemoration of Me,” which means, offer this Sacrifice of my Body and Blood for the glory of God and for the salvation of souls.

So, priests are the executors of the “Last Will” of Jesus Christ. And His last will was that His apostles, and their successors, would do what He Himself did on that blessed night… that the Church would carry on this mystery, until the end of time.

This Feast we celebrate today gives us the opportunity to reflect on the fact that the Blood that Our Lord shed on the Cross for our Salvation is really present on the Altar. After the Consecration, the Chalice doesn’t have wine anymore, but Blood. The Precious Blood of the Lamb of God, which was sacrificed for us.

It is not a fable, or a pious imagination, like the Protestants would say. It is not a figure, but it is the reality. If you wish, you can go and ask Our Lord Himself: Lord, what is inside that Chalice? And He will say, as He said on that blessed night: It is my Blood.

So how could someone dare to doubt the word of God?

So many miracles during the centuries have attested the Real Presence of Our Lord in the most Holy Eucharist! What an infinite treasure Our Lord left to His Church: His own Body and Blood really present among us!

From the very beginning, the Holy Church received this precious treasure with reverence and love. And she surrounded the sacred words of the Consecration with many prayers and ceremonies: everything to render glory to the Real Presence of Our Lord.

This monument of piety that we call the Liturgy is the most valuable patrimony of the Church. Saint Paul says that Christ showed His love for the Church by dying for her. And we could say, without any hesitation, that the Church shows her love for Christ through the Liturgy, because the Liturgy is the great chant of love that the Church sings to God.

And we know that it was not a work of one day, of one year, but of many centuries. Beginning with Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and the holy apostles, passing through many saints and popes, the Liturgy of the Roman Church was always growing organically, until it found its completion in the codification made by Pope Pius V after the Council of Trent. The “Tridentine Mass,” as we call it, always was and will always be the authentic expression of the Faith of the Catholic Church. That is how, for almost two thousand years, the Church has accomplished, day by day, the “Last Will” of Our Lord Jesus Christ, to “do this in commemoration of Me.”

It is not so surprising that the enemy would try to attack the Liturgy of the Church, that he would push for a reform, in order to deform this most beautiful Chant. Because the devil knows very well that the Liturgy is linked to the Faith. When you touch the Liturgy, you touch the Faith. When you change the way people pray, you change the way they believe. And when you change the way people believe, you change the way they behave. As Cardinal Burke said: “The abuses in the Liturgy are strictly correlated with lack of faith and moral corruption.” These are the consequences of bad liturgy.

And the way to discern a good liturgy from a bad one is the manner the Blessed Sacrament is treated. If the Body of Our Lord is treated like a mere wafer, and if the Chalice of His Blood is treated like a glass of wine, we can clearly see how this way of doing things will deform the faith of the people, who will be inclined not to believe anymore in the Real Presence of Our Lord. And this deformed faith will lead to a deformed life.

Perhaps this is the key to understand all the crisis we have been going through in the Church and in the world: a lack of care toward the Liturgy. How has the Liturgy been celebrated? How have people been treating the most holy Eucharist? If the angels could cry, they would, seeing what we see in so many churches nowadays.

What we need to understand is that if we believe it is the Lord, we must treat Him accordingly, with all respect and love. So we can see how important it is that the Liturgy of the Church should be well celebrated, for the glorification of God and the salvation of souls. If the downfall of a person, of a family, or a society comes from the lack of care and respect towards the things of God, the restoration of all things will only happen when we learn how to give God the adoration He deserves—when we learn how to honor, with due respect, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

So my brethren, let us adore the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Most Holy Sacrament; and in a spirit of reparation for so many abuses, let us say many times during the day the prayer that the Angel of Portugal taught the three children at Fatima: My God, I believe, I adore, I hope, and I love Thee, and I ask pardon for all those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope, and do not love Thee.

Three Points To Be Kept In Mind Regarding The Precious Blood :

1. If in other sacraments the Precious Blood is morally applied to the souls of those who receive them, in holy Communion it is physically communicated to body as well as soul.  We have the wonderful privilege of being brought into bodily contact with the Precious Blood, whether it be under the species of wine in the chalice, or of bread in the Sacred Host.

How pure our bodies should be if they are thus to touch the Source of all purity, the Holy of holies, the God Whose infinite purity is such that the very angels are not pure in His sight!  How can we venture thus to touch Christ Himself?  To receive the Precious Blood into our sinful and impure bodies?

2. Yet Christ Our Lord invites us to do so.  In His inexplicable love for us, He desires us, asks us, to receive His Precious Blood in Holy Communion. He says, Drink, O My friends, and be inebriated, O My dearly beloved.  Admire His divine condescension, and beware of presuming on His patience and His love.

3. How are we to account for Jesus’ willingness, nay, anxiety to be thus received by sinful men?  It is because in thus communicating Himself to us, He makes us more like to what He Himself is, and what He desires us to be.  The Precious Blood imparts to our souls all heavenly gifts and graces if we receive it as we ought.  O Jesus, grant that I may receive Thee frequently, fervently, with a complete oblation of my whole self!

The Sacred Heart and The Holy Eucharist

The Good News of Jesus Christ is a message of love. Saint John in his first epistle tells us, "The man without love has known nothing of God, for God is love." In his great encyclical Haurietis Aquas, "You Shall Draw Water," (a quotation from Isaiah), Pope Pius XII wrote, "We do not hesitate to declare that devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the most effective school of the love of God; the love of God . . . which must be the foundation on which to build the Kingdom of God in the hearts of individuals, families, and nations" (no. 123). Pope Pius XI called it "the synthesis of our whole religion and the norm of a more perfect life."

Pope Paul VI in 1965 wrote, "It is absolutelynecessary that the faithful venerate and honor the Sacred Heart in the expression of their private piety as well as in the services of public cult, because of His fullness we have all received." In 1984, on the feast of the Sacred Heart, Pope John Paul II said, "In the Sacred Heart every treasure of wisdom and knowledge is hidden. In that Divine Heart beats God's infinite love for everyone, for each one of us individually."

We adore the physical Heart of Jesus with that worship we give to God alone because the unique Person whose Heart it is is truly and completely both God and man. That physical Heart, said Pius XII, is a natural sign and symbol of Christ's three-fold boundless love for the human race: human sensible and human spiritual love, and the divine love of the Incarnate Word. In the Old Testament, God is described in human terms, metaphorically; He sees, hears, speaks, is offended, angry, rejoices, etc: Now His own body, the God-man actually sees, hears, speaks, is offended, angry, rejoices, experiences every authentic human feeling. Devotion to the Sacred Heart, then, translates the divine nature into human terms for us so that no longer do our prayers seem to die away into infinite distance: Instead they reach readily the very human Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Love for the Eucharist:

Christ's heart of flaming love finds its truest and most profound expression in the Blessed Sacrament of His love, the Eucharist, God's giving of Himself, whose feast, Corpus Christi, each year most often falls within the month of June. How appropriate this is, for devotion to the Eucharist and to the Sacred Heart are in fact one thing, inseparable -- devotion to the mystery of Christ's human and divine love. In the Sacred Host dwells the God-man, Jesus; in His Person pulses His Heart through which we are loved with the perfection of His humanity, the fullness of His Godhead, one Person who not only loves but is love. Thus St. Peter Julian Eymard instructs us, "Let us learn to honor the Sacred Heart in the Eucharist. Let us never separate them."

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus infallibly leads souls to the Eucharist. Love for, and devotion to, the Eucharist infallibly leads souls to the mystery of God's infinite love symbolized for us by the Sacred Heart, a symbol necessary because love itself is immaterial and imperceptible: We need the sensible manifestation of the Divine Heart. So it is that the Sacred Heart, the Holy Eucharist, and Love itself, are one and the same thing; for in the Eucharist dwells Jesus, in Jesus His Heart, and in His Heart is infinite love. The Eucharist can be explained only by love; the love of Jesus is the love of His Heart, and so the Eucharist is explained only by the Sacred Heart. Drawn close to the Sacred Heart of Jesus by cords of love, we receive into our own hearts the Eucharistic Lord in Holy Communion. It is not possible to carry fire in one's bosom and not become inflamed by it. Fire enkindles fire.

Every sacrament is an effect of Christ's love, but as St. Bernard said, the Blessed Sacrament is the love of loves, the effect of Jesus giving us Himself who is love, and the most fertile source of that most tender and ardent love man should have for Jesus. St. Francis de Sales tells us our great intention in receiving the Eucharist should be to advance in the love of God, to become intimate with Him. You cannot love someone you do not know, and you do not know anyone you do not speak to or visit often and intimately. Thus frequent visits to the Blessed Sacrament, periods of prayer, adoration, are absolutely necessary.

Revelations to St. Margaret Mary:

It was while she was kneeling in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament that Our Lord appeared to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque displaying Hs Heart (I quote the saint), "represented as a throne of fire with flames radiating on every side. It appeared more brilliant than the sun and transparent like crystal. The wound received on the Cross appeared clearly: There was a crown of thorns around the Heart and it was surmounted by a cross."

Our Lord told the saintly nun it signified His immense love for us who are the cause of His sufferings that He, in His humanity, willed freely to undergo for our redemption, and especially the outrages He is exposed to in the Blessed Sacrament.

He lamented that man largely ignored His great thirst to be loved in the Blessed Sacrament. He told the saint that in Gethsemane, immediately after the Last Supper, as He sweated blood, His great suffering was caused by the ingratitude of men, particularly toward the Blessed Sacrament.

And so He asked for Communions of reparation and consolation every First Friday and for a Holy Hour of Reparation every Thursday evening in memory of the agony in the garden and His desertion by the Apostles on the very night of the institution of the Eucharist. During His Passion, Our Lord must have seen down the centuries the millions who would pass Him by in the tabernacles of the world without giving Him a thought.

He must have seen millions of indifferent or even sacrilegious Communions; He must have seen the cruelest of all, those of His intimate circle, His priests and religious, who by coldness, indifference, carelessness, selfishness, infidelity, at or around the altar, would betray His Heart of love.

Devotion to the Sacred Heart did not begin with the private revelations of Sr. Margaret Mary. It is rooted in Sacred Scripture and Tradition beginning with the early Fathers as Pius XII outlined in Haurietis Aquas. It was through the revelation to Sr. Margaret Mary that the true meaning of the devotion was established and distinguished from other forms of piety by the special qualities of love.

Christ's Priests:

It was Christ's infinite love that instituted the Eucharist; and at the same moment came into being the priesthood, essentially and inseparably connected to the Sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood. To His priests, chosen by Himself, Jesus confided the task of spreading abroad the Gospel in every age and place. To them He has given a participation in His power -- to offer sacrifice, to preach the Word, to absolve, to console. In His priests, Christ perpetuates Himself, living through them unceasingly His life of love for all mankind. To render them capable of this awesome mission, Jesus has opened to them the treasure of His unfailing love.

It is especially to priests already consecrated to God, and called to profound holiness thereby, that the Sacred Heart wishes to manifest His love so they can communicate it to the world. Through the Sacred Heart a priest should enter into intimate knowledge and love of Jesus, giving all of his poor self to Him. That Sacred Heart is like a door leading into the very soul of Christ, towards complete conformity to Him. Priests, more than others, are called to progressive identification with Christ and so to the giving of their all in the work of spreading Christ's kingdom, as Presbyterorum Ordinis, as Vatican II's document on the "Life and Ministry of Priests" puts it. Indeed, the only measure of love is to love without measure.

Gift of Entire Self:

True devotion to the Sacred Heart is full of human and supernatural meaning.

 Do not confuse it with displays of useless and sugary piety devoid of doctrine. Sacred Scripture, the Liturgy, the writings of the Fathers and the saints, the teachings of the popes, are the basis of a true piety such as St. Paul presents to us in his letter to the Ephesians (3:14-19), a program of knowledge and love, prayer and life, all beginning with devotion to the Heart of Jesus, the root and foundation of all love.

Sacred Scripture means by "heart," not a fleeting sentiment of joy and tears but the personality directing the whole being, soul and body, to its good. Jesus told us, "Where your treasure is, there will be your heart also."

When devotion to the Sacred Heart is recommended, what is being recommended to us is the gift of our entire self to Jesus, soul and body, thoughts, feelings, words, actions, joys, and sorrows. Jesus came to light a fire on earth. Fire purifies, gives light, communicates, unites. Such is the blaze of divine love devotion to the Sacred Heart enkindles in our hearts.

The Heart of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament feeds the flame of our love for the Lord, burning from us the dross of self. Thus afire, we thirst for souls as He does, becoming His dedicated emissaries among the men and women of our day, so many of whom neither know Him nor love Him.

Spreading The Gospel among Tribal People In Bangladesh

The diocese of Rajshahi, in northwestern Bangladesh, has a new parish church in Khonjanpur, Joypurhat. The new parish priest is Fr Pawel, a Polish missionary with the Salesians of Don Bosco.

Speaking to AsiaNews, Fr Pawel noted that "where once stood a large space, we built the new church, the school building and the youth centre.

Thousands of people will benefit from our service."

According to the bishop, "the new church offers the opportunity to preach God’s message. In the future many non-Christians will be able to welcome Jesus Christ."

The parish priest explained that "the area is inhabited mostly by tribal people, in a place where we want to spread Christian teachings. We thank the Lord for our parish."

The parish school opened its doors on 1st January, Fr Pawel noted. "The school is for everyone because we work with all religions. With our good work we put into practice the values ​​of Jesus Christ."

Local Catholics enthusiastically welcomed the opening of the church. One of them, Babu Ram, is a tribal Santal who has worked locally as a catechist for four years.

"On Wednesday, we listened to the words of our bishop and priests during the Mass,” he said. “We felt blessed by God. We hope to receive deeper spiritual care from our priests."

Speaking about his work as a catechist, he went on to say, "I spend time in the villages with Catholics and I teach them their religion.” But ““We also go among non-Christians”.

Among the latter, “we know that many of them have expressed a desire to be baptised. I believe that in the future we will have many new faithful and increase the number of Catholics in the parish."

Bangladesh is a predominantly Muslim country. Christians represent less than 0.3 per cent of the population, or about 600,000. Of these, 380,000 are Catholics, out of a population of almost 163 million.

Tribal communities offer more opportunities to preach the Gospel. More than 50 ethnic groups live in the same territory. The missionaries work among them to win their hearts for Christ.

Garo Catholics in Mymensingh offer their harvest to Christ the King

Garo Catholics celebrated the harvest festival in the Diocese of Mymensingh along with the solemnity of Christ the King in November 2019. 

Although the Garo are Christian now, they have kept some of their tribal customs and traditions.

“In the past, when we were animists, we loved the sun god. Now we give thanks to Jesus Christ,” said Fr Fidelis Nengminja, pastor in Biroidakuni, speaking to AsiaNews.

Bangladesh is home to about 120,000 Garos, 99 per cent of them Christian, 80 per cent Catholic. The Diocese of Mymensingh has 17 parishes with many members from tribal communities.

The Garo’s main trait is their matriarchal structure with women as head of the family, children taking the mother’s name, and only females inheriting family assets.

The priest, who is also a Garo, explains that the ethnic group "has abandoned the ancient religion, but not the culture. This is why we enlivened the celebrations by wearing traditional clothes.”

“In the Holy Mass, we preached the coming of Jesus Christ for our salvation,” Father Nengminja said. “He is the King of our Kingdom. We must follow his teachings.”

In all the churches, yesterday’s Mass was celebrated in Achik, the Garo native. As a show of gratitude, the parishioners brought rice, vegetables and fruit.

In the villages people slaughter pigs and cook them for a communal meal. They drink homemade Chu.

In the cities merchants also pay tribute. At this time, marriages and various tributes also take place.

Jewel Areng, a Catholic Member of Parliament who hails from this parish, was the guest of honour at the Biroidakuni event.

"We must take care of our culture because if we do not value our language, traditional garments and customs, one day they will be gone,” he said.

The Phat Diem Catholic Cathedral Of North Vietnam -- A Masterpiece Of Art

The church dates back to the 1870s and is the Center of Catholicism in the Northern Region.

The church was built between 1875 and 1898 in the province’s Kim Son District by the Vietnamese priest Tran Luc known as Father Sau, who designed the church without any training in architecture or painting. The most remarkable feature of the Cathedral is that it is made with marble and granite. 

Therefore, it is also known as the Stone Church. The church also includes a complex including several artificial lakes, churches, and artificial caves.

The church design has made it famous, because it is different from other Roman Catholic Cathedrals across the world. The design is a harmonious combination of traditional pagoda architecture of 

Vietnam mixed with the Gothic style of Catholic Architecture. 

The unique building also shows the skillful techniques of Vietnamese artisans since the 19th century.

In front of the church, overlooking a huge pond, where a larger than life-sized marble statue of the Sacred Heart stands upon a man-made island, the upturned tiled roofs of the bell tower’s three belvederes soar even higher than the church.

The 25m-high bell tower is an imposing stone structure made from large marble blocks with a -bas-relief representing Jesus and his followers. In the middle floor, there is a huge drum, while on the top floor there is a two-tonne bronze bell, which was cast in 1890s. According to local people, the bell’s echo can be heard across three neighbouring regions. 

The remains of Father Sau, who died in the same year as the complex was finished in 1898, lie under an inscribed slab at the base of the tower.

The Grand Cathedral is designed as a grandiose Communal House with four roofs and six sets of pillars formed from whole iron trees and sophisticated multi-level rafters. All the church buildings are decorated with lotus, birds, and tropical tree designs. 

The Stone Church is divided into two sections: the church and the clergy house. Everything was built gradually over the years. 

In 1875, the first Cavern was built to test the strength of the foundation. In 1889, the church of Saint Mary’s Heart was erected. 

Then in 1891, the Grand Cathedral and the Belfry were completed. And finally, the Saints’ shrines were finished around 1898. These three stone caves are in the extreme north of the complex, of which Lo Duc is the most beautiful.

The Visitation Of The Blessed Mother

The story of the Visitation of Our Lady to Saint Elizabeth is well known:  When Saint Gabriel appeared to Our Lady during the Annunciation, he informed her that her cousin, Saint Elizabeth, was with child. Our Lady traveled with Saint Joseph to Saint Elizabeth’s house, to care for her until her son, Saint John the Baptist, was born. Although Our Lady had already conceived the Child Jesus, she had not told anyone.

Nevertheless, Saint Elizabeth had a presentment that the Child Jesus was in Our Lady’s womb. Thus, she greeted Our Lady, saying: “Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.” (Luke 1:42)  When Our Lady spoke to her, Saint John the Baptist heard Our Lady’s voice, was sanctified by it and leapt for joy, inside Saint Elizabeth’s womb.

This story is rich in applications to the interior life.
       
Saint Elizabeth and the “Catholic Sense”

First of all, it highlights the virtue of Saint Elizabeth, whereby she sensed the presence of Our Lord in Our Lady’s womb. Obviously, this was a special gift. However, every Catholic should have a high degree of this sense, albeit with less intensity and excellence.

Through corresponding to the grace of Baptism, a Catholic begins to perceive, so to speak, where God is and where He is not. This applies less to God’s physical presence, as in the Eucharist, than His moral and supernatural presence.

Thus, the true Catholic senses whether or not something is compatible with God. To do this, he need not have intelligence, culture or theological training, but rather a “Catholic sense” of things.
Saint Elizabeth epitomized this “Catholic sense” when she perceived the presence of the Child Jesus in Our Lady’s womb.


God Gives Glory According to His Unfathomable Designs:

This seemingly creates a problem:  Saint Joseph was unaware of Our Lord’s presence, even though he was greater than Saint Elizabeth. While the Church counsels the faithful not to compare saints, since such comparisons are below the dignity of saints and above human wisdom, the fact remains that Saint Joseph was the most chaste spouse of Our Lady. As such, he had a much greater union with her than Saint Elizabeth, who was only Our Lady’s relative. Since a saint’s greatness is proportional to his union with Our Lady, it would seem that Saint Joseph was much greater.

However, if the knowledge of the presence of God is a virtue and Saint Joseph was a greater saint, one would think he also would have perceived the Incarnation.

Furthermore, he was truly Our Lady’s husband. As such, he possessed a true right over the legitimate fruit of her womb, even though he was not Our Lord’s Father.

This problem is easily resolved. God distributes glory to men according to His unfathomable designs. He glorified Saint Elizabeth by allowing her to sense Our Lord’s presence. Thus, she will be forever venerated for having perceived the Incarnation so early and sung the praises of Our Lady as Mother of the Child Jesus.

However, God also glorified Saint Joseph by hiding Our Lord’s presence from him. His ignorance was glorious because it produced a great perplexity in his soul when he was confronted with the reality of Our Lady’s pregnancy. It forced him to prove his love of God and demonstrate the height of his virtue. No man in history weathered so great a storm while practicing such virtue as he.

Therefore, for all times he will be the patron of those who suffer perplexities.


Immediate Sanctity: A Grace to Ask from Our Lady:

Although it is something the faithful are not obliged by the Church to believe, many authors propose that Saint John the Baptist, being the last and greatest prophet of the Old Testament, synthesized all the glories of official prophetism.

They suggest that he was entirely lucid in his mother’s womb. Thus, he appraised the sacredness of the Mother of God and the Incarnation, heard Our Lady’s voice, felt the presence of God and leapt for joy. At that moment, he was sanctified.

This is the power of Our Lady. The mere echo of her voice instantly converted Saint John to a high degree of sanctity. We too should hope for this grace.

We should ask her to speak to the innermost regions of our souls and instantly sanctify us. One word from her can bring us to a degree of virtue that years of struggle, without her help, would not obtain.

Whenever we lose spirit, feel sadness or are perplexed in our spiritual lives, I recommend we pray, paraphrasing the prayer the priest says before communion:  “Lord I am not worthy that Thou should enter into my house, but only say a word and my soul shall be healed.”

We should pray:  “O Lady, I am not worthy to hear thy voice, but only say a word and my soul will be changed. If thou so will it, I will be changed in an instant.”

We should ask Our Lady to grant us the same grace she gave to Saint John the Baptist, namely that she speak to our souls, make them leap for joy and instantly sanctify us.

The Catholic Church Among The Dayaks

Borneo is one of the largest islands in the world (the third largest). It is part of Malaysia and is two and a half times the size of Italy, but with only fifteen million inhabitants. It is a real paradise of untouched nature. The internal area still remains unexplored, and almost only the areas along the coast are inhabited. It is there that the Dayak dwell. These aborigines are coming out of prehistoric times and entering the modern world.

The most interesting aspect of the trip was the discovery of a church that is being born just like that in the Acts of the Apostles. Of the five dioceses in Malaysian Borneo, I visited three (Kuching, Kota Kinabalu and Keningua, besides the apostolic prefecture of Brunei). Everywhere there are young, lively communities whose growth is held back by a scarcity of priests and sisters: the Christians are recent converts and it is only with difficulty that they bring forth persons of consecrated life. The government forbids the entrance of foreign missionaries.

Father Christopher Laden, of the diocese of Kuching (the capital of the State of Sarawak), explained why the Dayak are becoming Christians: "It is because Jesus Christ and the Church explained who God is and promised eternal life. We Dayaks believe in God the Creator, but we don't know who he is: if he is good or bad, if he loves us or cares at all for us. Our belief is that after death there is nothing. Christianity gives us hope. The second reason is sociological. By becoming Christians, we enter into a community that helps us and creates brotherhood, whereas the old tribal community is disappearing.

The archdiocese of Kuching has around 150 thousand Catholics with 25 priests and ten parishes. Of these, five are in the city. The parish of Serian is very big. It has 36 thousand Catholics and three priests and about 80 chapels. The pastor is Father James Meehan, a Scot, who says that every year he has about 500 adult baptisms of converts. I asked him how he forms them. He said "Everything is done by the catechists and laypeople in various movements."

The Pastor of Bunan Gega, John Chung, has 500 baptisms each year. Two hundred of them are children of Catholics and three hundred are adult converts. He and his assistant have about fifty chapels to take care of. In my visit to this area of the Dayaks, they all seem to be Catholics. There is a chapel in each village. Fr. John says that the aborigines choose Christianity because "when the encounter Christ, they experience a change in their personal, life as well as that of the family and the village."

At Keningau (Sabah) :

The Bishop Cornelius Piong remarked that, "My diocese has twelve priests and ten seminarians for more than 90 thousand Catholics. Every year there are about 1,500 adult baptisms. The priests and sisters are too few. We entrust most of our duties to the laity and to the basic Christian communities: the catechumens who join the community are prepared for baptism by the word, example, and also the commitment to service of the whole parish.

Here in Sabah, Christians are free to evangelize, to convert the aborigines and the Chinese, and to build churches and other religious and social buildings.

Thirty years ago in Malaysian Borneo, there was one priest for every three thousand Catholics; today it is for every eight thousand. The diocese of Kota Kinabalu has 26 priests in pastoral activity for 220 thousand faithful with slightly less than 4 thousand baptisms per year, half of which are of adult converts.

The conversion of the Dayak people to the Catholic Church  is a mass movement, but if there were more priests, sisters, catechists, and financial means, the mission would be able to receive and form all the aborigines that desire to enter the flock of Christ.

Father William Sabang, the vicar general of the Archdiocese of Kuching and rector of the seminary, says that the Christians of Borneo can teach something to our ancient churches. "Our Christians, with only a few priests, organized themselves from the very beginning for the needs of their communities: prayer meetings, catechesis, charity. A tradition was created and Catholics know that they should give some of their time to the Church. Besides that, they are inspired by a missionary spirit and they carry the word of God; they speak of Jesus Christ and the gospel; they invite others to come to the Church.

Every parish has hundreds of adult baptisms each year that come by the efforts of the faithful. When I was in Italy, at times I was amazed at how the faithful complain about the Church, but they do little to evangelize: they don't take any initiatives and expect everything from the pastor.

The reason why our Christians are more active and more fervent is this I believe: in general they are recent conversions, only a few come from Catholic families. Thus they experience in their lives the positive revolution brought by Christ in the families and in the communities in which they live. They feel the difference of living with or without Christ. This makes them enthusiastic in their faith and ready to make great sacrifices to serve the Church.

Credits : Narrated By Father Piero Gheddo To AsiaNews. 

The Catholic Church In The Steppe Lands Of Inner Mongolia

In 2005, there was great rejoicing in the Catholic community in the village of Niu Yao Zi in Tumoteyouqi, diocese of Bao Tou in Inner Mongolia, mainland China, for the inauguration of a new church in the immense Mongolian steppe lands.

The solemn Mass for the re-consecration of the church was concelebrated by 8 priests from the diocese and surrounding area. More than 600 people, nuns and seminarians took part in the celebration.

The first church was opened here in 1906 after two years of construction work. In 1923 the church was enlarged to contain the growing Catholic population. It was the most beautiful church in the steppe land, a centre for evangelisation. Although the building survived natural disasters and war it had become too small and was old and unsafe.

It was pulled down to make way for a new church, the dream of the local people who welcomed the suggestion of the priests and helped in every way with the building offering building materials and their own labour. Priests and laity became brick layers under the hot sun and built a new church in only two months. The new church is 20 meters long and 10 meters wide and can seat 600 people, almost the entire community.

According to the “Handbook of the Church in China 2002” published by He Bei Faith Press, the Gospel was brought to the steppe land in 1724 by French missionaries of the Paris Institute for Foreign Missions MEP, the Lazarists CM and Scheut Missionaries CICM. When the Chinese hierarchy was established Inner Mongolia was divided into 7 dioceses.

Today there are more than 250,000 Catholics in the steppe lands and the Catholic community Bao Tou counts about 40,000 with 7 priests and 14 women religious.

Credits : Fides -- The News From Rome. 

The Montfortian Perspective On The Blessed Sacrament

The French school had a deep insight into the role of Mary at the Incarnation and, therefore, in all the mysteries of Christ. It is not surprising that Montfort experienced a further deepening of the mysteries through the Blessed Virgin. St. Louis Marie highlighted the Mary/Eucharist relationship. The Sacraments, rooted in the economy of salvation, are essentially the actualization of the historical mysteries of Christ. Since Mary gave the Redeemer his flesh and blood, it follows that she cannot but be involved in the mysteries that are a unique memorial of the same flesh and blood, that is, the Eucharist.

In light of these theological principles, Montfort elaborated his teaching, which is full of grateful admiration for the Father, that the Father through the Holy Spirit has entrusted His Son to Mary. This praise extends to Mary as well, as her "fiat" made it possible for us to share the Eucharistic body and blood of her Son: "It was you, Virgin Mary, /Who gave us this body and blood / Which raises our status so high / that it is beyond the reach of the angels. May you be blessed throughout the world / For giving us such a great gift" (H [Hymns] 134:11).

The Blessed Virgin’s motherly care and concern for her faithful servants is epitomized in the fact that "she gives them the Son she has born, the Bread of Life" (TD [True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin] 208, which is full of scriptural quotations and allusions and is concerned with this particular term). It is Wisdom who prepares the table and says, "Come… eat the bread which is Jesus. Drink the wine of his love which I have mixed for you with the milk of my breasts" (TD 208). 

With great sensitivity and in great depth, Montfort draws attention to the presence and action of Mary in the Eucharist without detriment to the excellence of the redeeming work of Christ. Mary is mediatrix of Communion: "As Mary is the treasurer and dispenser of the gifts and graces of the Most High God, she reserves a choice portion, indeed the choicest portion, to nourish and sustain her children and servants. They grow strong on the Bread of Life; they are made joyful with the wine that brings forth virgins. They are carried at her breast" (TD 208).

In the conviction that sacramental Communion necessarily involves the presence of Mary, Montfort concludes TD with an exhortation to receive Holy Communion in union with Mary. She receives in us and for us the Word of God made Bread. The reason for this is that she received the Word of God "in her heart and in her body," as the Church Fathers put it. 

In the last few pages of TD (266-273), Montfort tells us why and how we should unite ourselves with Mary before, during, and after Holy Communion; his aim is to demonstrate clearly that in us and through us Holy Communion binds Christ and Mary together again. In other words, the union between Christ and Mary, which took place at a definite time and place, is repeated in a sacramental way when the faithful united with Mary receive Holy Communion.

In accordance with the thinking of the time, Montfort made no explicit mention of the ecclesial aspect of Holy Communion; if we make allowance for this, we can safely say that Montfort’s teaching on the Christ/Mary/faithful relationship is extraordinarily clear from the theological standpoint. In practice, the relationship reflects the mystery of the oblation and communion that united in one heart Christ, Mary, and John at the time of the supreme sacrifice, which redeemed humanity (cf. Jn 19:25-27). 

It was precisely because he had in mind the conformity of the faithful to Jesus Christ, with Mary playing an all-important role, that Montfort envisaged and introduced the Consecration to Jesus through the hands of Mary, which he meant to be made in close connection with Holy Communion: "They should go to confession and Holy Communion with the intention of consecrating themselves to Jesus through Mary as his slaves of love. When receiving Holy Communion they could follow the method given later on [cf. TD 266-273]. They then recite the act of consecration" (TD 231; cf. also SM [The Secret of Mary] 61, 76).

In the method that Montfort suggests for receiving Holy Communion in union with Mary, the three Persons of the Holy Trinity are clearly involved; the prayers to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit on the common basis of "Lord I am not worthy" (TD 267-269) highlight the relationship of each of the Divine Persons with the Eucharist and with Mary.

Finally, a theme dear to the heart of the missionary: the Eucharistic life of Mary, which he mentions in the hymn to the Blessed Sacrament on Saturdays (H 134). Jesus instituted the Eucharist in order to remain with Mary even after his death on the Cross and his Ascension; so he keeps coming back to her "nourishing her with his own body which she nourished when he was an infant"; "in exchange for the milk of her most pure breast, he strengthens her with his divine Blood"; the Blessed Virgin is the perfect model of all who receive Holy Communion.