Kathryn Lopez
1. Fr. Roger J. Landry on joyfully letting the Lord increase:
Jesus is meant to increase within us as disciples until he becomes all and all. The Christmas season and the whole Christian life is meant to be a pilgrimage of growth into ever deeper union with Jesus Christ. It’s supposed to help us not only to become more and more like him but more and more united to him.
2. Thomas Aquinas College president Michael McNeal talks about fostering vocations on campus.
3. Phoenix has a blog on consecrated life. Sr. Anthony Mary Diago, RSM (whose parents are both refugees from Cuba), writes:
In a mysterious way, Consecrated Life manifests the love of Jesus Christ to all peoples and brings true joy. The Holy Father asks us to “wake up the world” and to be “experts in communion.” This requires all Religious men and women to live with deep faith, hope and love and to evangelize. He says, “Come out of yourselves and go forth to the existential peripheries.” This graced Year has been given to us to become more self-aware of the need to go out and become Saints. It is a time to become more oriented to serving Jesus to meet the needs of the Church and the people who need to encounter the Merciful Christ, the Savior Who loves them.
4. A poem from a Dominican nun about the TSA.
5. In Philadelphia Friday night at a joint World Meet of Families/Archdiocese of Philadelphia/Catholic Voices USA session, I got selfied:
My photo for today: selfie with the always fabulous @kathrynlopez at a @CathVoicesUSA talk for @WMF2015 pic.twitter.com/hpJx0BEl1r
— Diana von Glahn (@DianavonGlahn) January 10, 2015
6. While St. Charles Borromeo Seminary for that Catholic Voices/World Meeting event, I was delighted by Christmas still, because we need more than a little of it right now:
#Nativity scene outside St. Charles Borromeo Seminary @archphilly before an @cathvoicesusa @WMF2015 event pic.twitter.com/r9bLCAJa90
— Kathryn Jean Lopez (@kathrynlopez) January 9, 2015
Yes! Still Christmas in #Philadelphia (we still need a little Christmas right this very minute!) pic.twitter.com/Cea65UnRVj
— Kathryn Jean Lopez (@kathrynlopez) January 10, 2015
Archbishop Kurtz was in a similar mode, in Rome for a conference on rebuilding in Haiti:
At Peter Basilica during the Christmas Season. pic.twitter.com/9TKAFssbNJ
— Archbishop Kurtz (@ArchbishopKurtz) January 10, 2015
CHRISTMAS outside St Peter Basilica. pic.twitter.com/4YxhZiotLX
— Archbishop Kurtz (@ArchbishopKurtz) January 10, 2015
7. If you eventually have to: A prayer for putting away Christmas decorations.
8. Jan. 10 is the feast day of Blessed Ana of the Angels Monteagudo, a Dominican, a lover of poor souls, a wonderful woman of prayer and courage who suffered. Via the Summit Dominicans:
Ana de Monteagudo y Ponce de Leon was born in the charming Peruvian city of Arequipa in 1602. At the age of fourteen Ana was withdrawn from school for a distinguished marriage arranged by her father but she resisted vehemently. Persecution by her father and family only served to intensify her decision to become a Dominican nun. St. Catherine of Siena appeared to the harassed girl and showed her a white habit, said: “Ana, my child, I have prepared this habit for you. Leave all to God. Nothing will be wanting to you.” Ana’s fears vanquished and she fled to the monastery of St. Catherine by night. Next morning the irate father rushed to the monastery and heaped verbal abuse on his daughter, humiliating her in front of the nuns and telling her he would never pay the dowry needed for her profession. She was disinherited and abandoned by her father. Eventually, her brother who was a priest, provided the dowry.Once professed in the monastery, Ana’s nobility, courage, modesty, prayerfulness, and humility won the heart of the community. She was elected successively novice-mistress, sacristan, and prioress. At a hint of the bishop, the prioress undertook a reform of the community whose worldliness and laxity had begun to cause gossip in the city. However the rigor of her reform aroused lively resentment and even threats of resistance and bodily harm.Heaven blessed the courage of Ana with remarkable charisms. She became universally admired among the people for prophecy, bilocation, supernatural discernment, visions, and miracles. Peruvians and foreigners sought her prayers and counsel. King Phillip IV of Spain, a Dominican tertiary, appeared to Ana after his death in 1665 asking her intercession and revealed to her later that he had entered heaven three days after his death thanks to her prayers.Ana’s spiritual life was molded largely on that of St. Nicholas of Tolentine, Patron of Holy Souls. One day she beheld in a vision the Mother of God seated on a golden throne with St. Nicholas and a legion of angels beside her. St. Nicholas conducted her to purgatory where she saw with horror a great throng of souls crowded together in the purifying flames. The saint said to her: “On earth I helped the Poor Souls; I now consign that noble office to you.” The compassionate nun offered to take upon herself the sufferings of the most abandoned souls in purgatory and God accepted the offer. Although she was by this time eighty years of age, she accepted the unusual apostolate and suffered ten years if atrocious moral and physical torments. She was a beautiful model of the purest chastity and of the communion of saints.Ana’s decade of atonement, during which she lost her sight completely, was sweetened by periods of divine consolation. Angels came to relief her suffering and souls from purgatory appeared at her bedside to thank her for her prayers. St. Bernard appeared with the Sacred Host for her communion and adoration. St. Nicholas showed her the thousands of souls which had entered heaven thanks to her charity.Ana died on January 10, 1686 at the age of ninety and when her body was later exhumed it was found incorrupt and fragrant. Many Miracles of healing occurred during and after her burial. Pope Paul Vi declared her venerable in 1975 and Pope John Paul II beatified her in February of 1985.
9. This tweet:
The heart of Christ is sacred because it is God's own heart. Our hearts are made sacred by Christ because he loves us.
— FrSteveGrunow (@FrSteveGrunow) January 9, 2015
10. And this one:
— YHWH (@kecheritomne) January 10, 2015
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In