Seven Catholic Things that Caught My Eye Today (First Saturday, March 2015)

1.

"And though every day a man lives may rightly be a day of repentance…" | #dailyeSpiration from St. John Chrysostom pic.twitter.com/58wjzMDzJR

— Steubenville (@go2steubenville) March 7, 2015

2. Perpetua and Felicity are the women of the day today. Fr. Steve Grunow from Word on Fire writes:

The Christian becomes most fully herself or himself inasmuch as there is a will to be conformed to Christ in suffering and death. Martyrdom, like Baptism, accomplishes a transformation of the recipient into an “alter Christus”—another Christ.
When the Christian, indeed the world, sees the suffering and death of the martyr, what is happening is not merely a display of cruelty and injustice, but a revelation of suffering giving way to love, retribution giving way to forgiveness, and death giving way to a new kind of life.
In remembering the story of the Church’s earliest martyrs, what is being recalled is not merely their passion, but the Passion of Christ.

It’s all worth reading. The link is here.

3. This morning I was reading a new book from Fr. Christopher Collins, S.J., of the Apostleship of Prayer on “Praying with the Heart of Jesus” from Ave Maria Press. He says at one point:

When I look at the image of the Sacred Heart, I see at once the image of God who has assumed a heart of flesh (Incarnation) that is wounded and bloodied (paschal mystery) and at the same time aflame with an unquenchable fire of love (Resurrection). And if this Heart signifies who Christ is, then it also points to who I am called to be. I can find my true self in living according to this vision.

It’s a good, very practical book.

4. Saint Ambrose is in the Liturgy of the Hours today:

Where a man’s heart is, there is his treasure also. God is not accustomed to refusing a good gift to those who ask for one. Since he is good, and especially to those who are faithful to him, let us hold fast to him with all our soul, our heart, our strength, and so enjoy his light and see his glory and possess the grace of supernatural joy. Let us reach out with our hearts to possess that good, let us exist in it and live in it, let us hold fast to it, that good which is beyond all we can know or see and is marked by perpetual peace and tranquillity, a peace which is beyond all we can know or understand.

This is the good that permeates creation. In it we all live, on it we all depend. It has nothing above it; it is divine. No one is good but God alone. What is good is therefore divine, what is divine is therefore good. Scripture says: When you open your hand all things will be filled with goodness. It is through God’s goodness that all that is truly good is given us, and in it there is no admixture of evil.

These good things are promised by Scripture to those who are faithful: The good things of the land will be your food.

We have died with Christ. We carry about in our bodies the sign of his death, so that the living Christ may also be revealed in us. The life we live is not now our ordinary life but the life of Christ: a life of sinlessness, of chastity, of simplicity and every other virtue. We have risen with Christ. Let us live in Christ, let us ascend in Christ, so that the serpent may not have the power here below to wound us in the heel.

Let us take refuge from this world. You can do this in spirit, even if you are kept here in the body. You can at the same time be here and present to the Lord. Your soul must hold fast to him, you must follow after him in your thoughts, you must tread his ways by faith, not in outward show. You must take refuge in him. He is your refuge and your strength. David addresses him in these words: I fled to you for refuge, and I was not disappointed.

Since God is our refuge, God who is in heaven and above the heavens, we must take refuge from this world in that place where there is peace, where there is rest from toil, where we can celebrate the great sabbath, as Moses said: The sabbaths of the land will provide you with food. To rest in the Lord and to see his joy is like a banquet, and full of gladness and tranquility.

Let us take refuge like deer beside the fountain of waters. Let our soul thirst, as David thirsted, for the fountain. What is that fountain? Listen to David: With you is the fountain of life. Let my soul say to this fountain: When shall I come and see you face to face? For the fountain is God himself.

For the short version: Hold fast to God, the one true good.

5. Pope Francis told 80,000 members of Communion and Liberation today:

Centered on Christ and in the Gospel… you can be the arms, the hands, the feet, the mind and the heart of a Church that is “out and about”.

6. Magnificat’s Lenten companion recommend as a penance today: Go to Confession. Many parishes have an hour or half hour on the schedule for Saturday nights around 4.

7.

Father, I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will. Whatever you may do, I thank you: I am ready for all, I accept all.

— Bishop Olmsted (@BishopOlmsted) March 5, 2015

He recommends this prayer as a new practice inaugurated this Lent, if it’s not part of your day already:

Father,
I abandon myself into your hands;
do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you:
I am ready for all, I accept all.

Let only your will be done in me,
and in all your creatures –
I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into your hands I commend my soul:
I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,
for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands without reserve,
and with boundless confidence,
for you are my Father.
Charles de Foucauld