A reading from the Church Fathers: Dare to call God Father

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Christ, Christian, Christianity, God, God Father, Jesus, Pope Leo I, Religion and Spirituality

God the Father, Cima da Conegliano, Circa 1510-17. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The atonement of Christ changes everything, says St. Leo the Great. We were miserable outcasts, but now we’re children of God.

Whoever you are, if you devoutly and faithfully boast of the name of Christian, value this atonement rightly. You were a castaway, banished from the realms of paradise, dying of your weary exile, reduced to dust and ashes, with no more hope of living. But by the incarnation of the Word, you were given power to return from far away to your Maker, to recognize your parentage, to be free when you had been a slave, to be promoted from an outcast to a son. Now you, who were born of the flesh, may be reborn by the Spirit of God. You may gain by grace what you did not have by nature, and—if you acknowledge yourself as the child of God by the spirit of adoption—you may dare to call God Father.

–St. Leo the Great, Sermon 22, 5

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A reading from the Church Fathers: Praying the Our Father

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Apostles, Christianity, God, Gospel, Jesus, Lord, Lord's Prayer, Prayer

Lords Prayer in Aramaic(Syriac) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Tertullian tells us that practically the whole teaching of Christianity is summed up in the Lord’s Prayer. On that foundation we can build our own private prayers for whatever we really need.

Just a few succinct words, but how much they contain of what the prophets, the Gospels, and the Apostles said! How many of the speeches, examples, and parables of the Lord! How many duties are dealt with at once! The honor of God in the “Father”; The witness of faith in the “Name”; The offering of obedience in the “Will”; The remembrance of hope in the “Kingdom”; The petition for life in the “Bread”; The complete admission of our sins in the prayer to “Forgive”; The watchful fear of temptation in the “Lead us not . . .” And no wonder. Only God could teach us how he wanted us to pray to him.

The religious rite of prayer, then, ordained by God himself, and enlivened by his own Spirit as it came forth from the divine mouth, ascends into heaven by its own right, commending to the Father what the Son has taught.

But since the Lord, who foresees everything we need, also told us, after giving us his rule of prayer, “Ask, and it will be given you” (Matthew 7:7), and we each have our own requests to make according to our own circumstances, our other needs have the right—after beginning with the legitimate traditional prayers as a foundation, so to speak—to build an outer superstructure of requests, though remembering what the Master taught us.

–Tertullian, On Prayer, chapters 9-10

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A reading from the Church Fathers: Clean out your heart before you pray

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God, Isaac, Jesus, John Cassian, Mind, Prayer, Thought

The Egyptian abbot Isaac gave St. John Cassian some practical advice on praying: before you start, get rid of all the things in your mind that will distract you from your prayers.

prayer.. (Photo credit: aronki)

To be able to offer our prayer with that earnestness and purity with which it ought to be offered, first, all anxiety about carnal things must be entirely got rid of.

Next, we must leave no room for not just the care but even the recollection of any business affairs, and likewise must also lay aside all backbitings, vain and incessant chattering, and buffoonery. Anger above all and disturbing depression must be entirely destroyed, and the deadly taint of carnal lust and covetousness be torn up by the roots.

Then there must be laid the secure foundations of a deep humility, which may be able to support a tower that shall reach the sky; and next the spiritual structure of the virtues must be built up upon them, and the soul kept free from all conversation and from roving thoughts, so that thus it may little by little begin to rise to the contemplation of God and to spiritual insight.

Whatever our mind has been thinking of before the hour of prayer, that thought is sure to occur to us while we are praying—for the mind in prayer is formed by its previous condition. When we are applying ourselves to prayer, the images of the same actions and words and thoughts as in our previous condition will dance before our eyes. They will make us angry or gloomy, or recall our former lust and business, or make us shake with foolish laughter at some silly joke, or smile at some action, or fly back to our previous conversation.

So if we do not want anything to haunt us while we are praying, we should be careful before our prayer to exclude it from the shrine of our heart.

–St. John Cassian, Conferences, 9.3

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A reading from the Church Fathers: Rely on God to make your soul fit for Him

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Augustine of Hippo, Christianity, Confessions, God, Lord, Psalms, St. Augustine

A 13th century manuscript from Augustine’s book VII of Confessions criticizing Manichaeism. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If your home is a mess, how can you invite guests to come in? If your soul is a mess, how can you invite God to come in? But God, says St. Augustine, will clean up your soul and make it a fit dwelling for himself.

The dwelling of my soul is cramped—expand it, God, so that you may enter it. It is in ruins—restore it. Some things about it must offend your eyes—I confess it and I know it. But who will cleanse it? Whom shall I call on but you?

Cleanse me from my secret sins, Lord, and keep me from the sins of others.

I believe, and that is why I speak—as you know, Lord. Have I not confessed my sins to you, my God? Have you not put away the iniquity of my heart?

I do not contend in judgment with you, for you are the Truth. I do not want to deceive myself, or my iniquity will lie against itself. So I do not contend in judgment with you: for “if you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand?” (Psalm 130:3).

–St. Augustine, Confessions, 1.4

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A reading from the Church Fathers: What we mean by “The right hand of the Father”

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Christ, Church Fathers, God, St. John of Damascus

Depiction of God the Father (detail) offering the right hand throne to Christ, Pieter de Grebber, 1654. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

St. John of Damascus, traditionally the last of the Church Fathers, explains what we mean when we say that Christ sits “at the right hand of the Father”: not that God the Father has literal hands, but that God the Son shares the Father’s glory.

We also believe that Christ sits in the body at the right hand of God the Father. But we do not believe that “the right hand of the Father” is actually a place. For how could he who is infinite have a right hand limited by place? Right hands and left hands belong to what is finite.

But we understand the right hand of the Father to be the glory and honor of the Godhead in which the Son of God, who existed as God before the ages, and is of one being with the Father, and in the end became flesh, has a seat in the body, his flesh sharing in the glory. For he along with his flesh is adored with one adoration by all creation.

–St. John of Damascus, Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, 4.2

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Remember the Novena of the Divine Mercy Begins Today

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Catholic, chaplet, Christianity, contemplation, Divine Mercy, God, Good Friday, Jesus, meditation, Novena, Prayer, Religion and Spirituality, Saint Faustina

Go to the following link for the Novena and Prayers of the Divine Mercy:

http://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/mercy/novena.htm

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A reading from the Church Fathers:Learn to suffer from Christ

Christ’s prayer at Gethsemane leads us in our own prayers, says St. Gregory the Great. “Your will be done” is the powerful prayer that every Christian should learn and use in times of trial.

So, dear friends, when the Son of God says, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me” (Matthew 26:39), he uses the outcry of our nature, and pleads the cause of human weakness and fear, so that our patience may be strengthened and our fears driven away in whatever we have to bear.

At last, ceasing to ask even for this now that he had relieved our weak fears somewhat, though it is not expedient for us to keep them, he changes into another mood, and says, “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will,” and again, “if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done” (Matthew 26:42).

These words of the Head are the salvation of the whole body. These words have taught all the faithful, kindled the zeal of the confessors, and crowned all the martyrs.

For who could overcome the world’s hatred, the blasts of temptations, the terrors of persecutions, if Christ had not in the name of all and for all said to the Father, “Your will be done”?

Then let the words be learned by all the Church’s children who have been bought at such a great price, so freely justified. And when the shock of some violent temptation has fallen on them, let them use the aid of this potent prayer, so that they may conquer their fear and trembling, and learn to suffer patiently.

–St. Gregory the Great, Sermon 58, 5

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Soap-making Nuns and the Shroud of Turin’s Replica

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Dominican Order, Holy Week, Jesus, Our Lady of the Rosary, Shroud of Turin, Soap, turin shroud

Русский: Спас Отпечаток лика Христа на Туринской плащанице (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On any given morning, noon and evening, the dulcet tones of the Dominican Sisters waft through the corridors of Our Lady of the Rosary in Summit, N.J., as the nuns attend their daily devotions in chapel. It’s an example of their devout higher calling.

For a few morning hours during the week, the hum of the sisters’ soap-making operation shows a commitment to an earthly vocation.

“It’s become a business for us,” says Sister Mary Catharine Perry. “Of course it doesn’t totally support us, but it does help toward supporting us in our life, and it’s also compatible with our contemplative life.”

What began as gifts of soap for church volunteers became so popular the product line expanded. Now the sisters offer lip balm, hand lotion, room sprays and more. They’re all available online and at the monastery’s modest gift shop, Cloister Shoppe.

The business helps cover health insurance, utilities and other basic necessities.

But behind the monastery’s cloistered walls is not only the sisters’ soap-making business, but a mysterious object that’s part of their greater mission. An object that one researcher called the common denominator between science and religion.

A nearly 400-year-old replica of the Shroud of Turin, Jesus’ burial cloth, long stowed away, is now on public display in the monastery’s sanctuary. The shroud was a gift to the sisters from the Monastery of Monte Mario in Rome, as gratitude for their support during World War I.

The shroud replica was one of two commissioned in 1624 by Maria Maddalena of Austria, the wife of Cosimo de Medici. The replica was placed on the original shroud and as such is now treasured and venerated.

In 1987, scientists preparing to study the Shroud in Turin used the Summit replica for a dry run to test their equipment. What they discovered could be considered a miracle.

Sister Perry says, “What’s special about this one (Shroud replica) is when it was laid on the actual shroud, and they lifted it up where the stain of the side wound is on the actual shroud showed up on the replica.

How that happened is a bit of a mystery, even more so because, according to published reports, the replica’s ‘stain’ was never tested thoroughly. Sister Perry says she was told that the stain is human blood and that it matches the DNA of the original shroud.

How could this be? Sister Perry says, “I don’t know. God provides.”

Perry is more concerned about everyday matters of faith than the mystery of the shroud replica.

She’s satisfied that it gives some people a deeper understanding of God.

So as Holy Week begins, the sisters continue to pray for the soul of the world, knowing that their soap business and the shroud combine the practical ….with their prophetic message.

Sister Perry says, “it helps people to think about the passion and to think of what Christ suffered for us, and it helps people in their life of prayer, and that’s good.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/04/01/soap-making-nuns-new-jersey-monastery-combine-practical-with-prophetic-and/#ixzz1qq5C74gr
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/04/01/soap-making-nuns-new-jersey-monastery-combine-practical-with-prophetic-and/#ixzz1qq55ihj6

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/04/01/soap-making-nuns-new-jersey-monastery-combine-practical-with-prophetic-and/#ixzz1qq4xV8uS

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