Wednesday, January 29, 2025
Tuesday, January 28, 2025
Discalced Carmelites leave Nicaragua amid government persecution - ZENIT - English
Monday, January 27, 2025
Sunday, January 26, 2025
what-does-cst-have-to-do-with-prison-chaplaincy
https://www.mbit.cam.ac.uk/pastoral-outreach/flourishing-inside/what-does-cst-have-to-do-with-prison-chaplaincy/
Saturday, January 25, 2025
Friday, January 24, 2025
Thursday, January 23, 2025
Global Sisters Report acquires A Nun's Life Ministry
Global Sisters Report acquires A Nun's Life Ministry https://www.globalsistersreport.org/node/291876
Wednesday, January 22, 2025
Pope to Hilton Foundation: ‘Church needs religious women to serve the poor’ - Vatican News
Pope to Hilton Foundation: ‘Church needs religious women to serve the poor’ - Vatican News https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2025-01/pope-to-hilton-foundation-church-needs-religious-women.html
The smiling Carmelite is on her way to the altars: she is recognized as a “servant of God” - ZENIT - English
St. Sylvester, pray for us!
St. Sylvester, pray for us! https://x.com/CathApostleCtr/status/1874168814092312897
Tuesday, January 21, 2025
Why It's All Worth It: A Catholic Priest's Moving Testimony About Living His Vocation Daily
Why It's All Worth It: A Catholic Priest's Moving Testimony About Living His Vocation Daily https://www.churchpop.com/why-its-all-worth-it-a-catholic-priests-moving-testimony-about-living-his-vocation-daily/
Celebrating Wisdom from the Global Sisterhood
Celebrating Wisdom from the Global Sisterhood https://csbsju.zoom.us/webinar/register/7017371319167/WN_Z9YZnu6gQrqK4GQj35cglA?t=1737480263463
Monday, January 20, 2025
Sunday, January 19, 2025
Saturday, January 18, 2025
Consecrated Virgins: Witnesses to Christ’s Love for All Souls| National Catholic Register
Living for Jesus in the World: Taking a Perpetual Virginity Vow| National Catholic Register
Friday, January 17, 2025
St. Antony, Abbott - Information on the Saint of the Day - Vatican News
St. Antony, Abbott - Information on the Saint of the Day - Vatican News https://www.vaticannews.va/en/saints/01/17/st--antony--abbot.html
Asceticism and prayer
His life was marked by solitude, fasting and work. Orphaned at 20, as a young man he gave all his goods to the poor and retired to the desert, where he also fought against the temptations of the devil, choosing the path of asceticism and prayer. Anthony was responsible for the establishment of families of monks who, under the guidance of a spiritual father, consecrated themselves to the service of God.
Saint Anthony and the blessing of animals
St. Anthony is often depicted next to a pig with a bell around its neck. This iconographic representation is linked to the fact that the ancient hospitaller order of the “Antonines” raised pigs because the fat of these animals was used to anoint the sick affected by ergotism. This disease was then called "the fire of Sant 'Antonio". On his feast day, the stalls are blessed, as are any domestic animals brought for blessing. In the iconography is associated with St. Anthony figures also the hermit’s staff in the form of T, the tau, the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
A gift from God
In the biography Vita Antonii, St. Athanasius wrote these words referring to St. Anthony: "That he was everywhere known, admired and desired by everyone, even those who had not seen him, is a sign of his virtue and God-friendly soul. In fact, neither for writings nor for a profane wisdom nor for any capacity is Anthony known, but only for his piety towards God - and no one could deny that this is a gift from God. As indeed we would not have heard in Spain and in Gaul, in Rome and in Africa of this man, who lived withdrawn in the mountains, if God Himself had not made him known to all, as He does with those who belong to Him, and as He had announced to Anthony since the beginning? Even if Anthony acted in secret and desired to remain hidden, the Lord shows him and those like him to everyone, as a lamp, that those who hear about them know that it is possible to follow the commandments and take courage in following the path of virtue.”
Thursday, January 16, 2025
"Dominican Martyrs of Great Britain" by Fr. Raymond Devas, O.P.
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
Tuesday, January 14, 2025
Monday, January 13, 2025
Saturday, January 11, 2025
Friday, January 10, 2025
Thursday, January 9, 2025
Wednesday, January 8, 2025
Tuesday, January 7, 2025
Monday, January 6, 2025
Sunday, January 5, 2025
Saturday, January 4, 2025
Burkina Faso: Rise in vocations despite terror threat
Burkina Faso: Rise in vocations despite terror threat https://www.indcatholicnews.com/news/51440
St. Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton, Foundress, Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph's - Information on the Saint of the Day - Vatican News
St. Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton, Foundress, Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph's - Information on the Saint of the Day - Vatican News https://www.vaticannews.va/en/saints/01/04/st--elizabeth-ann-bayley-seton--foundress--sisters-of-charity-of.html
St. Angela of Foligno - Information on the Saint of the Day - Vatican News
St. Angela of Foligno - Information on the Saint of the Day - Vatican News https://www.vaticannews.va/en/saints/01/04/st--angela-of-foligno--franciscan.html
My place is in the world.” This conviction accompanied Angela da Foligno throughout her life: from the years of her youth, characterized by worldliness and an apparent indifference to God, to those of her spiritual maturity, which followed, in which she realized that she was called to better things: to serve and imitate the Lord, to live a life of holiness in the concreteness of the everyday. Born in Foligno on January 4, 1248 to a well-to-do family, she soon lost her father, and received little supervision from her mother. Thus, did she spend youth far from faith.
Beautiful, intelligent, passionate, she married a notable local man, by whom she had several children.
Conversion and the fear of hell
The frivolity and light-heartedness of her youth were upset by a series of events in quick succession: the violent earthquake of 1279, an impetuous hurricane and then the long war against Perugia led her to question the precariousness of life and to feel the fear of hell. The desire to approach the Sacrament of Penance was born in her. Nevertheless, the chronicles narrate, “shame prevented her from making a complete confession and for this she remained in torment.” In prayer she obtained from St. Francis of Assisi the reassurance that she would soon know God's mercy.
The encounter with the merciful love of God
Angela then returned to the confessional and this time she was fully reconciled with the Lord. At the age of 37, despite the hostility of her family, conversion began in the sign of penance and renunciation of things, affections, and herself. After the premature death of her mother, husband and children in close succession, the woman sold all her goods, distributing the proceeds to the poor. She went on a pilgrimage to Assisi in the footsteps of the Poor One, and in 1291 entered the Third Order of St. Francis, relying for spiritual direction on the friar Arnaldo, a fellow citizen and blood relation,, who later became her biographer, author of the famous Memorial. In this text, the stages of Angela's vocation and her constant ecstasies and mystical experiences, culminating in the dwelling in the soul of the Holy Trinity, are divided into thirty “steps” or stages. “I saw something full,” she told her confessor, regarding the vision of the Triune God, “an immense majesty, which I can not say, but it seemed to me that it was all good. (...) After his departure, I began to scream aloud (...) Oh, unknown Love, why do you leave me?” The youthful fear of damnation soon gave way to the awareness of not being able to save oneself by one’s own merits, but, with a repentant heart, only through the infinite merciful love of God.
Assiduous in prayer and tenderness towards the least
In addition to constant prayer, especially expressed in Eucharistic adoration, Angela of Foligno always conducted charitable activity, assisting lepers and all the sick with a tenderness in which they saw Christ Crucified. Known already in life as Magistra Theologorum, she promoted a theology based on the Word of God, on obedience to the Church and on the direct experience of the Divine in its most intimate manifestations.
Fruitful in her spiritual motherhood
Passionately involved in the controversies that tore the Franciscan order, Angela drew around her person a cenacle of spiritual children, who saw in her a guide and a true teacher of faith: for this reason her figure embodies one of the models of the feminine genius in the Church. Even before her death, which occurred on January 4, 1309, the title of saint was attributed by the people, unofficially. On 9 October 2013, Pope Francis completed what had already been started by his predecessors by canonizing Angela da Foligno, using the process of “equipollent” canonization.
Friday, January 3, 2025
The mission [nonnegotiable element] to which God continues to call us is to transform society, the church and our surroundings in a prophetic way
The mission [nonnegotiable element] to which God continues to call us is to transform society, the church and our surroundings in a prophetic way https://www.globalsistersreport.org/columns/religious-life/nonnegotiable-elements-are-heart-religious-life
Thursday, January 2, 2025
Canon Law 603 Live like a monk-Nun at home
Canon Law 603 Live like a monk-Nun at home religious living in, but not of, the world as a witness to service for Christ. Canon Law 603