Mary's Little Office

Friday, November 30, 2018

The Friday & Saturday Night Movie




The Bells of St. Mary's is a 1945 American drama film produced and directed by Leo McCarey and starring Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman.

The Full Version
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Jesus Christ and The Father

Imitate your great model. Show the most profound veneration in word and deed towards God, His name, His presence, His house, His representative the Church, His commands, His teachings. Avoid the smallest flippancy, carelessness, familiarity towards His infinite and most awful Majesty, before which the angels stand abashed.

Let the love of God predominate in your heart, animate all your life, and drive out all that is opposed to it. This secures the fulfillment of all the law and the pardon of all sins; it is the sum of all religion.

Jesus Mercy, Mary Help! 


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Saint Andrew's Christmas Novena

It is piously believed that whoever recites the St. Andrew Christmas novena prayer FIFTEEN times each day from the feast of St. Andrew (November 30th) until Christmas Eve will obtain the favor requested.
Learn More about St. Andrew

Saints, Satellites and Mary


O God of wisdom and goodness! Grant, we beseech You, as we acclaim Mary's Queenship that she may show forth the power of her intercession before the Throne of her divine Son and obtain for us the graces ever to do your holy Will so that we may be made worthy of Your earthly blessings and heavenly rewards. Through Christ, our lord, Amen.  

How Prayer Works




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Thursday, November 29, 2018

God The Father

All  things must rise to the height of their source; so all being cries aloud with St. Philip, "Lord, show us the Father and it is enough for us" (John xiv. 8). 
God is really your Father, by creation by His love, and by communicating to you His own supernatural life by grace. Live as His son, and love Him as a son. 

Jesus Mercy, Mary Help! 


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Wednesday, November 28, 2018

The Attributes of The Divine Persons

We may worship the Father as Creator, the Son as Redeemer, the Holy Ghost as Sanctifier; or we may consider the three Persons as our Father, our Brother, our Beloved. Again, when we feel conscious of our weakness and misery, we may ask the Father to strengthen us; when we are oppressed by the sense of ignorance and blindness and folly, we may ask the Eternal Wisdom to enlighten us; when we tremble for our malice and perversity, we may ask the spirit of Sweetness and Holiness to enkindle in us His heavenly flame.   

Jesus Mercy, Mary Help! 


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Advent is Near - Very Near


You, who have had Him within you without knowing Him, and have possessed Him without relishing the sweetness of His presence, open your hearts to welcome Him, this time, with more care and love. He repeats His visit of this year with an untiring tenderness; He has forgotten your past slights; He would 'that all things be new.' Make room for the divine Infant, for He desires to grow within your soul. The time of His coming is close at hand; let your heart, then, be on the watch; and lest you should slumber when He arrives, watch and pray, yea, sing.


Dom Guéranger  abbot of Solesmes,
The Liturgical Year, 1867

Monday, November 26, 2018

The Relations of The Divine Persons

Your relations are with God and your neighbor. Religion is the regulation of these. Charity is your highest activity, binding you to God and men.
Almighty, everlasting God, grant unto thy holy Church, we beseech thee, all that may be of profit to its prosperity, and spread of true religion, and the increase of piety and charity in the whole world.  Amen.

Jesus Mercy, Mary Help! 


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If Only



IF ONLY

          I wish I'd been a child, dear God,
          When You were little too!
          O! Think of all the lovely things
          We would have thought to do!
          Perhaps I would have lived across
          The street, and every day
          Perhaps You would have asked me to
          Come over, God, and play?
          Perhaps You would have taught me how
          To saw up wood or clean
          The shop or build a little house?
          What fun that would have been!
          And then perhaps when we had worked
          At that for quite a while,
          Your Mother would have come right in
          And kissed us with a smile!
          O! If only I'd been a child
          When You were little too!
          Just think, dear God, of all the things
          We would have thought to do!


Mary Dixon Thayer

Faith & Freedom , Ginn & Company, 1949
For use in Catholic Grade Schools



St. Michael Pray of Us!


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The Procession of The Divine Persons

Our souls are gifted with fecundity by God; they should produce divine thoughts and good deeds. Too often they exhibit a fecundity as to frivolities and sins, and a sterility as to spiritual fruits. Reverse this order in yourself; strive to be dead towards the world and self, but alive towards God.

You have activities and good gifts from God. Exercise them in their fulness, and diffuse them for the benefit of others. Your spiritual life is death unless it manifests itself by active charity and production of good.

Jesus Mercy, Mary Help! 

fecunditythe ability to produce an abundance of offspring or new growth.

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Sunday, November 25, 2018

The Sunday Homily by Bishop Barron





Details

The liturgical year ends with the feast of Christ the King. This day reminds us what the Christian thing is all about: that Jesus really is the king, the Lord of our lives; that we belong utterly to him; and that we can say, with St. Paul, It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.

Mass Readings

Reading 1 - Daniel 7:13-14
Psalm - Psalm 93:1-5
Reading 2 - Revelation 1:5-8
Gospel - John 18:33-37

Saturday, November 24, 2018

Means of Honoring The Trinity

There are various ways in which you may honor the Holy Trinity.

1. By correcting all habits of mortal sin which destroy the indwelling of God with you, and all venial sins which diminish the divine influence.

2. By invoking the Holy Trinity, and in particular by making the Sign of the Cross frequently and reverently.

Above all assist at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, in which you can unite with the Adorable Victim in rendering to God an adequate adoration, and gratitude, and reparation for your sins. 


Jesus Mercy, Mary Help! 


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Thursday, November 22, 2018

The Knowledge and Love of The Trinity

It is more important to love the Blessed Trinity than to understand it, to honor it than to scrutinize it. We are bidden to love the Lord Our God with all our heart, and soul, and strength, and mind; there is no command to comprehend Him throughly, to investigate deeply, to speak learnedly.

Seek always for knowledge, but with the practical object of increasing your love.  

Jesus Mercy, Mary Help! 


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Wednesday, November 21, 2018

The Jesus Prayer


“As you breathe in,” he told him, say, ‘Lord Jesus Christ,’ and as you breathe out, say, ‘Have mercy on me.


More About the Jesus Prayer

By Bishop Robert Barron

I’m in the process of re-reading a spiritual classic from the Russian Orthodox tradition: The Way of a Pilgrim. This little text, whose author is unknown to us, concerns a man from mid-nineteenth century Russia who found himself deeply puzzled by St. Paul’s comment in first Thessalonians that we should “pray unceasingly.” How, he wondered, amidst all of the demands of life, is this even possible? How could the Apostle command something so patently absurd?


His botheration led him, finally, to a monastery and a conversation with an elderly spiritual teacher who revealed the secret. He taught the man the simple prayer that stands at the heart of the Eastern Christian mystical tradition, the so-called “Jesus prayer.” “As you breathe in,” he told him, say, ‘Lord Jesus Christ,’ and as you breathe out, say, ‘Have mercy on me.  When the searcher looked at him with some puzzlement, the elder instructed him to go back to his room and pray these words a thousand times. When the younger man returned and announced his successful completion of the task, he was told, “Now go pray it ten thousand times!” This was the manner in which the spiritual master was placing this prayer on the student’s lips so that it might enter his heart and into the rhythm of his breathing in and out, and finally become so second nature to him that he was, consciously or unconsciously, praying it all the time, indeed praying just as St. Paul had instructed the Thessalonians.

In the power of the Spirit, the young man then set out to wander through the Russian forests and plains, the Jesus prayer perpetually on his lips. The only object of value that he had in his rucksack was the Bible, and with the last two rubles in his possession, he purchased a beat-up copy of the Philokalia, a collection of prayers and sayings from the Eastern Orthodox tradition. Sleeping outdoors, fending largely for himself, relying occasionally on the kindness of strangers, reading his books and praying his prayer, he made his way. One day, two deserters from the Russian army accosted him on the road, beat him unconscious and stole his two treasures. When he came around and discovered his loss, the man was devastated and wept openly: how could he go on without food for his soul? Through a fortuitous set of circumstances, he managed to recover his lost possessions, and when he had them once again, he hugged them to his chest, gripping them so hard that his fingers practically locked in place around them.

I would invite you to stay with that image for a moment. We see a man with no wealth, no power, no influence in society, no fame to speak of, practically no physical possessions—but clinging with all of him might and with fierce protectiveness to two things whose sole purpose is to feed his soul. Here’s my question for you: What would you cling to in such a way? What precisely is it, the loss of which would produce in you a kind of panic? What would make you cry, once you realized that you no longer had it? And to make the questions more pointed, let’s assume that you were on a desert island or that you, like the Russian pilgrim, had no resources to go out and buy a replacement. Would it be your car? Your home? Your golf clubs? Your computer? To be honest, I think for me it might be my iPhone. If suddenly I lost my ability to make a call, my contacts, my music, my GPS, my maps, my email, etc., I would panic—and I would probably cry for sheer joy once I had the phone back, and my fingers would close around it like a claw. What makes this confession more than a little troubling is that, ten years ago, I didn’t even own a cell phone. I lived my life perfectly well without it, and if you had told me then that I would never have one, it wouldn’t have bothered me a bit.

What I particularly love about the Pilgrim is that he was preoccupied, not about any of the passing, evanescent goods of the world, but rather about prayer, about a sustained contact with the eternal God. He didn’t care about the things that obsess most of us most of the time: money, power, fame, success. And the only possessions that concerned him were those simple books that fed his relationship to God. Or to turn it around, he wasn’t frightened by the loss of any finite good; but he was frightened to death at the prospect of losing his contact with the living God.

So what would you cling to like a desperate animal? What loss would you fear? What do you ultimately love?