February 2023
The 24 Hours of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ | Introduction
From the book ‘The 24 Hours of the Passion Of Our Lord Jesus Christ’ You can download the full book from “Free Downloads.” How these Hours of the Passion can be done? • One method is that of meditating one Hour each day by reading it alone, or with one’s family, or with others. In this way, in the round of 24 days, one would complete the 24 Hours. A good clock never stops – life never stops… • A second method would be that of forming groups of various people – 4, 8, 12 or possibly 24 and more – each one committed seriously to doing one of the Hours, assigned for a period of time, before changing the Hour. A good clock marks all the hours – it skips none of them… • A third method, then, is that of doing at least one hour per day, at the time of the day which coincides to that hour, but in any case, to reach such familiarity with the Hours of the Passion, and to assimilate them in such a way, as to be able to follow their content mentally during the whole day. For this purpose it is very helpful to learn by heart the succession of the 24 Hours with the corresponding title, which is reported on the above table. Value and Effects of these Hours of the Passion from a Letter of Luisa to Saint Annibale M. di Francia, and from her Writings St. Annibale: “I begin by reporting here a letter which the Author sent me…” Most Reverend Father, I am finally sending you the Hours of the Passion, now written, and all for the glory of Our Lord. I also include another sheet which contains the effects, and the beautiful promises which Jesus makes to anyone who does these Hours of the Passion. I believe that if one who meditates them is a sinner, he will convert; if he is imperfect, he will become perfect; if he is holy, he will become more holy; if he is tempted, he will find victory; if he is suffering, in these Hours he will find the strength, the medicine, the comfort. And if his soul is weak and poor, he will find spiritual food and the mirror in which he will reflect himself continuously to be embellished and to become similar to Jesus, our model. The satisfaction that blessed Jesus receives from the meditation of these Hours is so great, that He would want at least one copy of these meditations to be present and practiced in each city or town. In fact, it would happen, then, as if Jesus heard His own voice and His prayers being reproduced in those reparations, just as the ones He raised to His Father during the 24 hours of His sorrowful Passion. And if this were done in each town or city at least, by as many souls, Jesus seems to make me understand that Divine Justice would be placated in part, and in these sad times of torments and bloodshed, Its scourges would be stopped, in part, and as though dampened. I let you, Reverend Father, make appeal to all; may you complete, in this way, the little work that my lovable Jesus had me do. I also tell you that the purpose of these Hours of the Passion is not so much that of narrating the story of the Passion, because there are many books that treat this pious topic, and it would not be necessary to make another one. But rather, the purpose is the reparation, uniting the different points of the Passion of Our Lord with the diversity of the many offenses, and making worthy reparation for them together with Jesus, almost making up for all that the other creatures owe Him. From this, the different ways of reparation present in these Hours: in some sections one blesses, in others one compassionates, in others one praises, in others one comforts suffering Jesus, in others one compensates, in others one supplicates, prays and asks. Therefore, I leave it to you, Reverend Father, to make known the purpose of these writings with a preface. Preparation before each hour O my Lord Jesus Christ, prostrate in your divine presence, I implore your most loving Heart to admit me to the sorrowful meditation of the 24 hours in which for love of us You wanted to suffer so much, in your adorable body and in your most holy soul, unto death on the Cross. O please, give me help, grace, love, deep compassion and understanding of your sufferings, as I now meditate the …. Hour. And for those which I cannot meditate, I offer You my will to meditate them, and I willingly intend to meditate them in all the hours in which I have to apply myself to my duties, or sleep. Accept, O merciful Lord, my loving intention, and let it be beneficial for me and for all, as if I effectively and in a saintly way accomplished what I wish to practice. Meanwhile, I give You thanks, O my Jesus, for calling me to union with You by means of prayer. And to please You more, I take your thoughts, your tongue, your Heart, and with this I intend to pray, fusing all of myself in your Will and in your love; and stretching out my arms to hug You, I place my head on your Heart, and I begin. Thanksgiving after each hour My lovable Jesus, You have called me in this hour of your Passion to keep You company, and I have come. I seemed to hear You praying, repairing and suffering, in anguish and sorrow, pleading for the salvation of souls in the most touching and eloquent voices. I tried to follow You in everything; and now, having to leave You for my usual occupations, I feel the duty to say to You, ‘Thank You’ and ‘I bless You.’ Yes, O Jesus, I…
Mother & Refuge First Newsletter Released! Check Your Mail If Already Subscribed!
We are excited to announce you that we have issued our very first monthly Newsletter on this Ash Wednesday. If you have already registered, please check your Inbox/promotion/SPAM folders. If you forgot to register, you can register to receive our monthly newsletter which is going to be your spiritual companion throughout the month. Below are some of highlights of our first newsletter just released.
Prayer to Saint Rita | Patroness of Impossible Cases
O glorious St. Rita, your pleadings before the divine crucifix have been known to grant favors that many would call the impossible. Lovely St. Rita, so humble, so pure, so devoted in your love for thy crucified Jesus, speak on my behalf for my petition which seems so impossible from my humbled position. (Here mention your request ). Be propitious, O glorious St. Rita, to my petition, showing thy power with God on behalf of thy supplicant. Be lavish to me, as thou has been in so many wonderful cases for the greater glory of God. I promise, dear St. Rita, if my petition is granted, to glorify thee, by making known thy favor, to bless and sing thy praises forever. Relying then upon thy merits and power before the Sacred Heart of Jesus I pray. Amen.
How to Hear the Voice of God?
By St Peter’s church, SC Quiet prayer time allows us to hear God. When two friends are together in a noisy place, it can be hard for each to hear what the other is saying. Once they move somewhere that is quiet, they finally hear each other clearly. In a similar way, God is always reaching out to us, but we can’t hear him because of all of the noise. When we set aside quiet time to be with God, we start to hear God more clearly. God usually doesn’t speak in a booming voice. In your daily prayer time, you won’t normally hear a loud voice from heaven or see a miraculous sign. It is more likely that he will speak to you by gentle tugs on your mind and heart. It is like the experience of the prophet Elijah in the Old Testament: instead of revealing himself in a big, noisy manner, God spoke in a “still, small voice.” (1 Kings 19:12) In silence, God gives you new insights. Perhaps you have been sharing with Jesus how a coworker has hurt you. As you sit quietly, lifting your mind and heart to the Lord, he brings to mind a forgotten experience from years earlier, when you hurt a friend in a similar way. You begin to feel more compassion and understanding toward the coworker. In silence, you see how God is at work. Perhaps you have been telling Jesus about a situation that is causing you a great deal of worry and anxiety. As you sit quietly, he helps you remember several other times in your life when you felt like you were in an impossible situation. Looking back, you see that he took care of you each time and opened unexpected doors. You experience deeper peace and calm, trusting that he will take care of you now, too. In silence, God guides you. Perhaps while quiet with Jesus, he brings the image of a friend to mind, seemingly out of nowhere. You haven’t spoken to the friend in quite a while, but you feel a tug at your heart that the Lord might be asking you to give her a call. When you call her after your prayer time, you discover that she was facing a very difficult decision and that she had been praying for someone to reach out to her! Read more…
Jesus Appeared in the Sky of Mexico
By CNA It’s a major miracle that you’ve probably never heard of. On Sunday, Oct. 3, 1847, more than 2,000 people in Ocotlán, Mexico saw a perfect image of Jesus Christ crucified that appeared in the sky for more than 30 minutes. Approved by the Archdiocese of Guadalajara in 1911, the phenomenon is known as the “Miracle of Ocotlán” and took place one day after an earthquake that killed 40 and left the town in Jalisco State in ruins. Before the start of Mass at the cemetery of the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception – presided over by the parochial vicar, Father Julián Navarro – two white clouds joined together in the northwest sky, where there appeared the image of Christ. Those present and in nearby towns were deeply moved, made acts of contrition, and cried out begging, “Lord, have mercy!” This apparition of Christ was called “the Lord of Mercy” and in his honor, in September 1875, a new parish church was blessed, consecrated and dedicated to him. Also among the faithful who witnessed the miracle were Father Julián Martín del Campo, pastor of the community, and Antonio Jiménez, the town’s mayor. Both of them sent letters to their respective superiors telling what had happened. After the miracle, a record of the event was written down with 30 eye-witnesses attesting. Fifty years later, in 1897, by order of the then-Archbishop of Guadalajara, Pedro Loza y Pardavé, another record of the event was made, with 30 additional persons including five priests. On Sept. 29, 1911, the Archbishop of Guadalajara at that time, José de Jesús Ortiz y Rodríguez, signed a document validating the apparition of Jesus Christ at Ocotlán, and the devotion and veneration given by the people of that area to the venerated statue of our Lord of Mercy located in the shrine of the same name. “We must acknowledge as an historical fact, perfectly proven, the apparition of the blessed image of Jesus Christ Crucified…and that it could not have been the work of an hallucination or fraud, since it happened in broad daylight, in the sight of more than 2,000 people,” the cardinal said. He also stated so that the Lord of Mercy would never be forgotten, the faithful must “gather together in whatever manner possible, after purifying their consciences with the holy sacraments of Penance andHoly Communion and solemnly swear in the presence of God, for themselves and their descendants, that year after year they will celebrate the October 3 anniversary.” Read more…
Pope Francis’ message for Lent 2023 | ‘We need to listen to Jesus’
By CNA In his message for Lent 2023, Pope Francis encouraged Catholics to listen to what Jesus wants to tell them through the Scriptures and through others. Using the story of Jesus’ Transfiguration as a launching point, Francis addressed both the journey of Lent and the Catholic Church’s ongoing Synod on Synodality in the message released Feb. 17. The pope recalled “the command that God the Father addresses to the disciples on Mount Tabor as they contemplate Jesus transfigured. The voice from the cloud says: ‘Listen to him.’” “The first proposal, then, is very clear: We need to listen to Jesus,” he said. “Lent is a time of grace to the extent that we listen to him as he speaks to us.” “During this liturgical season,” he continued, “the Lord takes us with him to a place apart. While our ordinary commitments compel us to remain in our usual places and our often repetitive and sometimes boring routines, during Lent we are invited to ascend ‘a high mountain’ in the company of Jesus and to live a particular experience of spiritual discipline — ascesis — as God’s holy people.” Pope Francis said one of the ways Jesus speaks to us is through the Word of God, which we can hear at Mass. But if one cannot attend Mass during the week, it is a good idea to still read the daily readings of the liturgy, the pope encouraged. “In addition to the Scriptures, the Lord speaks to us through our brothers and sisters, especially in the faces and the stories of those who are in need,” he added. Francis’ second suggestion for Lent was to confront the difficulties of ordinary life remembering that Lent is a period that leads to Easter. “Do not take refuge in a religiosity made up of extraordinary events and dramatic experiences, out of fear of facing reality and its daily struggles, its hardships and contradictions,” the pope said. “The light that Jesus shows the disciples is an anticipation of Easter glory, and that must be the goal of our own journey, as we follow ‘him alone,’” he said. “Lent leads to Easter: the ‘retreat’ is not an end in itself, but a means of preparing us to experience the Lord’s passion and cross with faith, hope, and love, and thus to arrive at the resurrection.” Pope Francis compared the journey of Lent and the Church’s ongoing Synod on Synodality to a “strenuous mountain trek.” While we hike up the mountain, we must keep our eyes on the path before us, but at the top, we are rewarded by the beautiful panorama that confronts us. Read more…
Repent, Go to confession!
I’ve been sitting in the confessional in a parish where I’m filling in for 50 minutes now. Not one penitent. The door is open the available light is on. I hear sharply the criticism from people that priests aren’t available enough for confession. Perhaps this is a reason. Both the lack of availability of priests and the lack of penitents are a symptom of what Pope Pius XII called back in 1950 “the loss of the sense of sin.” People don’t think they’ve done anything wrong. The Ten Commandments are outdated. They say mistakenly “Everybody goes to heaven, to the same place, a better place. You can presume that God forgives you.” Yet this is not compassion it is a loss of morality, a dead conscience. If you have knowingly violated one of the Ten Commandments you are in mortal sin and need to repent. Confession is the ordinary means Jesus gave the Church to do this. He wished us to receive his own forgiveness through this very human encounter with a priest because when you repent of your sins out loud before another human person you are only then really owning up to them, it neutralizes the shame, you immediately feel unburdened, and grace is given by the invisible God who also receives your confession through the visible minister. Grace is given as Jesus promised “whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven”. So you hear his voice through the priest say, “I absolve you.” Then you know without a shadow of a doubt that you are forgiven. Repent. Go to confession.
APPROVED Eucharistic Miracles from THE 21ST CENTURY
1. Legnica: A Bleeding Host in Poland, 2013 On Christmas Day 2013, at the Church of Saint Hyacinth in Legnica, Poland, a consecrated host fell on the floor. The host was put into a container with water so that it would dissolve. Instead, it formed red stains. In Feb. 2014, the host was examined by various research institutes including the Department of Forensic Medicine in Szczecin who stated: “In the histopathological image, the fragments were found containing the fragmented parts of the cross-striated muscle. It is most similar to the heart muscle.” Additionally, and similar to the findings of the Eucharistic miracle of Lanciano, Italy, research found that the tissue had alterations that would appear during great distress. The bleeding Host in Poland was approved for veneration in April 2016, by Bishop Zbigniew Kiernikowski of Legnica who said that it “has the hallmarks of a Eucharistic miracle.” 2. Tixtla: Eucharistic Miracle in Mexico, 2006 In Oct. 2006, a parish in the Chilpancingo-Chilapa Diocese of Mexico held a retreat. During mass, two priests and a religious sister were distributing communion when the religious sister looked at the celebrant with tears in her eyes. The Host that she held had begun to effuse a reddish substance. To determine the validity of the event, Bishop Alejo Zavala Castro asked Dr. Ricardo Castañón Gómez (who researched the Eucharistic miracle in Buenos Aires) and his team to conduct scientific research. In 2013, the research concluded that: “The reddish substance analyzed corresponds to blood in which there are hemoglobin and DNA of human origin… The blood type is AB, similar to the one found in the Host of Lanciano and in the Holy Shroud of Turin.” 3. A Eucharistic Miracle at Chirattakonam, India, 2001 Though most Eucharistic miracles have to do with a bleeding host, the one at at Chirattakonam, India was a bit different. On an April morning in 2001, Fr. Johnson Karoor, pastor at St. Mary’s parish in Chirattakonam, India, exposed the Blessed Sacrament for adoration. Soon Fr. Karoor noticed three dots on the host and shared what he saw with the people, who also saw the dots. The priest then left for a week and came back to find that the host had developed an image of a human face. To ensure it wasn’t his imagination, he asked an alter server if he saw anything in the host. “I see the figure of a man,” the alter server replied. After mass, Fr. Karoor had a local photographer capture the image of the host below: Read more…