Today is the Feast Day of St. Therese of Lisieux, one of my favorite saints since childhood.
Since today is her special day and this week of my blog is dedicated to the angels, I am posting a poem St. Therese wrote to her guardian angel.
May it inspire you to seek the intercession of St. Therese and also that of your guardian angel!
Today’s post continues our short study on the angels, a perfect week to consider these marvelous and holy creatures 
of God as we celebrate two feast days in their honor. We will be looking at their function and mission. I encourage you to read my earlier two posts on the angels if you haven’t done so already.
St. Thomas Aquinas, called the Angelic Doctor because of his theological and philosophical study of the angels, tells us that the hosts of heaven are divided into three hierarchies of angels with three choirs in each hierarchy. The angel’s hierarchy and choir are directly related to his function and his divine office.
Happy Feast of the Archangels! Yesterday’s post began a short study on the angels. We discussed who the angels are and who the angels are not. Today we are going to take a look at the characteristics of the angels.
Angels are marked by a number of characteristics that are specific to the angelic. First, no two angels are alike. Each of them is a separate and distinct creation, his own species if you will, and each one of them reflects a separate and distinct attribute of God’s divine perfection — His love, His strength, His goodness. Taken all together, the angels represent the Immensity of God (St. Michael and the Angels, pg. 12). Read the rest…
Tomorrow is the Feast of the Archangels (September 29) and Friday is the Feast of the Guardian Angels (October 2). Because of the importance of the angels in God’s plan of salvation, their specific intercession for us and the rampant confusion in our day and time regarding them, my blog will offer a short study on the angels for the next couple of days. Each post will close with a suggestion or practical strategy for you to employ. May these posts be a source of clarity and inspiration for you.
Devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows has its roots back to apostolic times. St. John the Evangelist stood with Mary at the 
foot of the cross. He witnessed first hand her holy grief and affliction, but witnessed as well her steadfast devotion to her Son and her maternal entrance into his sufferings.
So profound was Mary’s witness that St. John records the event in his Gospel account. It was the fulfillment of Simeon’s prophesy of the Infant Jesus in the temple: “And a sword will pierce you own heart so that the thoughts of many hearts would be revealed.” You can read about that moment in the second chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel.
Theologians tell us that Mary’s fiat to God, her yes, at the moment of her annunciation was also her yes to the all of the contradictions and sorrows that would accompany her motherhood. And it was the grace-filled strength of that yes that held her under that tree for three long hours as she watched her Son’s agonizing death.
Steadfast Cross
Steadfast cross, among all other
Thou art a tree of great prize;
In a branch and flower such another
I ne wot non in wood nor rise.
Sweet be the nails, and sweet be the tree,
And sweeter be the burden that hangs upon thee.
Anonymous from the Middle Ages
Yesterday the Church celebrated the Feast of the Birth of Mary and encouraged us to turn our hearts and our minds to her in a special way. She is, after all, the woman whose “yes” birthed Salvation to the world.
Sadly, however, far too many Catholics are leary of Mary. Some fear that a relationship with her will potentially diminish their relationship with Jesus Christ. They fear that to embrace Mary means to let go of Jesus.
Still other Catholics have fallen sway to the Marian misconceptions propagated by Protestantism and proclaimed by its members. They see devotion to her as unbiblical and in some way a sin against the First Commandment.
And finally, some Catholics believe Mary’s intercession isn’t important– why bother if they can go straight to Jesus. After all, wasn’t devotion to her simply the invention of misguided (or worse yet, corrupt) clerics from the Middle Ages? Who needs her anyway?
The plain fact is — we all need Mary! Devotion to Mary is not capricious, it is abundantly beneficial. Devotion to her wasn’t started by clerics in the Middle Ages, but by her Son, Jesus Christ. The Bible does not prove Marian devotion is non-essential but actually proves just the opposite . Read the rest…
At the Women of Grace Leadership Institute, Martha Nicolli (Boca Raton, Florida, St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church) shared the following poem.
It had been printed in her parish bulletin. Today, I pass it along to you to consider.
Do you trust God? To what extent are you willing to risk to do the will of God? What is He asking you to do now and will you say “yes”? Read the rest…
The past two days mark the feasts of two great saints of the Church, a mother and a son, whose lives give testimony to a sure-fired method of evangelizing those we love.
St. Monica (August 27) is the mother of St. Augustine (August 28), though Augustine was no saint when Monica began her earnest intercession. At that time he was a pagan and a member of the heretical Manichean sect. He was known to be a carouser who lived with a woman to whom he had fathered a child. A brilliant mind, he was “devoted” to his views and his lifestyle, and had no intention of converting to the Catholic faith.
St. Monica was distraught about her son’s dissolute ways and decided to do something about it. She prayed. And in the end, her prayers won the soul of her son.
What was it that made St. Monica’s prayers so effective? I think five strategies are primarily responsible. Perhaps you can implement them as you seek to evangelize those you love.
Not long ago, a woman aspiring to sanctity and holiness of life shared with me that she received a beautiful gift from the Lord on her birthday. It was during her time of prayer when she seemed to “hear” the voice of God deep down in the inner recesses of her heart.
This is what she heard:
“Let me love you, my daughter. Let me love you in those areas of pain, in those areas of shame, in those areas that seem to be the refuse of your life. Let me love you there.”
