Strive to Die to Yourself
“When God demands of a soul a great sacrifice, he strengthens the soul, through the vivifying power of His grace, to overcome all obstacles. Such a soul dies perfectly to itself, and its only desire is to remain spiritually dead to its natural inclinations as long as God wishes.”
As a Lieutenant in the U. S. Navy Chaplain Corps, Father Vincent Capodanno finally reached a much-anticipated goal, arriving in Vietnam during Holy Week, 1966. While he couldn’t know it at the time, stepping onto Vietnamese soil initiated his journey to his own personal passion, his own way of the cross, at the same time that the Passion of Jesus was being commemorated.
(Feast of the Annunciation)
“Oh, how precious are our souls to Jesus and Mary, our blood Brother and our mother. The best expression of our gratitude for such love is the irrevocable consecration of ourselves to them – in the gloom of uncertainty, in the anguish of doubt, in the heart-riving loneliness of interior desolation, when God seems to desert us, by complete abandonment to the divine will.”
S writes: “My Catholic parish is sponsoring an evening of Taizé prayer. I understand that it is ecumenical prayer, but I wonder if it is related to centering prayer and thus new age. There seem to be arguments both for and against it . . . I appreciate any information you can give me that can help me to discern whether this is truly acceptable for Catholics or not.”
Thousands of people from all faiths and backgrounds are planning to gather at abortion clinics across the country to pray the Way of the Cross for Victims of Abortion on Good Friday.
A new study has shown an alarming loss of faith among 16- to 29-year-olds in more than a dozen European countries where as many as 70 percent say they never go to church and 80 percent don’t even pray.
Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
A firestorm has erupted in Monrovia, California over the presence of Planned Parenthood at a middle-school fair promoting mental health with many parents saying the nation’s largest abortion provider doesn’t belong on campus.
“Mary’s holiness kept pace with her labor. Through her faithful performance of her ordinary duties, she may be said to have attained, in the solitude of Nazareth, her greatest sanctity.”
