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Welcome to the web site of The Doctors of the Catholic
Church.
Friday, November 20 2009
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Today’s
Readings
Hymn
Prayer for Creation
O, Creator of the cosmos, we present our hearts in prayer.
We are awestruck by your glory, which surrounds us everywhere.
From the birdsong of the morning to a stormy sky at night,
You reveal yourself in Nature, in its gentleness and might.
Through each rainbow that you send us you renew your covenant
With the earth and all life on it, telling us of your intent
That each living thing should flourish, in its own way, in its place.
You call us to new awareness of our neighbors and their space.
In our eagerness to prosper, we have ravaged what was good.
Using more than what was needed, taking everything we could.
We have changed the gentle order you intended for the earth.
Now we humbly ask the wisdom to be part of its re-birth.
We seek mercy, we seek vision, and the courage we will need
As we work to help the victims of the sins of human greed.
By our choices, in our actions, may we be part of your plans.
Help us gently till the Garden you’ve entrusted to our hands.
Finding strength in common purpose, may your faithful people be
Voices for a new perspective, leaders in simplicity.
Give us guidance, O, Creator. Give us power to achieve
True compassion for Creation as the legacy we leave.
Source: http://www.hymnlyrics.org/newlyrics
Gospel: Lk 19:45-48
Jesus entered the temple area and proceeded to drive out
those who were selling things, saying to them,
“It is written, My house shall be a house of prayer,
but you have made it a den of thieves.”
And every day he was teaching in the temple area.
The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people, meanwhile,
were seeking to put him to death,
but they could find no way to accomplish their purpose because all the people were hanging on his words.
Reflection
Scripture tells us that we are temples of the Holy Spirit. Inasmuch as all are creatures made in the image and likeness of God, all human beings are the children of God, and God is our Father. Since Christ died for all, all have Christ as their Savior, whether they are aware of it or not. Thus, the mysterious, Triune God of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is everyone’s God, for in God we breathe, move, and have our being. Jesus taught us the Our Father Prayer, a universal prayer, shared by the three major religions: Christians, Jews, and Muslims, and our God is more a part of us than we can ever imagine. One day we will return to him, for all human beings are mortals and will have eternal life when we come into his presence. As to where we will ultimately return permanently will depend where God decides. If we accomplish the will of God on earth we will do the same for eternity. Our souls have been paid with the divine blood of Christ and as we participate in that life-giving blood, then we will share in the heavenly delight with our Lord and Savior, who become incarnate as a human being so that we may become partakers of his divinity.
We know from the gospel today that those who “hang on his words” will be protected in the next life as Jesus was protected on earth so that no one could put him to death on earth so that dead could be changed into eternal life through faith and love. Death has no place in Jesus’ life after the resurrection because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever and he lives forever as he lived before he became a human being- eternally.
People who hang on Christ’s word during their lifetime will find Christ as their “Life of the World,” the “Light of the World”, and the “Love of God” made flesh for their consumption through spiritual food and drink that completely satisfies. The “Bread of Life” is our heavenly manna, our own resurrection, and our eternal life. Christ has destroyed death, sin, and the devil through Love. Scripture tells us in Jn 1: 11
To his own he came, yet his own did not accept him.
Any who did accept him he empowered to become children of God.
This acceptance or not acceptance depended on the hunger and thirst of the individuals for Christ and his teachings that are full or goodness and justice. To encourage one to long for God and his Christ, because of his infinite kindness and mercy, the mighty One will reveal to us this grace and favor when we seek God, love others in charity, and pray to do God’s will in all manners. Let us now reflect on the below beatitude.
All of Christ’s beatitudes can be found at the end of this site listed through the link entitled: The Doctors and Holy Spirit.
The Fourth Beatitude: “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied.”
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The soul that has found true consolation upon the peak of the third beatitude sees God everywhere; it carries Him in the intimacy of its being like an ineffable treasure, and finds Him in all things, now clothed for it in divine beauty.
But light engenders love, and love enkindles desire, and desire is the spur that tortures and prods, that starts us to act, to work, to sacrifice, with the sweet restlessness and the strong desire of the lover. Urged on by this holy madness of desire the soul comes out of itself and goes through the world like the spouse of the Canticles, asking everywhere if, perchance, the Beloved has passed by.
But has it not found Him already? Yes, that is precisely why it feels the ardor of desire. The more we possess Jesus, the more we desire Him. Whoever partakes of that divine delicacy becomes more hungry, and whoever drinks that generous wine suffers a still greater thirst. When the soul was far from God when its eyes had not yet opened to infinite beauty and its heart had not yet thrilled to the divine touch, it lay motionless in the sad lethargy of one who does not love. But its eyes saw Him upon the mountain of light, its heart was moved with love; and now, like the wounded stag, it restlessly seeks to assuage the fire within.
Where are the cool, crystalline waters that cure the wounds of love? If one could but see the Beloved in the clear light of perfect contemplation; if one could be united with Him in a never-ending embrace! In the boldness of its desire the soul exclaims with the ardent Sulamite: “Let him kiss me with kisses of His mouth” Cant. 1:1. But possession must be brought at the price of sweat and blood. Effort and suffering are the only refreshment of the soul while it awaits the moment of complete happiness.
Now begins a period of untiring work; fourteen years of hard labor seem to the soul, as they did to Jacob, a small price to pay for the happiness it desires. In this period of the spiritual life it performs good works in overflowing abundance. It resembles the warm earth in the springtime when all the seeds that have been sleeping under winter snows begin to grow. Hunger and thirst express very well the vehemence of its desire. It literally hungers and thirsts for justice; for justice, signifying the conjunction of all holy works the accumulation of all heavy labors, that the jubilant and great-hearted soul undertakes as a refuge, so to speak, from its longings.
The scene is wonderfully described in the Canticle of Canticles. The Bridegroom knocks on the garden gate and puts His hand through the opening to touch the bride. Her heart thrills with love. She rises to open to Him; there is the aroma of the purest myrrh. But alas, when she swings back the gate, the Bridegroom is gone. She looks for Him and does not find Him; she calls and He does not answer. She hurries forth in search of Him whom she loves, and while she goes through all the city the guards wound her and those who keep watch on the wall take away her mantle. Not caring she pleads with the daughters of Jerusalem if they should find her Beloved, to tell Him that she is dying of love.
It is in the garden of contemplation that she will find her Beloved when he comes to cut the lilies. But it is not quite time for the loving interview; the enamored soul must travel over the long and rocky road of the active life. “Those who wish to take the citadel of contemplation must first exercise themselves in the field of action," says St. Gregory. The garden where the union between the Beloved and the soul takes place is the soul itself. The deep silence of the fields must reign there before He can come down to the bride; the ripe fruits must scatter their delicious fragrance and the lilies must attract Him with their dazzling whiteness.
The active life prepares the place for love by the exercise of the virtues and the divine flowering of the gifts. This work of intensive cultivation is the work of justice, which the soul undertakes with ardent longing.
Although the active life contributes to the soul’s own perfection, says St.Thomas, it consists principally in all that which is ordered to the good of others. For this reason the spiritual work proper to this beatitude is called justice. In the previous steps the soul has worked of its own good but in this one it forgets itself in order to think about, and laboring for them, obtains a greater perfection as the reward of generosity.
How ardently the soul undertakes this work of justice is told in these words of the Gospel: it hungers and thirst for justice. A person who has a simple, unhurried need of a thing looks for it peacefully; but one who has a pressing necessity strongly desires to relieve it, permits himself no rest, is not hindered by fatigue, and presses on with passionate eagerness to his goal.
Thus the soul spurred on by love, whose measure is to have no measure, seeks impatiently for the justice that it desires, not considering its own power because it counts on the power of God. Nothing stops it, because it knows it can do all things in Him who strengthens it.
The origin of this astonishing boldness is the gift of fortitude, which has now attained its full development. The virtue of justice lives in a moderate and tranquil atmosphere; its norm is reason, its procedure is human. The gift of fortitude has a divine norm; it seeks justice in God’s way; its atmosphere is that of fire produced by the Holy Spirit.
Under the empire of the virtues the soul measures undertaking by its own meager strength. The horizon of its desires widens and it throws itself into action with amazing audacity. Impelled by love and sustained by fortitude, it hungers and thirst for justice.
This magnificent flowering of the gift of fortitude was admirably prepared for in the previous stages. Light opened the way to strength. Before leaning on God with the bold confidence that the gift of fortitude produces in souls, it is necessary to have two profound knowledges: we must know ourselves and we must know God. Knowledge reveals our own nothingness to us in such an absolute way that we can never forget it, and the same light makes us see God in the depths of our soul. We are nothing; God is everything. There is in us an abyss of misery; but there is also in us something divine. Disappointed in our own strength, we lean on that infinite strength that offers itself to us.
To our confidence in the divine power is added the sweet unction of piety that makes us look upon God as a Father and upon our neighbor as a brother. The holy fire of charity enkindles our desires and increases our boldness. Thus a hunger and thirst of justice, the character of this beatitude is produced in our soul.
How could God fail to reward such arduous labor? As in the tropical regions the fields are covered in a very short while with heavy vegetation and plants come up everywhere, their branches growing and interlacing, while the atmosphere is filled with their pleasing fragrance and delicate flowers slowly drop their petals so their fruits can expand, in like manner in the secret garden of the soul, life is diffused, good works multiply rapidity, and the perfumes from all the virtues fill the air. Let the Beloved come into His garden exclaims the soul satiate with justice The flowers have appeared, the fruits now hang from the weighted branches, and all the perfumes born by the gentle winds encourage the sweet intimacies of love.
The soul is filled because everything in it is harmony and peace. Gradually the noise of action fades away; a celestial silence, the herald of a better life, sweetly invades it. Action has prepared it: the hour of contemplation draws near.
Complete satisfaction is not for this life – who could expect it? Perfect justice is only in heaven; only in the loving bosom of God is the soul at peace with Him, with others, and with itself. Everything there will be harmony because everything will be order and love and truth. And this substantial harmony, if one may speak thus, will be the “new canticle” intoned by the just through the eternal centuries. Cf. Apoc. 5:9.
But the saints begin that eternal song in this life in spite of the dissonances which abound. The heart of the just is a canticle a living harmony, that exalts God in joy and praise, as did the holy Virgin in her glorious outpouring of love: “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. Luke 1: 46ff. Mary typifies the soul satiated with justice, which is perfect fullness and consummate harmony. She sings with inspired accents to Him who is powerful, whose name is holy, to Him who brings down the proud and exalts the humble, to Him who fills the hungry with divine nourishment. And in the train of this Queen follow all generous souls who, at the cost of painful labors and torturing desires, attain the fullness of justice in the serenity and harmony of their interior garden.
The Beloved will not come yet. The soul must ascent two more mountains peaks before it reaches the heights where the mystery of pain is perfected.
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The Calendar of Saints link is below and lists some of the known saints on this day.
Calendar of Saints
Calendar includes: King, Edmund the Martyr, Felix of Valois( Founder with John of Matha), Maria Fortunata Viti and The Theban Legion Martyrs and Spanish Civil War Martyrs and many individuals who were martyrs.
Hymn
Prayer for God’s Blessings
Here we would see Jesus, wearied with the journey,
We turn again to be renewed and know His touch of pow’r.
Yes, we would see Jesus thru the Scriptures shining;
Lord, lift the veil of earthly sense and meet us in this hour.
We beheld His glory, thus when homeward wending,
Our hearts will echo with the chorus of redeeming love.
We beheld His glory, and go forth to serve Him,
Till faith gives way to joyous sight in mansions up above.
Meditations for Pro-Life Stations Of The Cross
These are found in the link below:
THE DOCTORS AND LIFE
Scroll down to the end.
Our Lord Jesus Christ told Sister Pierina, a nun that fostered the Holy Face devotion.
"Whoever gazes upon my face already consoles Me." See link
below. The holy face of Jesus from the Shroud of Turin is considered an
esteemed and sacred relic and can be viewed in the link below.
THE
HOLY FACE OF JESUS
APOSTLES OF THE LORD
ALMSGIVING SECTION
SUPPORT THE POOR
ROMAN
CATHOLIC SACRED MUSIC
THE DOCTORS AND HOLY SPIRIT
VATICAN.
Email tommyferris1@yahoo.com
The
background music is Andrea Bocelli's "Ave Maria".
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