Death of St.Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face

From Terry Nelson:

Little Therese died on September 30, 1897 at 7:20 in the evening, after a prolonged agony.  From Sr. Genevieve of the Holy Face (Celine) book, My Sister, St. Therese; Celine wrote:

Once in the infirmary - just a few days ago (1897) in fact...

I had been going to and fro in the Infirmary, and became upset because something had gone wrong. Therese called, "Bo-bonne, no interior anxiety if you please!" (September 3) I can almost hear her say that. Therese always knows when something is wrong.  Her death reminds me so much of the death of love Our Lord suffered... today she cries out:

"Oh! It is pure suffering, because there is not a drop of consolation, no, not one."  No, I would never have believed that it was possible to suffer so much... never, never. I can only explain it by my extreme desire to save souls." (September 30) 

Celine continued: 

"She was trembling from head to foot..." 

At one point she told Celine, "Va, va, ma Celine, je serais avec toi..." "Go on with courage... I shall be with you."

Finally, gazing on her crucifix, Little Therese cried out:

"Oh!... Je L'aime!... Mon Dieu, je... vous... aime!" "Oh! ...I love Him! ...My God, I ...love ...you!"

(Read more.)

On Going to Confession

From Dorothy Day:

Going to confession is hard--hard when you have sins to confess and hard when you haven't, and you rack your brain for even the beginnings of sins against charity, chastity, sins of detraction, sloth or gluttony. You do not want to make too much of your constant imperfections and venial sins, but you want to drag them out to the light of day as the first step in getting rid of them. The just man falls seven times daily.

"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned," is the way you begin. "I made my last confession a week ago, and since then. . ." Properly, one should say the Confiteor, but the priest has no time for that, what with the long lines of penitents on a Saturday night, so you are supposed to say it outside the confessional as you kneel in a pew, or as you stand in line with others.

"I have sinned. These are my sins." That is all you are sup­posed to tell; not the sins of others, or your own virtues, but only your ugly, gray, drab, monotonous sins. (Read more.)

In the School of the Host

From Fr. Mark:

The hard and rugged paths by which a novice walks towards God are set before him in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.  The novice has only to gaze upon the Sacred Host to discover the true spirit of his vocation.

In finem dilexit. “Before the festival day of the pasch, Jesus knowing that his hour was come, that he should pass out of this world to the Father: having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them unto the end” (John 13:1).  Showing His “love unto the end,” Jesus walked towards His Father along the hard and rugged way of the Cross, leaving us the adorable mysteries of His Body and Blood as the abiding memorial of His Passion.  The true spirit of our Benedictine life is one of participation in Our Lord’s Eucharistic kenosis (self–emptying).  Compelled by an excess of divine pity, it was not enough for Christ to become for our sake “obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:); He chose to perpetuate the kenosis of His passion, even after His glorious resurrection and ascension in heaven, in the adorable Sacrament of His Body and Blood.  In the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar we find Our Lord Jesus Christ in a condition of profound humiliation that, until His return in glory, announces the mystery of His death. “For as often as you shall eat this bread and drink the chalice, you shall shew the death of the Lord, until he come” (1 Corinthians 11:26). (Read more.)

The Coming Consecration

On October 13, 2013, Our Holy Father Pope Francis is going to Fatima to consecrate the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Author Emmett O'Regan ties this occurrence in with many other events, past, present, prophetic and liturgical. This calls for wisdom. To quote:

As regular readers will by now already know, Pope Francis has promised to consecrate the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on October 13th, 2013, as part of several planned events to mark the end of the Year of Faith. This act seems a rather fitting close to a year that has already proven itself to be of major prophetic importance. Between the announcement of Pope Benedict XVI's abdication and the lightning strikes on St. Peter's Basilica that followed just hours afterwards on 11th February, to the Chelyabinsk Meteor Strike a few days later on 15th February, as well as the timing of the election of Pope Francis in relation to the "Worthy Shepherd Prophecy" of Bl. Tomasuccio de Foligno, this year has already been stacked full of both "signs in the sky" and striking prophetic coincidences in connection with them. So the timing of the appearance of Comet ISON in November of this year just after the scheduled date for the consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on October 13th would also appear to be of some similar prophetic significance. (Read more.)