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All communications with the monastery had been cut off following the horrific earthquake of 12 January. Added to the uncertainty caused by this breakdown of communications with the nuns themselves, were conflicting reports from different sources regarding the fate of the monastery.
I've been reading a lovely and old-fashioned book called Saints are not Sad which is a compilation of the lives of forty saints. I'm becoming acquainted with some familiar saints from a new perspective as well as some saints of whom I have never heard of before. One such saint, St. Bede, has a wonderful quote. He says, "The perfection of the Christian life lay not in renunciation but in acceptance."
I have spent so much time these past few years trying to surrender myself to God's will. I prayed day after day with the word "surrender" in my heart. Mostly, I have met with failure. The things I try to give up, to do without and to surrender remain deeply embedded within my heart and soul. My long-ingrained habits are so hard to renounce! Again and again, I meet with the disappointment of failure in my efforts to surrender to God.
Now failure isn't always such a bad thing. I've heard that Abraham Lincoln failed at many things before finally meeting with the success of the presidency. St. Francis Xavier was also one who failed many times. In fact, Alban Goodier, SJ has this to say about St. Francis Xavier in Saints are not Sad: "There is a greater greatness than the greatness of success;and that is the greatness of failure. For that is the greatness of being, without the encouragement of doing;the greatness of sacrifice, of which others less great may reap the fruits."
Apart from the Holy Oils (Sacred Chrism, Oil of the Sick, and Oil of Catechumens) sanctified by the Bishop at the Mass of Chrism in Holy Week, the Church, in the Roman Ritual, provides for the blessing of ordinary olive oil as a sacramental. This oil may be burned before the Blessed Sacrament or before sacred images and then used by the faithful in the same way as they would use any other blessed sacramental. Such devotional anointings accompanied by prayer are not to be confused with the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, any more than one would confuse the use of Holy Water with the water of Baptism.
Devout Use of Blessed Oil
The Holy Man of Tours, Monsieur Dupont, used to anoint visitors to the oratory in his home with oil taken from the lamp that burned perpetually before his image of the Holy Face. Blessed -- and soon to be Saint -- Brother André Bessette of Saint Joseph's Oratory in Montréal used to recommend the devout use of oil taken from the lamp that burned before his statue of Saint Joseph. In Rome, to this day, one can obtain oil blessed in honour of the Santo Bambino Gesù at the Church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli.
The rite for blessing of oil (found in Father Weller's incomparable edition of the Roman Ritual) describes the benefits sought by the faithful in making use of this ancient sacramental of the Church.
Agreement and union of minds is the necessary foundation of this perfect concord amongst men, from which concurrence of wills and similarity of action are the natural results. Wherefore, in His divine wisdom, He ordained in His Church Unity of Faith; a virtue which is the first of those bonds which unite man to God, and whence we receive the name of the faithful – “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph. iv., 5).
That is, as there is one Lord and one baptism, so should all Christians, without exception, have but one faith. And so the Apostle St. Paul not merely begs, but entreats and implores Christians to be all of the same mind, and to avoid difference of opinions: “I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms amongst you, and that you be perfect in the same mind and in the same judgment” (I Cor. 1:10).
From Holy Cards:Little headaches, little heartaches
Little griefs of every day
Little trials and vexations.
How they throng upon our way.
Yet all life is formed of small things.
Little leaves make up the trees.
Many tiny drops of water blending
Make the mighty seas.
Asking him for grace sufficient
To sustain us through each loss
And to treasure each small suffering
As a splinter from His cross.
