Today is the feast of St. John of the Cross, one of my favorite saints. May he intercede for us so that we might grow in holiness.
Today I am posting the second presentation of the two-night parish mission I gave in Battle Creek, Michigan, in preparation for a parish-wide Marian Consecration.
This talk is entitled “Learning to Walk on Water with Mary”
You can order a copy of “33 Days to Morning Glory” on www.shopmercy.org
Also, you can order my book “Stepping on the Serpent: The Journey of Trust with Mary” on www.shopmercy.org
A blessed feast of St. Lucy to you all. I previously posted the audio files to a parish mission I gave in Battle Creek, Michigan. Today and tomorrow I will post the video versions of these talks.
The parish was preparing to go through the “33 Days to Morning Glory” Marian Consecration preparation by my Marian brother Fr. Michael Gaitley. My talks were themed on entrustment to Jesus through Mary.
Part one was entitled “The Journey of Trust with Mary”
You can order a copy of “33 Days to Morning Glory” on www.shopmercy.org
Also, you can order my book “Stepping on the Serpent: The Journey of Trust with Mary” on www.shopmercy.org
This past Lent I had the joy of presenting a mission on my upcoming book Stepping on the Serpent: The Journey of Trust with Mary at St. Monica’s Catholic Church in Converse, Texas. We are one week away from the release of the book, and today is the final part of the mission.
In this final part I speak on the Crucifixion of Jesus and how to trust God even in the darkest moments of our lives, just as Mary did at the foot of the Cross.
This past Lent I had the joy of presenting a mission on my upcoming book Stepping on the Serpent: The Journey of Trust with Mary at St. Monica’s Catholic Church in Converse, Texas. In preparation for the official release of the book on Oct. 5, the Feast of St. Faustina Kowalska, every Thursday I will post a presentation from the mission.
In this week’s presentation, I talk about examples of trust from the Gospels – specifically St. Peter and Our Lady.
This past Lent I had the joy of presenting a mission on my upcoming book Stepping on the Serpent: The Journey of Trust with Mary at St. Monica’s Catholic Church in Converse, Texas. In preparation for the official release of the book on Oct. 5, the Feast of St. Faustina Kowalska, every Thursday I will post a presentation from the mission.
In this week’s presentation, I talk about what distrust is and why Jesus said to St. Faustina, “Distrust on the part of souls is tearing at My insides” (Diary ofSt. Maria Faustina Kowalska, 50). Please share with your friends and loved ones!
This past Lent I had the joy of presenting a mission on my upcoming book Stepping on the Serpent: The Journey of Trust with Mary at St. Monica’s Catholic Church in Converse, Texas. In preparation for the official release of the book on Oct. 5, the Feast of St. Faustina Kowalska, every Thursday I will post a presentation from the mission.
In this week’s presentation I talk about what trust really is, what it means, and how I have had to learn it in my own life. Please share with your friends and loved ones!
Today I conclude this series presenting on 1 Cor 13:8-13.
“Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
Examination (put your name in every blank):
____________ is patient and kind.
__________ is not jealous or boastful.
__________ is not arrogant or rude.
__________ does not insist on its own way.
__________ is not irritable or resentful.
__________ does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.
__________ bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
It is my hope and prayer that you will all grow to become Marked By Love. God bless.
Pope Francis wrote on this in Amoris Laetitia 118-119.
Love endures all things
118. Panta hypoménei. This means that love bears every trial with a positive attitude. It stands firm in hostile surroundings. This “endurance” involves not only the ability to tolerate certain aggravations, but something greater: a constant readiness to confront any challenge. It is a love that never gives up, even in the darkest hour. It shows a certain dogged heroism, a power to resist every negative current, an irrepressible commitment to goodness. Here I think of the words of Martin Luther King, who met every kind of trial and tribulation with fraternal love: “The person who hates you most has some good in him; even the nation that hates you most has some good in it; even the race that hates you most has some good in it. And when you come to the point that you look in the face of every man and see deep down within him what religion calls ‘the image of God’, you begin to love him in spite of [everything]. No matter what he does, you see God’s image there. There is an element of goodness that he can never sluff off… Another way that you love your enemy is this: when the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do it… When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system… Hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. If I hit you and you hit me and I hit you back and you hit me back and so on, you see, that goes on ad in nitum. It just never ends. Somewhere somebody must have a little sense, and that’s the strong person. The strong person is the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil… Somebody must have religion enough and morality enough to cut it off and inject within the very structure of the universe that strong and powerful element of love”.
119. In family life, we need to cultivate that strength of love which can help us fight every evil threatening it. Love does not yield to resentment, scorn for others or the desire to hurt or to gain some advantage. The Christian ideal, especially in families, is a love that never gives up. I am sometimes amazed to see men or women who have had to separate from their spouse for their own protection, yet, because of their enduring conjugal love, still try to help them, even by enlisting others, in their moments of illness, suffering or trial. Here too we see a love that never gives up.
Today Fr. Thaddaeus presents on 1 Cor 13:7, “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things…”
Pope Francis wrote on this in Amoris Laetitia 111-117
Love bears all things
111. Paul’s list ends with four phrases containing the words “all things”. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Here we see clearly the countercultural power of a love that is able to face whatever might threaten it.
112. First, Paul says that love “bears all things” (panta stégei). This is about more than simply putting up with evil; it has to do with the use of the tongue. The verb can mean “holding one’s peace” about what may be wrong with another person. It implies limiting judgment, checking the impulse to issue a rm and ruthless condemnation: “Judge not and you will not be judged” (Lk 6:37). Although it runs contrary to the way we normally use our tongues, God’s word tells us: “Do not speak evil against one another, brothers and sisters” (Jas 4:11). Being willing to speak ill of another person is a way of asserting ourselves, venting resentment and envy without concern for the harm we may do. We often forget that slander can be quite sinful; it is a grave offense against God when it seriously harms another person’s good name and causes damage that is hard to repair. Hence God’s word forthrightly states that the tongue “is a world of iniquity” that “stains the whole body” (Jas 3:6); it is a “restless evil, full of deadly poison” (3:8). Whereas the tongue can be used to “curse those who are made in the likeness of God” (3:9), love cherishes the good name of others, even one’s enemies. In seeking to uphold God’s law we must never forget this specific requirement of love.
113. Married couples joined by love speak well of each other; they try to show their spouse’s good side, not their weakness and faults. In any event, they keep silent rather than speak ill of them. This is not merely a way of acting in front of others; it springs from an interior attitude. Far from ingenuously claiming not to see the problems and weaknesses of others, it sees those weaknesses and faults in a wider context. It recognizes that these failings are a part of a bigger picture. We have to realize that all of us are a complex mixture of light and shadows. The other person is much more than the sum of the little things that annoy me. Love does not have to be perfect for us to value it. The other person loves me as best they can, with all their limits, but the fact that love is imperfect does not mean that it is untrue or unreal. It is real, albeit limited and earthly. If I expect too much, the other person will let me know, for he or she can neither play God nor serve all my needs. Love coexists with imperfection. It “bears all things” and can hold its peace before the limitations of the loved one.
Love believes all things
114. Panta pisteúei. Love believes all things. Here “belief” is not to be taken in its strict the- ological meaning, but more in the sense of what we mean by “trust”. This goes beyond simply presuming that the other is not lying or cheating. Such basic trust recognizes God’s light shining beyond the darkness, like an ember glowing beneath the ash.
115. This trust enables a relationship to be free. It means we do not have to control the other person, to follow their every step lest they escape our grip. Love trusts, it sets free, it does not try to control, possess and dominate everything. This freedom, which fosters independence, an openness to the world around us and to new experiences, can only enrich and expand relationships. The spouses then share with one another the joy of all they have received and learned outside the family circle. At the same time, this freedom makes for sincerity and transparency, for those who know that they are trusted and appreciated can be open and hide nothing. Those who know that their spouse is always suspicious, judgmental and lacking unconditional love, will tend to keep secrets, conceal their failings and weaknesses, and pretend to be someone other than who they are. On the other hand, a family marked by loving trust, come what may, helps its members to be themselves and spontaneously to reject deceit, falsehood, and lies.
Love hopes all things
116. Panta elpízei. Love does not despair of the future. Following upon what has just been said, this phrase speaks of the hope of one who knows that others can change, mature and radiate unexpected beauty and untold potential. This doesnot mean that everything will change in this life. It does involve realizing that, though things may not always turn out as we wish, God may well make crooked lines straight and draw some good from the evil we endure in this world.
117. Here hope comes most fully into its own, for it embraces the certainty of life after death. Each person, with all his or her failings, is called to the fullness of life in heaven. There, fully transformed by Christ’s resurrection, every weakness, darkness and in rmity will pass away. There the person’s true being will shine forth in all its goodness and beauty. This realization helps us, amid the aggravations of this present life, to see each person from a supernatural perspective, in the light of hope, and await the fullness that he or she will receive in the heavenly kingdom, even if it is not yet visible.
Today’s episode is on 1 Cor 13:6, “Love does not rejoice over wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.”
Pope Francis wrote on “love rejoices in the truth” in Amoris Laetitia 109-110.
Love rejoices with others
109. The expression chaírei epì te adikía has to do with a negativity lurking deep within a person’s heart. It is the toxic attitude of those who rejoice at seeing an injustice done to others. The following phrase expresses its opposite: sygchaírei te aletheía: “it rejoices in the right”. In other words, we rejoice at the good of others when we see their dignity and value their abilities and good works. This is impossible for those who must always be comparing and competing, even with their spouse, so that they secretly rejoice in their failures.
110. When a loving person can do good for others, or sees that others are happy, they them- selves live happily and in this way give glory to God, for “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor 9:7). Our Lord especially appreciates those who find joy in the happiness of others. If we fail to learn how to rejoice in the well-being of others, and focus primarily on our own needs, we condemn ourselves to a joyless existence, for, as Jesus said, “it is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). The family must always be a place where, when something good happens to one of its members, they know that others will be there to celebrate it with them.
Fr. Thaddaeus, MIC 