The Vigil of All Saints

Please follow this link for a beautiful observance of All Hallows Eve: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=17537

Take courage

"Take courage, soul!

Hold not thy strength in vain!

With faith o'ercome the steeps

Thy God hath set for thee.

Beyond the Alpine summits of great pain

Lieth thine Italy."

--Rose Terry Cooke

Angels

"...the shadows of our own desires stand between us and our better angels, and thus their brightness is eclipsed."

--Charles Dickens

Per accidens

"At first laying down, as a fact fundamental,

That nothing with God can be accidental."

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in Christus-The Golden Legend (Part IV)

Even now

How strange! You were just here with me;

or so it seemed, though that can't be.

It was a dream, so real that I can understand

how I still can feel your hand

even now.

Vision

"As selfishness and complaint pervert the mind, so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision."

--Helen Keller

Will

"People do not lack strength, they lack will."

--Victor Hugo

Faith

"Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark."

--Ronan Tynan's favorite quote, as published in Saint Anthony Messenger, March 2006.

Immortality distorted

Here is a post well worth viewing from Ignatius Insight Scoop: ttp://insightscoop.typepad.com/2004/2009/10/fr-robert-barron-on-the-vampire-twilight-craze.html

Sing

“If you cannot teach me to fly, teach me to sing.”

--Sir James M. Barrie

Nearer...

"The nearer the dawn the darker the night."

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Walk on...

The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse.

--Helen Keller

Another world

“If I discover within myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world”

--C.S. Lewis

Forgiveness

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”

--Lewis B. Smedes

Kindness

"No kind action ever stops with itself. One kind action leads to another. Good example is followed. A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves."

--Amelia Earhart

Eternal Light

"O grace abounding and allowing me to dare
to fix my gaze on the Eternal Light,
so deep my vision was consumed in it!

I saw how it contains within its depths
all things bound in a single book by love
of which creation is the scattered leaves... "

from Dante's Paradiso XXXIII, 82–87 (as translated by Mark Musa)

The Feast of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales

Yes, this is quite a long litany, but these are only a few of the names of the men and women whho were martyred in England for the Catholic Faith beginning under the reign of Henry VIII. Their blood, mingled with that of Our Lord, has surely won the forthcoming return of many former Anglicans to the Holy Catholic Church. "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church."

The Litany to the Forty English and Welsh Martyrs To Obtain a Wide and Generous Availability of the Immemorial Roman Mass (For Private Use Only)

Lord have mercy on us.

Christ have mercy on us.

Lord have mercy on us.

Christ hear us.

Christ graciously hear us.

God the Father of Heaven, have mercy on us.

God the Son, Redeemer of the World, have mercy on us.

God the Holy Ghost, have mercy on us.

Holy Trinity, One God, have mercy on us.

Our Lady of the Precious Blood, pray for us .

Our Lady, Queen of Martyrs, pray for us.

Saint John Haughton, intercede for us.

Saint Robert Lawrence, intercede for us.

Saint Augustine Webster, intercede for us.

Saint Richard Reynolds, intercede for us.

Saint John Stone, intercede for us.

Saint Cuthbert Mayne, intercede for us.

Saint Edmund Campion, intercede for us.

Saint Ralph Sherwin, intercede for us.

Saint Alexander Briant, intercede for us.

Saint John Payne, intercede for us.

Saint Luke Kirby, intercede for us.

Saint Richard Gwyn, intercede for us.

Saint Margaret Clitherow, intercede for us.

Saint Margaret Ward, intercede for us.

Saint Edmund Gennings, intercede for us.

Saint Swithun Wells, intercede for us.

Saint Eustace White, intercede for us.

Saint Polydore Plasden, intercede for us.

Saint John Boste, intercede for us.

Saint Robert Southwell, intercede for us.

Saint Henry Walpole, intercede for us.

Saint Philip Howard, intercede for us.

Saint John Jones, intercede for us.

Saint John Rigby, intercede for us.

Saint Anne Line, intercede for us.

Saint Nicholas Owen, intercede for us.

Saint Thomas Garnet, intercede for us.

Saint John Roberts, intercede for us.

Saint John Almond, intercede for us.

Saint Edmund Arrowsmith, intercede for us.

Saint Ambrose Bartlow, intercede for us.

Saint Alban Roe, intercede for us.

Saint Henry Morse, intercede for us.

Saint John Southworth, intercede for us.

Saint John Plessington, intercede for us.

Saint Philip Evans, intercede for us.

Saint John Lloyd, intercede for us.

Saint John Wall, intercede for us.

Saint John Kemble, intercede for us.

Saint David Lewis, intercede for us.

V. I shall go unto the altar of God.

R. Unto God Who giveth joy to my youth.

Let us Pray: O God, in Whom there is no change or shadow of alteration, Thou didst give courage to Thy holy Martyrs through the unfathomable graces of the immemorial Mass. Grant unto us. we beg Thee, through their intercession, the wide restoration of this sacred rite of Mass, that we may rejoice in the consolation of its graces and be strengthened to serve Thee in imitation of the courage and fidelity of these holy Martyrs. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who being God, liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Feast of Christ the King

33 Pilate therefore went into the hall again, and called Jesus, and said to him: Art thou the king of the Jews? 34 Jesus answered: Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or have others told it thee of me? 35 Pilate answered: Am I a Jew? Thy own nation, and the chief priests, have delivered thee up to me: what hast thou done?
36 Jesus answered: My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would certainly strive that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now my kingdom is not from hence. 37 Pilate therefore said to him: Art thou a king then? Jesus answered: Thou sayest that I am a king. For this was I born, and for this came I into the world; that I should give testimony to the truth. Every one that is of the truth, heareth my voice.

-from The Holy Gospel according to Saint John, 18, 33-37, Douay-Rheims

Anchor

Feeling is deep and still; and the word that floats on the surface

Is as the tossing buoy, that betrays where the anchor is hidden.

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in Evangeline

The Feast of Saint Raphael

O Raphael, lead us toward those we are waiting for, those who are waiting for us!
Raphael, Angel of Happy Meetings, lead us by the hand toward those we are looking for!
May all our movements, all their movements, be guided by your Light and transformed by Your Joy.

Angel Guide of Tobias, lay the request we now address to you at the Feet of Him on whose unveiled Face you are privileged to gaze. Lonely and tired, crushed by the separations and sorrows of earth, we feel the need of calling to you and of pleading for the protection of your wings, so that we may not be as strangers in the Province of Joy, all ignorant of the concerns of our country.

Remember the weak, you who are strong--you whose home lies beyond the region of thunder, in a land that is always peaceful, always serene, and bright with the resplendent glory of God.

(Saint Raphael is the Angel of happy meetings, of health, of love, of joy, of light, eyesight, travel, casting out demons, and debts repaid .)

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Criminal charges in England for defending Christianity: what was old is new again

Please follow this link to Padre Steve's excellent post on modern-day England to see what Anglicans returning to the Catholic Church will be up against: http://salesianity.blogspot.com/2009/10/prosecuted-for-speaking-about-faith-in.html

Catholic Cartoon Blog

Paul Nichols has quite an insight on the return of former Anglicans to the Catholic Church. Please follow this link to his blog for today's post on this subject: http://catholiccartoonblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/fail.html

Old friends

"Ah, how good it feels! The hand of an old friend."

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Now in October...

"There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings, as now in October."

-- Nathaniel Hawthorne

In old October...

All things on earth point home in old October:

sailors to sea, travellers to walls and fences,

hunters to field and hollow and the long voice of the hounds,

the lover to the love he has forsaken.

-- Thomas Wolfe

Autumn glow

"Just before the death of flowers,

And before they are buried in snow,

There comes a festival season

When nature is all aglow."

- Author Unknown

Echoes

The sound of your voice,
strong and kind,
echoes through the day,
through the night.
You may be out of sight,
but never out of mind.

Poplars

"October's poplars are flaming torches lighting the way to winter."

-- Nova Bair

October Sky

"The sweet calm sunshine of October now warms the low spot; upon its grassy mold the purple oak-leaf falls; the birchen bough drops its bright spoil like arrow-heads of gold."

-- William Cullen Bryant

Wood elves

"The birds have less to say for themselves
In the wood-world’s torn despair
Than now these numberless years the elves,
Although they are no less there:
All song of the woods is crushed like some
Wild, easily shattered rose.
Come, be my love in the wet woods; come,
Where the boughs rain when it blows."

--from A Line-Storm Song by Robert Frost

The invisible bridge...

Well has the name of Pontifex been given

Unto the Church's head, as the chief builder

And architect of the invisible bridge

That leads from earth to heaven.

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in The Golden Legend (Part V)

A certain day...

"A certain day became a presence to me;
there it was, confronting me--a sky, air, light:
a being. And before it started to descend
from the height of noon, it leaned over
and struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task. The day's blow
rang out, metallic--or it was I, a bell awakened,
and what I heard was my whole self
saying and singing what it knew: I can."

--Denise Levertov, Variation on a Theme by Rilke

In the orchard

"She had only to stand in the orchard, to put her hand on a little crab tree and look up at the apples, to make you feel the goodness of planting and tending and harvesting at last."

-- Willa Cather

I remember...

O summer day beside the joyous sea!

O summer day so wonderful and white,

So full of gladness and so full of pain!

Forever and forever shalt thou be

To some the gravestone of a dead delight,

To some the landmark of a new domain.

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow from Summer Day by the Sea

Last fruits of Summer

"Lord, it is time. The summer was very big. Lay thy shadow on the sundials, and on the meadows let the winds go loose. Command the last fruits that they shall be full; give them another two more southerly days, press them on to fulfillment and drive the last sweetness into the heavenly wine."

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

"Just think..."

"Just think, Miss Renie, that same moon that's shinin' down on me this very moment, is shinin' down--on Pete's tomatoes!"

--Tambey Tyree

The Twelve Promises of Our Lord Jesus Christ To Saint Margaret Mary

for those devoted to His Sacred Heart:

1-I will give them all the graces necessary for their state of life.

2-I will establish peace in their families.

3-I will console them in all their troubles.

4-They shall find in My Heart an assured refuge during life and especially at the hour of their death.

5-I will pour abundant blessings on all their undertakings.

6-Sinners shall find in My Heart the source of an infinite ocean of mercy.

7-Tepid souls shall become fervent.

8-Fervent souls shall speedily rise to great perfection.

9-I will bless the homes where an image of My Heart shall be exposed and honored.

10-I will give to priests the power of touching the most hardened hearts.

11-Those who propagate this devotion shall have their names written in My Heart, never to be effaced.

12-The all-powerful love of My Heart will grant to all those who shall receive Communion on the First Friday of nine consecutive months the grace of final repentance; they shall not die under My displeasure, nor without receiving their Sacraments; My heart shall be their assured refuge at that last hour.

Saint Margaret Mary, pray for us.

Leaves...

"The leaves fall patiently.

Nothing remembers or grieves.

The river takes to the sea

The yellow drift of leaves."

- Sara Teasdale

Sticks and stones...

Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause.”

--Victor Hugo

The Prayer of Saint Teresa of Avila

"Let nothing disturb you.
Let nothing frighten you.
All things pass away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
He who has God
finds he lacks nothing;
God alone suffices."

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us

"O Wild West Wind, Thou breath of Autumn's being,

Thou who from whose unseen presence the leaves dead

Are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing..."

--from Ode to the West Wind by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Sing along

Oh, can you hear me sing to you?

You're far away: yes, that is true.

But still I sing, and all along

I wonder if you hear my song;

and hope that if you really do

that you will start to sing it, too.

Duty, Honor, Country--Story of a Catholic Confederate Chaplain

An excellent post from: http://catholic-caveman.blogspot.com/2009/10/did-you-know.html#links

A Song in October

"Clouds gather, treetops toss and sway;

But pour us wine, an old one!

That we may turn this dreary day

To golden, yes, to golden!

Autumn has come, but never fear,

Wait but a little while yet,

Spring will be here, the skies will clear,

And fields stand deep in violets.

The heavenly blue of fresh new days

Oh, friend, you must employ them

Before they pass away. Be brave!

Enjoy them; oh, enjoy them!"

- Theodor Storm

"O, wind..."

“O, wind, if winter comes, can spring be far behind?”

--Percy Bysshe Shelley

The Lair of the Catholic Cavemen: Forced Organ Donation in the U.S.A.

Please view this extremely inportant post on forced organ donation in the U.S.A.:


The Lair of the Catholic Cavemen


Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

Our Lady of Fatima

July 13, 1917--

"Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: 'O my Jesus, it is for love of Thee, in reparation for the offences committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and for the conversion of poor sinners.' "

--Our Lady of Fatima

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Story Book

How beautifully it all began,

the story book of you and me.

Our words ran through the pages

like the river to the sea.

Ebb and flow--the waves were

stronger than I thought they'd be.

The wind grew cold; night followed day.

Then suddenly you closed the book.

How could the story end this way?

Let us think...

“Have no fear of robbers or murderers. They are external dangers, petty dangers. We should fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices the real murderers. The great dangers are within us. Why worry about what threatens our heads or purses? Let us think instead of what threatens our souls.”
--Victor Hugo

Crosses

"The crosses with which our path through life is strewn associate us with Jesus in the mystery of His crucifixion."
--St. John Eudes

Eternal Light

"Life may change, but it may fly not;
Hope may vanish, but can die not;
Truth be veiled, but still it burneth;
Love repulsed, - but it returneth.”
---Percy Bysshe Shelley

Jewels

“On the motionless branches of some trees,
autumn berries hung like clusters of coral beads,
as in those fabled orchards where the fruits were jewels . . .”

- Charles Dickens

Fire

To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.”

--Victor Hugo

The first frost...

"I see, when I bend close, how each leaflet of a climbing rose is bordered with frost, the Autumn counterpart of the dewdrops of Summer dawns. The feathery leaves of yarrow are thick with silver rime and dry thistle heads rise like goblets plated with silver catching the sun."

-- Edwin Way Teale

The Nightingale and the Rose

"She said that she would dance with me if I brought her red roses," cried the young Student; "but in all my garden there is no red rose."