Author: DWLP

Contemplating the Lord’s passion

From a Sermon of Saint Leo the Great, Pope
Contemplating the Lord’s passion

True reverence for the Lord’s passion means fixing the eyes of our heart on Jesus crucified and recognizing in him our own humanity.

The earth – our earthly nature – should tremble at the suffering of its Redeemer. The rocks – the hearts of unbelievers – should burst asunder. The dead, imprisoned in the tombs of their mortality, should come forth, the massive stones now ripped apart. Foreshadowing’s of the future resurrection should appear in the holy city, the Church of God: what is to happen to our bodies should now take place in our hearts.

No one, however weak, is denied a share in the victory of the cross. No one is beyond the help of the prayer of Christ. His prayer brought benefit to the multitude that raged against him. How much more does it bring to those who turn to him in repentance.

Ignorance has been destroyed, obstinacy has been overcome. The sacred blood of Christ has quenched the flaming sword that barred access to the tree of life. The age-old night of sin has given place to the true light.

The Christian people are invited to share the riches of paradise. All who have been reborn have the way open before them to return to their native land, from which they had been exiled. Unless indeed they close off for themselves the path that could be opened before the faith of a thief.

The business of this life should not preoccupy us with its anxiety and pride, so that we no longer strive with all the love of our heart to be like our Redeemer, and to follow his example. Everything that he did or suffered was for our salvation: he wanted his body to share the goodness of its head.

First of all, in taking our human nature while remaining God, so that the Word became man, he left no member of the human race, the unbeliever excepted, without a share in his mercy. Who does not share a common nature with Christ if he has welcomed Christ, who took our nature, and is reborn in the Spirit through whom Christ was conceived?

Again, who cannot recognize in Christ his own infirmities? Who would not recognize that Christ’s eating and sleeping, his sadness and his shedding of tears of love are marks of the nature of a slave?

It was this nature of a slave that had to be healed of its ancient wounds and cleansed of the defilement of sin. For that reason the only-begotten Son of God became also the son of man. He was to have both the reality of a human nature and the fullness of the godhead.

The body that lay lifeless in the tomb is ours. The body that rose again on the third day is ours. The body that ascended above all the heights of heaven to the right hand of the Father’s glory is ours. If then we walk in the way of his commandments, and are not ashamed to acknowledge the price he paid for our salvation in a lowly body, we too are to rise to share his glory. The promise he made will be fulfilled in the sight of all: Whoever acknowledges me before men, I too will acknowledge him before my Father who is in heaven.

Our Lady of America – News

Events:

First Saturday Mass, March 5 @ 11:00 AM EST
First Saturday Mass, April 2 @ 11:00 AM EST
SAVE THE DATE:
Bishop’s Mass August 6th, 2022 @ 11:00 AM EDT

SAVE THE DATE

Bishop Kevin Rhoades scheduled to offer Holy Mass and bless chapel at Rome City.

Saturday, August 6, 2022, at 11:00 AM EDT, Bishop Kevin Rhoades is scheduled to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass at the Our Lady, Patroness of America Center in Rome City, Indiana.  

This date is both the First Saturday of the month and the Feast of the Transfiguraion.

Please plan to attend to show your support for the devotion to Our Lady, the Immaculate Virgin, Patroness of America. As a community we need to show our appreciation to Bishop Rhoades for establishing the Our Lady, Patroness of America Center as a recognized place of pilgrimage and allowing the Sacraments in the chapel.

He has given Our Lady and Patroness a place where she will provide graces of healing and conversion to those who come seeking her intercession. 

What Bishop Rhoades has done in allowing this devotion to flourish is an exceptional act of pastoral care and faith in the lay faithful. Please come and join with us in offering thanks and prayers for what he has done. And please join us in prayer that Heaven’s plans for this work will be accomplished.

Feast of the Chair of St. Peter 2-22

The Chair of St. Peter, Vatican City, Rome

The “cathedra” (chair) is the throne established where the bishop resides, hence the name cathedral, given to the church where his seat is placed. Metaphorically, it represent the episcopal authority itself.  “The Chair of St. Peter” means, therefore, a memory of St. Peter’s episcopate, and his primacy as head of the Church.

To honor the dignity of the “Prince” to whom Jesus committed the power of the keys, the Church instated the Feast of the “Chair of St. Peter”, which is found in the Roman calendar at this date since the year 336.  

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Book of Heaven
Volume 2 – May 2, 1899
How all Heaven is veiled in the Church.

… He (Jesus) made me (Luisa) see the Church, telling me these exact words: “All Heaven is veiled in my Church. Just as in Heaven one is the head, which is God, and many are the saints, of different conditions, orders and merits, so in my Church, in which all Heaven is veiled, one is the head, which is the Pope, and the Sacrosanct Trinity is veiled even in the triple tiara that covers his head; and many are the members that depend on this head – that is, different dignities, various orders, superior and inferior, from the littlest to the greatest, they all serve to embellish my Church. Each one, according to its degree, has the office entrusted to it, and by the exact fulfillment of the virtues it comes to give from itself a splendor so very fragrant to my Church, that the earth and Heaven are perfumed and illuminated, and the people are so drawn by this light and by this fragrance, that it is almost impossible for them not to surrender to the truth. I leave it to you, then, to consider those infected members which, instead of shedding light, cast darkness. How much torment they cause in my Church.” …

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Excerpt from the Third Appeal
by the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta, the Little Daughter of the Divine Will

… Therefore, I appeal to all; and I make this appeal together with Jesus, with His own tears, with His ardent sighs, with His Heart that burns, that wants to give Its “FIAT.”..From within the “FIAT”  we have come forth; It has given us life.  It is just, it is our obligation and duty to return into It, into our dear and interminable heritage.

And in the first place, I appeal to the Highest Hierarch, to the Roman Pontiff, to His Holiness, to the representative of the Holy Church, and therefore the representative of the Kingdom of the Divine Will.   At his holy feet, this little, tiny child places this Kingdom, so that he dominate It and make It known, and with his paternal and authoritative voice, call his sons to live in this Kingdom so holy.

May the Sun of the Supreme “FIAT”  invest him and form the first Sun of the Divine Volition in Its Representative on earth; and forming Its (Divine Will’s) primary Life in him (the Pope) who is the Head of all, It will spread Its interminable rays in all the world; and eclipsing all with Its Light, It will form one flock and one Shepherd. …