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Before the Eucharistic Christ I know that numerous popular devotions held in church before the Blessed Sacrament have been swept away as by a tornado. I know that in the laudable effort to highlight the Eucharistic Liturgy and therefore emphasize the altar, the tabernacle has been almost put out of sight, hidden away, as though Christ's Eucharistic Presence continuing after Mass and between Masses were something to be apologized for. I know there are speakers and writers who say things about the Real Presence which obscure the fact that Jesus Christ is really, truly and substantially present in the Blessed Sacrament not only during Mass or at Communion time but all the time, as long as the sacred elements remain. |
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and Suffering If God gives you an abundant harvest of trials, it is a sign of the great holiness which He desires you to obtain. |
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and the Grace of God Without prayer we will lose the divine life we possess, and more obviously, we shall not grow in the life we already have. In other words, no prayer, no salvation…we need to pray…because we have a fallen human nature… |
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Perfect Prayer By every standard of comparison, the most popular prayer in existence is the Our Father. Not only Catholics and Protestants, but Mohammedans and Jews, admire the Lord's Prayer for its intrinsic beauty, and declare it to be the finest expression of Christian spirituality. An interesting sidelight on this popularity is furnished by the numerous polyglot collections of the Our Father which have been published at various times since the invention of printing. The most famous are those of John Chamberlayne in the early eighteenth century (in 150 different languages), and of Padre Hervaz (in 307 dialects and tongues), first published in 1787. |
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1: The Divine Office as the Church's Prayer of Praise and Intercession One of the most providential developments in the Catholic Church, through the Second Vatican Council, has been the extraordinary emphasis on the Liturgy in the life of the faithful: priests, religious and the laity. Unfortunately this liturgical renewal has not always been wisely interpreted. Not the least problem affecting the Church today is the misreading of what the Council taught and, in some instances, a positive indifference to, by now, the extensive teaching of the Holy See on how the Sacred Liturgy is to be celebrated and what norms are to be followed if the inspired directives of the Church's latest and most comprehensive ecumenical gathering are to bear the fruit desired by the Holy Spirit. |
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The Divine Office as Liturgy But we return to our original postulate: that there is special need to see how the Divine Office is indeed a form of the Divine Liturgy. So concerned is the Church to have us know this that she has now consciously given us two equally valid names for the same spiritual exercise, namely, the Divine Office and the Liturgy of the Hours. |
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The Divine Office as a Form of Sacrifice There is more than passing value in reflecting on the Divine Office as a form of sacrifice. For one thing, we know that for anything to be pleasing to God it must be sacrificial; it must cost us something. A self-satisfying gift is a cheap gift. And the Divine Office should not be a cheap gift to God. |
| The Way of the Cross During many centuries pious Christians went as pilgrims to Jerusalem, but when the Holy land was taken over by the Moslems these pilgrimages ceased. As a result, in many parts of Europe the custom arose of placing pictures in churches, representing the journey to Calvary. Probably the first to do this was Blessed Alvarez, a Dominican, at Cordova in Spain. About 1350 the Franciscans adopted the practice in Italy and even today the privilege of erecting the stations of the Cross belongs by apostolic indult to the Order of Friars Minor. |
| With Jesus in Gethsemane All three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) give us a detailed account of Christ’s agony in the Garden of Olives, known in Hebrew as "Gethsemane", which means "the garden of the oil press." My purpose in this meditation is to select three passages from the Gospel narratives of Christ’s agony, quote the words in each case, and then apply the inspired words to ourselves. In each case there will be a brief subtitle. |
| Prayer of Admiration and Praise No doubt many people, maybe most people, most of the time when they pray are asking God for a favor, whether something they want, or to be protected from something they don't want. But is that all there is to prayer, or more exactly, is this the highest form of prayer in which we can engage, the prayer in which we tell God, "Lord, come to my assistance; make haste to help me"? |
| The Meaning of Prayer Prayer is the sublime conversation we are mysteriously able to hold with the invisible world of God and of God’s angels and saints. It is sublime because that is what we are preparing for during our stay on earth. Prayer is the one activity that will not be interrupted by death, but will continue in heaven, never to end. |
| What Is Prayer Before the Blessed Sacrament? In the present conference I suggest that we ask two questions. What is prayer before the Blessed Sacrament? What are we talking about? And then, why is prayer before the Blessed Sacrament? What are we talking about? And then, why is prayer before the Blessed Sacrament so important in the spiritual life of the priest, the religious and the believing faithful Catholic? |
| Prayer Before the Blessed Sacrament When we speak of the Blessed Sacrament, we can mean the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist or the Holy Communion that we receive during the Eucharistic Liturgy. And the language of Catholicism does not separate the two, even while it distinguishes them. My present purpose is to look as closely as we can at one practice of Catholic piety that represents a real development of doctrine in the history of the Church, namely the practice of praying before the Blessed Sacrament, either exposed on the altar or reserved in the tabernacle. |
| The Value of Prayer and Sacrifice for Priests I would like to address myself to the subject of the value of prayer and sacrifice for priests – the value of prayer and sacrifice for priests. If there was ever a need to pray and sacrifice for priests for their preservation and sanctity it is today. It is not exaggeration to say that the Catholic priesthood in countries like our own is going through the most difficult ordeal in the Church's history. That is no exaggeration. We have lost well over ten thousand priests in the United States since the close of the Vatican Council. |
| Adoration and Praise in Our Prayer Asking the average person what prayer means he might say, "it is asking God for what we need." That answer is correct but not adequate. Many people when they pray are asking God for some favor, either what they want or something they wish to avoid. They are sick and they are asking for health. They may be facing a difficult situation and they are asking for light and strength to cope, or confused, they are asking for guidance, or fearful, they are asking for courage. This is true for God often sends us trials to keep us humbly dependent on His help. He well knows that if everything went well too often, we would become independent and not likely to pray. |
| Our Lady of the Rosary - Marian Retreat - Introduction We’re about to begin what we are calling a Marian Retreat. I chose, and I trust Our Lady is pleased; our focus will be on Our Lady of the Rosary. So the next logical question is, why a retreat on Our Lady of the Rosary? There are many series of reasons and I think it is well to go over, at least, some of the reasons; for the underlying reason, for the more clearly we understand why we are doing something, the more strongly we will be motivated to do it well. We should then, first reason, make a retreat on Our Lady of the Rosary because there is no single form of Catholic piety outside of the Holy Eucharist as Real Presence, as Holy Communion, and as the Sacrifice of the Mass; there is no other form of Catholic piety that has been more frequently and earnestly, and the weakest verb I can use is, encouraged by the Vicars of Christ than devotion to the Holy Rosary. Why? |
| Our Lady of the Rosary - Marian Retreat - History of the Rosary Of course, Saint Dominic had a great deal with making the Rosary, not only well-known but spread throughout the Catholic world beginning in the early thirteenth century. But our concentration will rather be on what we call the development of the doctrine about Our Lady because except for this growth or progress in Marian doctrine, devotion to the Holy Rosary would not have become what it now is, belonging to the foundations of our Catholic piety. |
| Our Lady of the Rosary - Marian Retreat - An Effective Way of Praying the Rosary There then has been a growth in what we call dogmatic progress in each of the fifteen mysteries of the Holy Rosary. What is less well known, however, is that some of the great devotees of Mary have written extensively on the different ways that they have prayed the Rosary. What they have to say is worth hearing. What is probably least well known is that, on occasion, even the Vicars of Christ have volunteered to describe how they personally have found helpful directives for reciting the Rosary of Our Lady. |
| Our Lady of the Rosary - Marian Retreat - Joyful Mysteries - The Annunciation We’re now ready to begin the reflection on the Mysteries of the Holy Rosary and the first, obviously, is The Annunciation. We might begin by observing that there is no single event in the Gospels that has inspired more artists and more poets than the scene described in St. Luke’s Gospel which is the First Mystery, not only of the Rosary, but of Christianity. What we will do now is go over each of the elements in the events described by the Evangelist. Then following Pope John XXIII’s recommendation, do some reflection on the meaning of these elements described by St. Luke and then, most practically, apply especially two lessons to our own spiritual lives. |
| Our Lady of the Rosary - Marian Retreat - Joyful Mysteries - The Visitation Our present conference is on the second Joyful Mystery, the Visitation of Our Lady. This mystery is really two mysteries in one. First the Visitation itself and then the Magnificat which Mary said - or as we may believe - sang on the first day she visited Elizabeth. Our conference plans to cover both mysteries and in both cases simultaneously as we go along, first the Visitation and then the Magnificat, reflect on the meaning and apply the mystery to our lives. |
| Our Lady of the Rosary - Marian Retreat - Joyful Mysteries - The Birth of Jesus Our present meditation is on the Third Joyful Mystery, The Birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. We shall take the whole story of Our Lord’s Birth at Bethlehem as one unit and concentrate on certain features of the event. Features, I should add, that now for centuries the great spiritual masters of Christianity have identified with Bethlehem. The features of Bethlehem on which we shall prayerfully reflect are: the Significance of Bethlehem, the Silence of Bethlehem and the Simplicity of Bethlehem. I find over the years whenever is possible to use alliteration it helps people remember. |
| Our Lady of the Rosary - Marian Retreat - Joyful Mysteries - The Presentation Our present reflections on the Fourth Joyful Mystery: The Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple. The narrative as described by St. Luke is one of the longest, sustained stories about Jesus in the Gospels. In sequence: St. Luke gives us the account of the Annunciation, then of Mary’s Visitation, then of Christ’s Birth in Bethlehem, then of His Circumcision on the eighth day and finally at great length, Jesus’ Presentation in the Temple by Mary and Joseph. We might remind ourselves, and this will be the logic we’ll follow in this presentation. There are four events in sequence. There is first the fact that Mary’s days of purification were completed. Then the actual Presentation of Christ in the Temple. Third, Simeon, both his Nunc Dimittis and his prophecy to Our Lady; then several verses about Anna, the Prophetess, and then one verse that Jesus, Mary and Joseph left Jerusalem and returned to Nazareth in Galilee. |
| Our Lady of the Rosary - Marian Retreat - Joyful Mysteries - Christ Being Found in the Temple This Fifth Joyful Mystery of the Rosary is a mixture of joy and sorrow. You might say it is the link that joins the Joyful Mysteries with the Sorrowful Mysteries that are to follow. It is also the last mystery of Christ’s hidden life before He began His public ministry at the age of thirty. What I’d thought I'd do is first review each detail which occasioned Christ’s going to the Temple with Mary and Joseph and then being found there three days later. |
| Our Lady of the Rosary - Marian Retreat - Sorrowful Mysteries - Christ's Agony in the Garden With the present conference we begin the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, and the first, of course, is Christ's Agony in the Garden. We begin by observing that there is a profound sense in which Christ began to suffer for the salvation of the world from the moment of His conception in Mary's womb. Moreover, we can legitimately speak of Christ's Passion as beginning, already, with the Last Supper and then ending with His death and burial. Traditionally, however, the Passion of Christ with His Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane and ended with His Crucifixion on Calvary. |
| Our Lady of the Rosary - Marian Retreat - Sorrowful Mysteries - The Scourging of Christ at the Pillar Our present conference is on the second of the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, namely the Scourging of Christ at the Pillar. Not unlike the first mystery, so here the Scourging of Our Lord at the Pillar is covered by all four Evangelists. It might be worth our while briefly going over the account in each Evangelist in sequence, see what each one says so we get what Pope John XXIII told us, to get a picture both physical and I would add, chronological, of what actually occurred. |
| Our Lady of the Rosary - Marian Retreat - Sorrowful Mysteries - Crowning with Thorns Our present meditation is on the third Sorrowful Mystery, Our Lord's Crowning with Thorns. All the events we have indicates that Christ's crowning with thorns during His Passion was not part of either Pilate's legal punishment of Jesus nor, it seems, of the Jews demands for the Savior's humiliation. We may say Christ's Crowning with Thorns came on a sudden inspiration from the devil. All evidence of the Gospels indicates that the crowning with thorns was a spontaneous action on the part of the Roman soldiers stationed at the garrison under Pontius Pilate. Also unlike the Agony in the Garden and Christ's Scourging at the Pillar, the Crowning with Thorns is not narrated by all four Evangelists. To be exact, two of the synoptics Matthew and Mark, and John describe in detail the Crowning with Thorns. |
| Our Lady of the Rosary - Marian Retreat - Sorrowful Mysteries - The Carrying of the Cross This mystery of the Rosary identifies the most important single journey in the history of the human race. It is nothing less we believe than the journey of the Son of God become Man made from the palace of Pontius Pilate to the top of Mount Calvary where He was crucified…In order to do justice to an immense subject, I thought we should separate the narrative of Christ carrying His Cross into two parts. Part one - drawing exclusively on what we find in the Gospels. In part two, what the Church over the centuries of Her Tradition has also added. Then we will conclude, at some length, with the implications of Christ's carrying His Cross for our lives. |
| Our Lady of the Rosary - Marian Retreat - Sorrowful Mysteries - The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus You may legitimately say that the Fifth Sorrowful Mystery is the pivotal mystery of Christianity on which all the other mysteries of our Faith depend. Everything from the moment of the Incarnation was a prelude to the Crucifixion. Everything after the Crucifixion into the endless reaches of eternity stems from and depends on Christ's death on the Cross. Given our focus in this retreat which is on Our Lady, I thought we should concentrate on Mary's role in the Crucifixion of her Son. Among the four Evangelists only St. John records the fact that Mary, the Mother of Jesus, stood under the Cross near her Son. |
| Our Lady of the Rosary - Marian Retreat - Glorious Mysteries - The Resurrection of Jesus We are now beginning the Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary and the first, Our Lord's Resurrection from the Dead. Seeing how much our Faith depends on Christ's Resurrection, it seems worthwhile subdividing our reflections in this fundamental mystery. Christ's Resurrection, we must say, is not only the First Glorious Mystery of the Rosary; it is the First Mystery of our Faith along with the Savior's Crucifixion on Calvary. Before we get into a more detailed reflection on Easter Sunday it might be to see how the sorrowful mysteries are related to the glorious ones, and more specifically, how Calvary is related to Easter Sunday. Man having sinned and not in the distant past, sinning now and we may be sure continuing to sin until the end of time. The first need and the first meaning of Redemption is redemption from sin. To accomplish that God had to become Man and die on the Cross. But that's only one half. We were not only to be redeemed from sin, we're also to be restored to God's friendship and this Christ did by His Resurrection. Removal from sin achieved on Calvary, restoration to God's grace achieved and begun with Christ's rising from the grave. |
| Our Lady of the Rosary - Marian Retreat - Glorious Mysteries - The Ascension Our present meditation and reflection is on the Second Glorious Mystery, the Ascension of Our Lord from earth to Heaven. With this, the Second Glorious Mystery, we complete our reflections on Christ's sensibly perceptible stay on earth. When God became Man He began His earthly and, I qualify, sensibly perceptible Presence when He was conceived by Mary at Nazareth. As we begin this meditation, I cannot exaggerate the importance of realizing that for thirty some years God became Man and was on earth visibly, sensibly perceptible – that since the Ascension God become Man, I repeat become Man, is indeed in Heaven at the Right hand of His heavenly Father, but He is also and that word also is at the heart of our Catholic Faith – He is also on the earth in the Holy Eucharist. Christ then completed this earthly and I then repeat visibly perceptible stay, He completed this kind of earthly stay on Ascension Thursday forty days after Easter. |
| Our Lady of the Rosary - Marian Retreat - Glorious Mysteries - The Descent of the Holy Spirit The Third Glorious Mystery, is in its way, is the consummation of all the other Mysteries of the Rosary before what began at Nazareth on earth ended at Jerusalem on earth. We may safely say that the Person who came down on Our Lady at Nazareth was the same Divine Person who came down on those awaiting His coming in Jerusalem. At Nazareth the Angel told Our Lady that the Holy Spirit would come upon her so that she would conceive and bear a Son who would be the Son of the Most High. Thus the Holy Spirit began the work of the Incarnation. As the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, Mary became the Mother of God become Man. That was the beginning. Some thirty-three years intervened then the purpose of that first coming of the Holy Spirit on Our Lady was finally fulfilled when He actually descended and the term we should use descended on the Church and has been descending ever since. |
| Our Lady of the Rosary - Marian Retreat - Glorious Mysteries - The Assumption of Our Lady Our present meditation is on the Fourth Glorious Mystery, the Assumption of Our Lady. As we all know the dogma of Mary's Assumption was defined by Pope Pius XII on November 1, 1950. There are so many aspects of this Mystery that we could meditate on. I thought I would choose the three most fundamental. Begin by asking ourselves, what do we believe when we believe that Our Lady was assumed body and soul into Heaven? Then, more briefly, why did the Vicar of Christ just at this time in history define Mary's Assumption? Then, more specifically, within the Pope's teaching, why should Mary have been assumed body and soul into Heaven? And on the practical level, finally, how are we to put this Mystery of Faith into practice? |
| Our Lady of the Rosary - Marian Retreat - Glorious Mysteries - The Coronation of Our Lady But Mary's Coronation took place in Heaven. Our planned scope for this meditation conference will cover the following aspects of what we keep repeating are Mysteries of the Rosary, meaning they are Truths of our Faith that we should try to grow in understanding but we'll never, even into the endless reaches of eternity, fully comprehend. First, what does the Church mean by the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary? Second, why? Why do we honor Mary as Queen and, therefore, commemorate her Coronation in Heaven? And, finally, always back to earth - How should Our Lady's Queenship affect our personal and collective spiritual lives? |
| Our Lady of the Rosary - Marian Retreat - Resolutions in a Marian Retreat But the final purpose of a retreat through now centuries of the Church’s experience is to make - the final purpose of a retreat is to make - a salutary improvement in our lives. And the word salutary means: improvement that conduces to our "salus," to our salvation. So we ask ourselves: How is this improvement to be achieved? In the last six days we’ve covered many aspects of our faith and, as far as possible, always against the background of Our Lady. Suppose we approach this concluding and I would say basic subject from three angles by asking three questions while applying these questions to the meditations we’ve been making for the past week on the Mysteries of the Holy Rosary. |
| For Jesuits: Chapter 1 - Holy is the Lord Chapter 1 of Fr. John A. Hardon's prayer book. |
| For Jesuits: Chapter 2 - Spirit of the Lord Chapter 2 of Fr. John A. Hardon's prayer book. |
| For Jesuits: Chapter 3 - Consecrated to the Lord Chapter 3 of Fr. John A. Hardon's prayer book. |
| For Jesuits: Chapter 4 - Life in the Lord Chapter 4 of Fr. John A. Hardon's prayer book. |
| For Jesuits: Chapter 5 - Service of the Lord Chapter 5 of Fr. John A. Hardon's prayer book. |
| For Jesuits: Chapter 6 - Sacrifice and Sacrament of the Lord Chapter 6 of Fr. John A. Hardon's prayer book. |
| For Jesuits: Chapter 7 - Heart of the Lord Chapter 7 of Fr. John A. Hardon's prayer book. |
| For Jesuits: Chapter 8 - Mother of the Lord Chapter 8 of Fr. John A. Hardon's prayer book. |
| For Jesuits: Chapter 9 - Foster Father of the Lord Chapter 9 of Fr. John A. Hardon's prayer book. |
| For Jesuits: Chapter 10 - Blessed in the Lord Chapter 10 of Fr. John A. Hardon's prayer book. |
| For Jesuits: Chapter 11 - Kingdom of the Lord Chapter 11 of Fr. John A. Hardon's prayer book. |
| The Hail Mary As we know the present Hail Mary is really two prayers, one after the other: the Hail Mary properly so-called, and what not too many centuries ago was called the Holy Mary. Confessors would tell their penitents to recite, say, three or five or whatever the number of Holy Marys. We say it so many times almost subconsciously that if there is correspondingly any one vocal prayer that deserves to be looked at more closely it is this one. My plan is to take this prayer in sequence word for word, or better, term for term, in a prolonged meditation on what its sentiments really mean. |
| The Rosary: A Prayer for All Times - The Indispensible Prayer for Our Times There are so many wonderful things we can say about the Rosary that I thought we should focus on what I sincerely believe. The Rosary is necessary in order to obtain from God the miraculous graces that the world so desperately needs in our day. The moment we say the modern world needs miraculous graces we imply that these graces are indeed to be obtained from God; but they must come through the intercession of the Mother of God. |
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