Category: Devotions

(The reception of doctrine)
Good Master
On our shoulders, place your yoke, for this yoke is sweet. All irradiated with your goodness, may your doctrine penetrate deeply into us.
Make us carry your burden, for this burden is light. May your commandments, far from encumbering us, enter into our life in the way of your gentle goodwill.
Make us fulfill your law, for this law frees us and lifts us up. May we never complain of being chained by your word or your will, for you have never wanted chains but those of love!
Make us take up your cross, for this cross has less weight when it is carried by your own shoulders and embraced by your generosity.
Engrave in us your ideal, whatever it may cost us, for in your heart every fatigue is changed into rest and every pain becomes beatitude.
–Jean Galot, S.J.

Would you like to make a pilgrimage to Fatima on foot? If you’re not able for some reason, a man in Portugal is willing to make the journey on your behalf.

For 2,500 euros ($3,169), Pilgrim Gil will make the journey in your place — and send you a certificate stamped along the way to prove he walked your every step.

Carlos Gil, 42, who owns a small computer company, took up this medieval practice four years ago when he suddenly “felt an urge to walk to Fatima” and said charging each client was simply a way to keep doing what he loves.

“I make the trip to Fatima once or twice a year because it elevates my spirit,” said Gil. “Sometimes the trip is so intense that I forget I’m doing it to fulfill my client’s promises.”

Like a true pilgrim, Gil begins his seven-day journey to Fatima on foot from his home in Cascais, a small town on the outskirts of Lisbon, about 160 kilometers from the shrine. It takes him another six days to walk back.

I know, it sounds almost like simony, and it probably trips all the alarms for an Evangelical: not only is it devotion to our Lady, not only is this a medieval devotional practice, but this amounts to vicarious devotional practice: giving someone else a stipend while he does the devotional practice for you! I mean! If it’s not the full Tetzel, it’s close, eh?
But somehow I like the idea: according to Gil, he’s not making a profit off the pilgrimages, just covering his expenses and making up for the time away from his business.

Happy Mardi Gras, and a blessed Ash Wednesday to all. (Well, at least for the Latin Church!) Enjoy your last treats of whatever food you’re giving up, and….
OK, folks: pick your penances!

Take me, O Heart of Christ!
Take me, O Heart of Christ, in all that I am,
take me in all that I have and that I do,
in all that I think and all that I love!
Take me in my spirit, that it may cling to Thee;
take me in my willing, that it will but Thee;
take the depth of my heart, that it love only Thee!
Take me, O Heart of Christ, in my secret desires
so that you be my dream and only goal,
my one affection and my complete happiness!
Take me for the work of Thy great mission,
for a complete gift toward my neighbor’s salvation,
and for every sacrifice in service of your people!
Take me, O Heart of Christ, without limits, without end;
take even what I’ve failed to offer Thee;
and never give back to me what you have taken in hand!
Take for eternity all that is in me,
that one day I may, O Heart, possess Thee,
in the embrace of Heaven take Thee and keep Thee!
–by Jean Galot, S.J.

The first one is a “now but not yet” gift: the Pope’s first encyclical is said to bear Thursday’s date, and I only wish Deus Caritas Est were ready to release. According to CNS, we’ll have to wait until January for it.
But also on Thursday Pope Benedict (gotta love him!) is granting the faithful a special one-time-bonus plenary indulgence, if we join him in honoring our Lady on her Solemnity. Of course, for those of us in the States, where it’s a holy day of obligation, it’ll be easy to fulfill that by our attendance at Mass.

On this Solemnity, when the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI will be paying a public tribute of praise to the Immaculate Virgin, he deeply desires that the heart of the whole Church be united with him so that all the faithful, gathered in the name of our common Mother, may be further strengthened in the Faith, bound with greater devotion to Christ, and love their brothers and sisters with more fervent charity: as the Second Vatican Council taught with great wisdom, this results in works of mercy for the indigent, the observance of justice, and the defence and search for peace.
Therefore, the Holy Father, who has very much at heart that the love and trust of the faithful towards the Virgin Mother of God be increased and that their lives, with the help and example of her holiness, be faithfully conformed to the wise teachings of the Second Vatican Council, in hierarchical communion with himself and with his Bishops, has benevolently granted the gift of the Plenary Indulgence.
On the upcoming Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, the faithful may obtain this Indulgence on the usual conditions (sacramental Confession, Eucharistic Communion and prayer for the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff), in a spirit that is completely detached from affection for any sin, if they participate in a sacred rite in its honour or at least offer an open witness of Marian devotion before an image of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, displayed for public veneration, adding the recitation of the Our Father and the Creed and exclamatory invocations to Mary Immaculate, such as “You are All Fair, Mary, and in you there is no stain of original sin!”, or “O Queen, conceived without original sin, pray for us!”.

Here’s the declaration.