Don’t forget to pray for the souls of the dead today. Here’s a refresher on the doctrine of purgatory from Catholic Answers.
Far from being a medieval invention, praying for the dead was a Jewish practice that pre-dated Christ by at least a couple of centuries. The early Christian Fathers believed in purgatory, though they did not treat it in the detailed, systematic way that the medieval theologians did. C.S. Lewis believed in purgatory — “The Screwtape Letters” contains a reference to it in the final chapter.
Category: Devotions
Prayers to the Sacred Heart (4)
Lord whose heart is full of love
Since you given yourself over to us entirely, by a love without limits, we want to consecrate ourselves to you, to open ourselves and give ourselves, without any reserve, to your heart.
We desire this consecration as an irrevocable act by which you may totally take possession of us, for everything your love demands.
We want to belong to you through the depth of our being, to offer you our thoughts, our desires, our actions, so that you may render them perfectly conformed to the thoughts, the desires, the decisions of your heart.
We want to abandon to you our past, our present, and our future, so that everything in us become your property, and that our life, at every instant, be placed under the influence of your love.
By ourselves, we would not have the strength to make our consecration total and definitive; we await from your heart that it take us in our depths, and guard us forever in its fidelity.
May this consecration, made real by you, fill us with the limitless generosity of your love!
–by Jean Galot, SJ
CDF caution about “Lady of All Nations” prayer
A case of alleged supernatural messages in Amsterdam in the 1950s reportedly had our Lady presenting herself to the faithful under the title of “the Lady of all Nations” and asking the Pope to make a declaration of dogma about her as Co-redemptrix, Mediatrix, and Advocate. These titles are already well established in Catholic thought, and have an interesting application to the role of the Church as a means of grace and salvation, but with so many cases of false mysticism about, one has to be careful about signing on to some particular movement’s proposals for the Church.
This May, the CDF (the Vatican’s doctrinal office) has given a warning about one aspect of that “Lady of All Nations” devotion: a prayer associated with the messages, and found on Catholic sites such as EWTN’s, raises the CDF’s caution and is not to be used.
Abp. Angelo Amato, SDB, the secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, wrote on May 20:
With regard to the devotion known as ‘Lady of All Nations’ and the Marian apparitions experienced by the late visionary Ida Peerdeman, I wish to advise Your Excellency that although the said apparitions have received approval from His Excellency the Most Rev. Joseph Maria Punt, Bishop of Haarlem (Holland), in his Communications of 31 May 2002, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has expressed concern regarding one particular aspect of that devotion whereby official prayers invoke the Blessed Virgin as Lady of All Nations ‘who was once Mary’…..[The CDF] does not permit any Catholic community of Christ’s Faithful to pray to the Mother of God under the title of ‘Lady of All Nations’ with the added expression ‘who was once Mary’.
(Thanks to Mark Waterinckx for the tip.)
PS (2020): Since the original posting is no longer on the net, here’s a copy of the text:
Vatican rejects prayer to “Lady of All Nations”
SAN PABLO CITY – The Vatican City’s Congregatio Pro Doctrina Fidei (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) [CPDF] does not permit any Catholic community of Christ’s faithful in the country and throughout the world “to pray to the Mother of God” under the title of ‘Lady of All Nations’ with the added phrase ‘who was once Mary’.
This was the response received by the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) for the entire People of God, in the country concerning the “form of devotion being promoted in our country known as ‘Lady of All Nations'”, a copy of which the Barangay obtained.
“With regard to the devotion known as ‘Lady of All Nations’ and the Marian apparitions experienced by the late visionary Ida Peerdeman, I wish to advise Your Excellency that although the said apparitions have received approval from His Excellency the Most Rev. Joseph Maria Punt, Bishop of Haarlem (Holland), in his Comunications of 31 May 2002, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has expressed concern regarding one particular aspect of that devotion whereby official prayers invoke the Blessed Virgin as Lady of All Nations ‘who was once Mary'”, wrote Most Rev. Angelo Amato SDB, the CPDF secretary.
Amato, the Titular Archbishop of Sila, Italy added: “In fact, this Dicastery, in a letter to His Excellency, The Most Rev. Francois Bacque, Apostolic Nuncio to the Netherlands, has indicated that Marian devotion must be nourished and developed in accordance with the indications given by the Holy Father in “Redemptoris Mater” and “Rosarium Virginis Mariae” and not according to private apparitions nor according to a ‘new’ name of Mary, such as “Lady of All Nations who was once Mary”.
“Your Excellency,” the CPDF said, “is requested to take into consideration the above mentioned advisory and inform the members of the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of the Philippines that the CPDF does not permit any Catholic community of Christ’s Faithful to pray to the Mother of God under the title of ‘Lady of All Nations’ with the added expression ‘who was once Mary’.
Arch. Amato said: Regarding the “Messages of God the Father” to Mother Eugenia Elisabetta Ravasio, “I wish to inform you that it is not the usual practice of this Congregation to give official approval to presumed supernatural messages. Mother Ravasio, who passed away in 1990, was the Superior General of the “Soeurs Missionaries de Notre-Dame des Apotres”.
The religious Institute founded in Lyon (France) in 1876 by Augustine Planque, was initially recognized by the Bishop of Grenoble and later became an Institute of Pontifical Right. The Generelate is now located in Rome and its members are active in many countries, especially in Africa.
The CBCP’s Chair of the Commission on the Doctrine of the Faith, Most Rev. Luis Antonio Tagle, Bishop of Imus, issued a copy of the CPDF’s letter dated 20 may 2005 to San Pablo Diocesan Bishop Leo M. Drona, DD, which the prelate in turn reproduced and endorsed in a circular dated July 15, 2005 for about 150 priests and religious in the diocese for them to instruct the entire People of God in Laguna concerning the devotion in question.
Courtesy of The Barangay.
Onward Mary’s Soldiers
[I have received a lot of feedback from Canadian readers over a couple of my recent
Of Canons & Culture
Onward Mary’s Soldiers
Pete Vere
I decided to break from writing about Canadian politics in this month’s column. After all, there is only so much I can write about the ongoing homosexual persecution of Christianity in my country. In a nutshell, the situation is worse than it was last month. Certain friends of the fairer gender tell me that reflecting upon Canada’s moral decline is the closest thing I as a male conservative will experience to the pains of childbirth.
Yet all analogies break down at a certain point, and this comes after a long and arduous labour. There is simply no joy to Canada’s birth as a homosexual nation. Rather than welcome new life into loving families, the culture of death advances its agenda of abortion, homosexuality, pornography and other vile perversions. (Oops…committing this last sentence to paper is technically a felony in Canada.) Our clergy will likely find themselves jailed within the next two to three years for teaching the catechism. As my friend Raymond likes to say, “It’s payback for contraception and the Winnipeg Statement; the chickens are coming home to roost.” At the same time, because of contraception, our young people are not.
Not too long ago, I found myself down in Alabama with Dr. Charles Rice. As the discussion turned to Canada’s culture war, Dr. Rice offered the following insight: “You cannot win the political war until you win the culture war.” This got me thinking about one of Dom Gerard Calvet’s challenges in Tomorrow Christendom.
“Jesus has his disciples,” the abbot writes, “and Satan, his agents. The empire of darkness recruits its workers, and puts to use gigantic technical means. And what about us, Lord? Shouldn’t we do everything in our power to place at Your service all the resources available to us on this poor earth that You visited?”
These resources, of course, begin with prayer. The more I ponder the words of Dr. Rice and Dom Gerard, the more my hand finds its way to my pocket. This is where I keep my rosary. It is very special to me as it was a gift from my buddy Greg Willits who knotted it from blue twine. Greg is the founder of RosaryArmy.com – a Catholic apostolate that teaches people how to knot rosaries.
As Greg shared with me in a recent discussion, “All of us who founded RosaryArmy.com are practising Catholics. We all try our best to remain faithful to the teachings of the Catholic Church, the Holy Father, and the Magisterium. We also welcome Christians of other denominations to learn about the power of the Rosary and it’s core essence as a meditation on the life of Jesus Christ.”
The members of RosaryArmy.com knot and give away over a thousand rosaries each month. They use a nylon twine that is strong, flexible, and water-proof. It is a perfect fit with my Northern Ontario lifestyle. My rosary must fit in my pocket, tough the rugged Canadian wilderness and the cold Canadian winter, and survive the curiosity of young children. Greg’s rosaries meet all of these conditions. I also find them more aesthetically pleasing – to both the eye and the touch – than rosaries strung together from plastic beads. Not that there is anything wrong with plastic rosaries.
I asked Greg why the RosaryArmy.com knots and distributes their twine rosaries for free when the same rosary often retails for ten-to-fifteen bucks. “Our goal is to get people to pray the Rosary,” Greg replied. “Plastic bead Rosaries are easy to find and are frequently given away in parishes, but there’s something unique about a knotted Rosary that draws people to it and makes people want to pray it. To us, that makes giving them away even more important. If the price of a nice Rosary is keeping you from praying it, then we want to remove that obstacle by giving you a nice rosary.”
Receiving a twine rosary is nice, but making them is much more fun. Hundreds of Catholics have downloaded instructions for knotting twine rosaries from RosaryArmy.com’s website. The instructions are free and easy to follow. They make a wonderful project for homeschoolers, Catholic youth groups, and the parish rosary society. You can even order a DVD in which Greg shows you how to knot each decade of the rosary.
No special twine is needed; you can simply purchase from most craft stores. A ten dollar spool yields an average of twenty-five rosaries. Given the state of North American culture, this is not a bad investment. For only through the intercession of Our Lady, Queen of All Virtue, can we undue the damage wrought by sexual vice.
For more information on Rosary Army, please visit RosaryArmy.com
From the diary of St. Faustina
O day of eternity, O day so long desired,
With thirst and longing, my eyes search you out.
Soon love will tear the veil asunder,
And you will be my salvation.
O day most beautiful, moment incomprehensible,
When for the first time I shall see my God,
The Bridegroom of my soul and Lord of lords,
And fear will not restrain my soul.
O day most solemn, O day of brightness,
When the soul will know God in His omnipotence
And drown totally in His love,
Knowing the miseries of exile are o’er.
O happy day, O blessed day,
When my heart will burn for You with fire eternal,
For even now I feel Your presence, though through the veil,
Through life and death, O Jesus, You are my rapture and delight.
O day, of which I dreamed through all my life,
Waiting long for You, O God,
For it is You alone whom I desire,
You are the one and only of my heart; all else is naught.
O day of delight, day of eternal bliss
God of great majesty, my beloved Spouse
You know that nothing will satisfy a virgin heart,
On Your tender Heart I rest my brow.