O Cross of Christ, immortal tree
On which our Saviour died,
The world is sheltered by your arms
That bore the Crucified.

From bitter death and barren wood
the tree of life is made;
Its branches bear unfailing fruit
And leaves that never fade.

Give glory to the risen Christ
And to His Cross give praise,
The sign of God’s unfailing love,
The hope of all our days.

signorcasaubon:

Sanctuary of Maria am Gestade (Saint Mary on the Shore), one of the oldest Gothic churches in the Inner Stadt (Inner City) of Vienna, Austria. The church owes its appellation for being built near the Danube Channel.

Prayer to the Glorious Cross:

I adore You, O glorious Cross, which was adorned with the Heart and Body of my Savior Jesus Christ, stained and covered with blood. I adore You, O Holy Cross, out of love for Him, Jesus, who is my Saviour and my God.

(Pope Pius IX declared that reciting this prayer five times on Friday will free five souls from Purgatory and 33 souls by reciting it on Good Friday. This prayer should be recited before a crucifix with a contrite heart and praying a few minutes for the Pope.)

That is why Calvary is erected in the midst of us, and we are on its sacred hill. We were not made to be mere on-lookers, shaking our dice like the executioners of old, but rather to be participants in the mystery of the Cross. If there is any way to picture Judgment in terms of the Mass, it is to picture it in the way the Father greeted His Son, namely, by looking at His hands. They bore the marks of labor, the callouses of redemption, and the scars of salvation. So too when our earthly pilgrimage is over, and we go back to the beginning, God will look at both of our hands. If our hands in life touched the hands of His divine Son they will bear the same livid marks of nails; if our feet in life have trod over the same road that leads to eternal glory through the detour of a rocky and thorny Calvary, they too shall bear the same bruises; if our hearts beat in unison with His, then they too shall show the riven side which the wicked lance of jealous earth did pierce.

—Venerable Abp. Fulton J. Sheen, Calvary and the Mass: The Last Gospel

dmbliss:

High altar of Church of the Advent, Boston, MA

His sacrifice is made our sacrifice by making it the oblation of ourselves in union with Him; His life given for us becomes our life given for Him. Thus do we return from Mass as those who have made their choice, turned their backs upon the world, and become for the generation in which we live other Christs living potent witnesses to the Love that died that we might live with Love. This world of ours is full of half-completed Gothic cathedrals, of half-finished lives and half-crucified souls. Some carry the Cross to Calvary and then abandon it; others are nailed to it and detach themselves before the elevation; others are crucified, but in answer to the challenge of the world “Come down,” they come down after one hour… two hours… after two hours and fifty-nine minutes. Real Christians are they who persevere unto the end. Our Lord stayed until He had finished.

The priest must likewise stay at the altar until the Mass is finished. He may not come down. So we must stay with the Cross until our lives are finished. Christ on the Cross is the pattern and model of a finished life. Our human nature is the raw material; our will is the chisel; God’s grace is the energy and the inspiration. Touching the chisel to our unfinished nature we first cut off huge chunks of selfishness, then by more delicate chiselings we dig away smaller bits of egotism until finally only a brush of the hand is needed to bring out the completed masterpiece: a finished man made to the image and likeness of the pattern on the Cross. We are at the altar under the symbol of bread and wine; we have offered ourselves to our Lord; He has consecrated us.

We must therefore not take ourselves back, but remain there unto the end, praying unceasingly, that when the lease of our life has ended and we look back upon a life lived in intimacy with the Cross, the echo of the Sixth Word may ring out on our lips: “It is finished.”

And as the sweet accents of that Ite, missa est reach beyond the corridors of Time and pierce the “hid battlements of eternity,” the angel choirs and the white-robed army of the Church Triumphant will answer back: “Deo gratias.”

—Venerable Abp. Fulton J. Sheen, Calvary and the Mass: The Ite, Missa Est

The Mass is that which makes the cross visible to every eye; it placards the Cross at all the crossroads of civilization; it brings Calvary so close that even tired feet can make the journey to its sweet embrace; every hand may now reach out to touch its Sacred Burden, and every ear may hear its sweet appeal, for the Mass and the Cross are the same. In both there is the same offering of a perfectly surrendered will of the beloved Son, the same Body broken, the same Blood flowed forth, the same Divine Forgiveness. All that has been said and done and acted during Holy Mass is to be taken away with us, lived, practiced, and woven into all the circumstances and conditions of our daily lives.

—Venerable Abp. Fulton J. Sheen, Calvary and the Mass: The Ite, Missa Est

christianitas:

Misa en el Wolchov, 1943.

The Pauline injunction bids us fill up in our body the sufferings wanting to the Passion of Christ. We must therefore bring a spirit of sacrifice to the Eucharistic table; we must bring the mortification of our lower self, the crosses patiently borne, the crucifixion of our egotisms, the death of our concupiscence, and even the very difficulty of our coming to Communion. Then does Communion become what it was always intended to be, namely, a commerce between Christ and the soul, in which we give His Death shown forth in our lives, and He gives His Life shown forth in our adopted sonship? We give Him our time; He gives us His eternity. We give Him our humanity; He gives us His divinity. We give Him our nothingness; He gives us His all.

—Venerable Abp. Fulton J. Sheen, Calvary and the Mass: The Communion

But the more penitent we are, the less anxious we are to escape our cross. The more we see ourselves as we are, the more we say with the good thief: “I deserved this cross.” He did not want to be excused; he did not want to have his sin explained away; he did not want to be let off; he did not ask to be taken down. He wanted only to be forgiven. He was willing even to be a small host on his own little cross — but that was because he was penitent. Nor is there given to us any other way to become little hosts with Christ in the Mass than by breaking our hearts with sorrow; for unless we admit we are wounded how can we feel the need of healing? Unless we are sorry for our part in the Crucifixion, how could we ever ask to be forgiven its sin?

—Venerable Abp. Fulton J. Sheen, Calvary and the Mass: The Offertory

Fifty Years at the Altar
poem by Rev. Father Abram Joseph Ryan, C.M.
for Rev. Father E. Sourin, S.J.

To-day — fifty years at the altar —
Thou art, as of old, at thy post!
Tell us, O chasubled soldier!
Art weary of watching the Host?
Fifty years — Christ’s sacred sentry,
To-day thy feet faithful are found
When the cross on the altar is blessing
Thy heart in its sentinel-round.

The beautiful story of Thabor
Fifty years agone thrilled thy young heart,
When wearing white vestments of glory,
And up the “high mountain apart”.
In the fresh, glowing grace of thy priesthood,
Thou didst climb to the summit alone,
While the Feast of Christ’s Transfiguration
Was a sweet outward sign of thy own.

Old priest! on the slope of the summit
Did float down and fall on thine ear
The strong words of weak-hearted Peter.
“O Lord, it is good to be here!”
Thy heart was stronger than Peter’s,
And sweeter the tone of thy prayer;
‘Twas Calvary thy young feet were climbing,
And old — thou art still standing there.

For you, as for him, on bright Thabor,
Forever to stay were not hard;
But when Calvary girdles the altar,
And garments the Eucharist’s guard
With sacrifice and with its shadows —
To keep there forever a feast
Is the glory and grace of the human —
The altar, the cross, and the priest.

The crucifix’s wardens and watchers,
Like Him, must be heart sacrificed —
The Christ on the crucifix lifeless
For guard needs a brave human Christ.
To guard Him three hours — what a glory!
With sacrifice splendors aflame!
Three hours — and He died on His Calvary —
How long hast thou lived for His name?

“Half a century,” cries out thy crucifix,
Binding together thy beads;
His look, like thy life, lingers in it,
A light for men’s souls in their needs.
Old priest! is thy life not a rosary?
Five decades and more have been said,
In thy heart the warm splendors of Thabor
Beneath the white snows of thy head!

Fifty years lifting the chalice —
Ah, ‘tis Life in this death-darkened land!
Thy clasp may be weak, but the chrism,
Old priest! that anointed thy hand
Is as fresh and as strong in its virtue
As in the five decades agone
Thy young hands were touched with its unction,
And thy vestments of white were put on.

Fifty years! Every day passes
A part of one great, endless feast,
That moves round its orbit of Masses,
And hath nor a West nor an East;
But everywhere hath its pure altars,
At each of its altars a priest
To lift up a Host with a chalice
Till the story of grace shall have ceased.

Fifty years in the feast’s orbit,
Nearly two thousand of days;
Fifty years priest in the priesthood,
Fifty years lit with its rays —
Lit them but to reflect them
When the adorers’ throngs pass
Out of thy life and its glory
Shining each day from thy Mass.

Half of a century’s service!
Wearing thy cassock of black
O’er thy camps, and thy battles, and triumphs!
Old soldier of Jesus! look back
To the day when thou kissed thy first altar
In love with youth’s fervor athrill.
From the day when we meet and we greet thee,
So true to the old altar still.

Fifty long years! what if trials
Did oftentimes darken thy way —
They marked, like the shadows on dials,
Thy soul’s brightest hour every day.
The sun in the height of his splendor,
By the mystical law of his light,
O’er his glories flings vestments of shadows,
And, sinking, leaves stars to the night.

Old priest! with the heart of a poet
Thou hast written sweet stanzas for men;
Thy life, many versed, is a poem
That puzzles the art of the pen;
The crucifix wrote it and writes it —
A scripture too deep for my ken;
A record of deeds more than sayings —
Only God reads it rightly; and then

My stanzas are just like the shadows
That follow the sun and his sheen,
To tell to the eye that will read them
Where the purest of sunshine has been.
Thy life moves in mystical eclipse,
All hidden from men and their sight;
We look, but we see but its surface,
But God sees the depth of its light.

Twenty-five years! highest honors
Were thine — high deserved in the world:
Dawned a day with a grace in its flashing
O’er thy heart from a standard unfurled,
Whose folds bore the mystical motto:
“To the greater glory of God!”
And somehow there opened before thee
A way thou hadst never yet trod.

Twenty-five years — still a private
In files where the humblest and last
Stands higher in rank than the highest
Of those who are passing or passed;
Twenty-five years in the vanguard,
Whose name is a spell of their strength,
The light of the folds of whose standard
Lengthens along all the length

Of the march of the Crucified Jesus.
Loyola was wiser than most
In claiming for him and his soldiers
The name of the Chief of the host;
His name, and his motto, and colors
That never shall know a defeat,
Whose banner, when others are folded,
Shall never float over retreat.

To-day when the wind wafts the wavelets
To the gray altar steps of yon shore,
Each wearing an alb foam-embroidered,
And kneeling, like priests, to adore
The God of the land — I will mingle
My prayers, aged priest! with the sea,
While God, for thy fifty years’ priesthood,
Will hear thy prayers whispered for me.

______________________________________

Today Fr Gregory Jordan SJ’s Golden Jubilee is being celebrated!
Do say a Hail Mary for this excellent, faithful priest =D

catholicsoul:

It is I who am offered up each day on the altar, true God and true man, under the appearance of bread.

-Jesus to St. Bridget of Sweden

tradcatproblems:

Picture then the High Priest Christ leaving the sacristy of heaven for the altar of Calvary. He has already put on the vestment of our human nature, the maniple of our suffering, the stole of priesthood, the chasuble of the Cross. Calvary is his cathedral; the rock of Calvary is the altar stone; the sun turning to red is the sanctuary lamp; Mary and John are the living side altars; the Host is His Body; the wine is His Blood. He is upright as Priest, yet He is prostrate as Victim. His Mass is about to begin.

—Venerable Abp. Fulton J. Sheen, Calvary and the Mass

schatzkammer:

The inner logic of the Church year:

Dec. 26: St. Stephen—Martyr in will and deed
Dec. 27: St. John—Martyr in will, not in deed
Dec. 28: Holy Innocents—Martyrs not in will, but in deed 

For our sake Christ offered himself to the Father upon the altar for the cross. He now looks down from heaven on our actions and secret thoughts, and one day he will give each of us the reward his deeds deserve. It must therefore be our endeavour to destroy the right of sin and death, and by nurturing faith and uprightness of life, to build up the Church of Christ into a holy temple of the Lord. The harvest is good and one reaper or even several would not suffice to gather all of it into the granary of the Lord. Yet the Roman Church remains the head of all the churches and the source of Catholic teaching. Of this there can be no doubt. Everyone know that the keys of the kingdom of heaven were given to Peter. Upon his faith and teaching the whole fabric of the Church will continue to be built until we all reach full maturity in Christ and attain to unity in faith and knowledge of the Son of God. Of course many are needed to plant and many to water now that the faith has spread so far and the population become so great. Nevertheless, no matter who plants or waters, God gives no harvest unless what he plants is the faith of Peter, and unless he himself assents to Peter’s teaching. All important questions that arise among God’s people are referred to the judgment of Peter in the person for the Roman Pontiff. Under him the ministers of Mother Church exercise the powers committed to them, each in his own sphere of responsibility. Remember then how our fathers worked out their salvation; remember the sufferings through which the Church has grown, and the storms the ship of Peter has weathered because it has Christ on board. Remember how the crown was attained by those whose sufferings gave new radiance to their faith. The whole company of saints bears witness to the unfailing truth that without real effort no one wins the crown.

—from a letter by St Thomas Becket

“Jesus will be in agony until the end of the world;
we must not sleep during that time.”
—Blaise Pascal, Pensées

†
[Fr. Michel-Marie, a Cassock in Deep Marseille]

St Kathryn’s Parish, New Hampshire

When the Apostle Philip asked Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father,” he replied, “Have I been with you all this time, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn 14:8-9). This evening, as we accompany Jesus in our hearts while he makes his way beneath the cross, let us not forget those words. Even as he carries the cross, even in his death on the cross, Jesus remains the Son, who is one with God the Father. When we look upon his face disfigured by beating, weariness and inner suffering, we see the face of the Father. Indeed, it is precisely in this moment that God’s glory, his surpassing splendour, in some way becomes visible on the face of Jesus. In this poor, suffering man whom Pilate, in the hope of eliciting compassion, showed to the Jews with the words “Behold the man!” (Jn 19:5), we see revealed the true greatness of God, that mysterious grandeur beyond all our imagining.

Yet in the crucified Jesus we see revealed another kind of grandeur: our own greatness, the grandeur which belongs to every man and woman by the simple fact that we have a human face and heart. In the words of Saint Anthony of Padua, “Christ, who is your life, hangs before you, so that you can gaze upon the cross as if in a mirror… If you look upon him, you will be able to see the greatness of your dignity and worth… Nowhere else can we better recognise our own value, than by looking into the mirror of the cross” (Sermones dominicales et festivi, III, pp. 213-214). Jesus, the Son of God, died for you, for me, for each of us. In this way he gave us concrete proof of how great and precious we are in the eyes of God, the only eyes capable of seeing beyond all appearances and of peering into the depths of our being.

—Camillo Cardinal Ruini, Meditation on the Way of the Cross, Good Friday 2010

Mount Calvary is the academy of love.

—St Francis de Sales

Today is the Feast of the Dedication of St John Lateran (Archbasilica of the Most Holy Saviour and Sts John the Baptist and the Evangelist at the Lateran), the Mother of all Churches and seat of Christendom.

Today is also the 9^th anniversary of my Confirmation, and the dies natalis of Bl. Elizabeth of the Trinity (Saint of the Divine Indwelling), whose memorial was celebrated yesterday.

Plus the 14^th anniversary of the Elevation of the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate to an Institute of Pontifical Right.

This is my 1000^th post.

God bless you, each and every one!

Please pray for the repose of the soul of my godma’s mother Annie, who passed away peacefully at the age of 95 while her children and grandchildren prayed the Litany of the Precious Blood. Gratias tibi ago =)