BE VIGILANT. WATCH AND PRAY.

THE SIGNS OF THE END. 

"But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

And then they will see the Son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory.

 And then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

"From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near.

 So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. 

Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away before all these things take place.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

"But of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." (Mark 13: 24 - 32).

Sunday November 17th in the 33rd Week in Ordinary Time. 

We are close to the end of the Liturgical Year. The Gospel is full of foreboding of the End Times. We must learn how to read the signs of the times just as any intelligent person is expected to read the changes in the fig tree to know that summer is near. 

In the South Eastern part of the US from where I am writing this today, there are no fig trees as far as I know. But there are many groundshaking events in politics globally, extreme climactic aberrations, wars and rumors of wars to cause concerns. 

Is the coming of Jesus Christ imminent? 

"Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away before all these things take place." 

Pay careful attention to these because it is prophecy:

"Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away." 

Although it has been 2000 years since the prediction, this may well be the last Hour. 

The reason for the prophecy is to get us prepared through:

1. Vigilant prayer. 

2. Daily Bible study. 

Daily Examination of Conscience. 

3. Frequent Confession.

4. Frequent Holy Communion. 

November is the Month we pray for the Souls in PURGATORY. 

“If it were but known how great is the power of the good souls in Purgatory with the Heart of God, and if we knew all the graces we can obtain through their intercession, they would not be so much forgotten. We must, therefore, pray much for them, that they may pray much for us.” (St. John Vianney). 

For Catholic Church teaching on the Souls in PURGATORY and how to help them, click the link below:

http://seekfirst.blogspot.com/2023/10/10-ways-to-assist-poor-souls-in.html

FEAST OF SAINTS GERTRUDE THE GREAT & MARGARET OF SCOTLAND.

SAINTS GERTRUDE THE GREAT & MARGARET OF SCOTLAND. 

"Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.

He said, “There was a judge in a certain town who neither feared God nor respected any human being. 

And a widow in that town used to come to him and say, ‘Render a just decision for me against my adversary.’

For a long time the judge was unwilling, but eventually he thought, ‘While it is true that I neither fear God nor respect any human being, because this widow keeps bothering me I shall deliver a just decision for her lest she finally come and strike me.’”

The Lord said, “Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says. 

Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them? I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily.

But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18: 1 - 8).

Saturday 16th November 2024, 32nd Week in Ordinary Time. 

Today is the feast of St Gertrude. (1256 - 1301). Virgin and Religious. Gertrude was a German citizen. Known as Gertrude the Great, she was a respected scholar and mystic.

Over 300 years before St Margaret Mary Alacoque, Gertrude, a mystic like Margaret Mary introduced the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Pope Benedict XVI, says that St Gertrude “shows us that the heart of a happy life, of a true life, is friendship with the Lord Jesus.”

Today is also the feast of St Margaret of Scotland (1046 - 1093). Born Hungarian and married to King Malcolm of Scotland. Margaret was the mother of 8 children who raised her children in the fear of the Lord. She is noted especially for her love for the poor. Margaret is the Patroness of Scotland.

In the Gospel of today, 

"Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary."

The Widow in today's Gospel proves that even with God, persistence breaks resistance. So pray always. Pray everywhere. Pray about everything. God hears the prayers of the widow, the orphan and the immigrant. He hears the prayers of all who call on Him in faith and persistence. 

"Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!" (Psalm 27: 14). 

"Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer." (Romans 12: 12).

St Augustine teaches that "God wills that our desire should be exercised in prayer, that we may be able to receive what He is prepared to give."

"It is important to persevere in prayer because if we do, God will not simply answer the prayer, He will reveal His will to us - this is much more important.  Perseverance in prayer reveals the quality of our faith. James says, "I will show you my faith by my works" (James 2:18).

( Anonymous.) 

God could NEVER say NO to any prayer. God promises:

"Ask and you will be given. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you." 

Then God adds: "Whoever asks shall receive..." 

In another passage God promises that "Whatever you ask for shall be given you..." 

For God to say No to a Prayer will be DIVINE INJUSTICE. God is not capable of being unjust. It is one of the greatest lies of Satan to convince us that God is a Liar. He never answers all our prayers, the Great Liar says. 

In the Parable of the Persistent Widow in Luke 18: 1 - 8, Jesus calls failure to answer prayers by God an act of injustice. Read the text below:

"Because this widow keeps bothering me I shall deliver a just decision for her lest she finally come and strike me.’” 6 The Lord said, “Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says. 7 Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them? 8 I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily."

Jesus reveals the power of the Holy Rosary to a Benedictine mystic:

"There are no sufferings that cannot be borne peacefully, so long as a soul is praying the Rosary. Through the Rosary, all the grace and power of My mysteries passes through My Mother’s Immaculate Heart into the hearts of the little ones who invoke her, repeating the angel’s “Ave” over and over again. There are illnesses that can be cured through the Rosary. There are clouds of darkness and confusion that only the Rosary can disperse, and this because it is My Mother’s favourite prayer, a prayer that originated in the heights of heaven and was carried to earth by My Archangel, a prayer echoed and amplified in the Church through the ages, a prayer loved by all My saints, a prayer of disarming power and of immense depth." (IN SINU JESU, Tuesday, December 2, 2014).

November is the Month we pray for the Souls in PURGATORY. 

“Purgatory is simply the place where already saved souls are cleansed of the temporal effects of sin before they are allowed to see the holy face of Almighty God. Revelation 21:27 tells us that “...nothing unclean will enter [Heaven].”

For Catholic Church teaching on the Souls in PURGATORY and how to help them, click the link below:

http://seekfirst.blogspot.com/2023/10/10-ways-to-assist-poor-souls-in.html

THE FEAST OF ST ALBERT THE GREAT. BISHOP AND DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH.

ST Albert the Great, Bishop and Doctor of the Church. 

"[Chosen Lady:] I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth just as we were commanded by the Father.

"But now, Lady, I ask you, not as though I were writing a new commandment but the one we have had from the beginning: let us love one another. For this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, as you heard from the beginning, in which you should walk.

"Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh; such is the deceitful one and the antichrist.

"Look to yourselves that you do not lose what we worked for but may receive a full recompense. Anyone who is so “progressive” as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ does not have God; whoever remains in the teaching has the Father and the Son." (2 John 4 - 9).

Friday 15th November 2024 in  the 32nd week in Ordinary Time is the feast of St Albert the Great OP, Bishop and Doctor of the Church.

 (1206 - 1280) St Albert the Great was German. St Albert belongs to the Order of Preachers (Dominicans). He was an eminent theologian and scientist and Doctor of the Church.

Albert the Great combined his human wisdom and divine faith to advance knowledge and science.

St Albert wrote a great deal on Divine Providence. One of the most comforting is this quote below:

“The greater and more persistent your confidence in God, the more abundantly you will receive all that you ask.” 

Another precious quote from St Albert:

“Banish, therefore, from thy heart the distractions of earth and turn thine eyes to spiritual joys, that thou mayest learn at last to repose in the light of the contemplation of God." 

 St Albert the Great is the patron saint of scientists. 

Our first Reading from 2 John 4 - 9 contains strong language condemning false teachers. We read:

"Anyone who is so “progressive” as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ does not have God; whoever remains in the teaching has the Father and the Son." (Cf 2 John 4 - 9).

The great teachers of the Christian faith are unsparing in their total condemnation of peddlars of falsehood and doctrines. Who are our teachers? Jesus, Peter and Paul, James and John, etc. There successors like Saints Augustine and Anthony of Padua are called Hammers of Heretics. 

Why does it seem that there is this deadly and embarrassing silence today in confronting false teachers inside and outside the Church? 

The first Reading also talks of the Anti Christ:

"Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh; such is the deceitful one and the antichrist." 

What does Sacred Scriptures say about the Anti Christ? 

The Holy Spirit "will declare to you the things that are coming."  (John 16: 13).  What constitutes this revelation?

One thing that comes to mind is the appearance of the Man of Lawlessness, sometimes called the Anti-Christ.  He is a prince in the Kingdom of the Father of lies. (Cf 2 Thessalonians 2: 1 - 12). Through the spirit of discernment, the Church will be able to grasp the Signs of the Times and expose him.

"Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that the antichrist was coming, so now many antichrists have appeared.

"Thus we know this is the last hour.

They went out from us, but they were not really of our number;

if they had been, they would have remained with us.

"Their desertion shows that none of them was of our number.

"But you have the anointing that comes from the Holy One, and you all have knowledge.

"I write to you not because you do not know the truth but because you do, and because every lie is alien to the truth."  (1 John 2: 18 - 21).

This is the last hour. The Apostle John warned.

The "Antichrists have appeared." Have you seen any? These are some of the characteristics of the Man of lawlessness from the Christian Scriptures :

Deceit

Temporary success

Mass seduction

Adversary

Son of perdition

Opposed Christ.

Rival of Christ

(Cf 2 Thessalonians 2: 3 - 12; Matthew 24: 23 - 26).

Before he became Pontiff, Pope St John Paul II warned in 1976 at the Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia that we are now facing the final confrontation between the Antichrist and the Church. 

Remember how King Henry VIII caught over 300 English Bishops napping in 1535? Only Bishop St John Fisher earned the crown of Martyrdom. Below is a prophetic teaching of the Church on the Antichrist from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

"Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the "mystery of iniquity" in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh."   (CCC 675).

St Thomas Aquinas writes on the Anti Christ:

"As in Christ dwells the fullness of the Godhead so in Antichrist the fullness of all wickedness. Not indeed in the sense that his humanity is to be assumed by the devil into unity of person...but that the devil by suggestion infuses his wickedness more copiously into him than into all others. In this way all the wicked that have gone before are signs of Antichrist."  (St Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church).

Is the current instabilities in the world the beginning of the Last Hour?

Do not be asleep. Be vigilant and pray at all times so that you may not fall into severe temptation. Do not become an Anti-Witness. This may be the beginning of the Last Hour.

November is the Month we pray for the Souls in PURGATORY. 

“O Jesus, my love extends beyond the world, to the souls suffering in PURGATORY, and I want to exercise mercy toward them by means of indulgenced prayers. God's mercy is unfathomable and inexhaustible, just as God Himself is unfathomable." (St Maria Faustina Kowalski). 

For Catholic Church teaching on the Souls in PURGATORY and how to help them, click the link below:

http://seekfirst.blogspot.com/2023/10/10-ways-to-assist-poor-souls-in.html

THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS HERE AMONG US.

ONLY FAITH CAN SEE THE KINGDOM OF GOD RIGHT HERE AND RIGHT NOW. 

"Asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come, Jesus said in reply,

“The coming of the Kingdom of God cannot be observed, and no one will announce, ‘Look, here it is,’ or, ‘There it is.’ For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you.”

Then he said to his disciples, “The days will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. 

"There will be those who will say to you, ‘Look, there he is,’ or ‘Look, here he is.’ Do not go off, do not run in pursuit. For just as lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day.

"But first he must suffer greatly and be rejected by this generation.” (Luke 17: 20 - 25)

Thursday 14th November 2024, 32nd Week in Ordinary Time. 

"Asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come,

"Jesus said in reply, “The coming of the Kingdom of God cannot be observed, and no one will announce, ‘Look, here it is,’ or, ‘There it is.’ For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you.”

One fact is absolutely certain:  Jesus spent most of His preaching and teaching ministry talking about the Kingdom. Even after His Resurrection, Acts 1 informs us that Jesus continued to speak about the Kingdom of God. How do we address these questions about the identity and operations of the Kingdom of God?

"The Kingdom of God is among you." 

What does this mean to you?

What is the Kingdom?

Where is the Kingdom?

Why the Kingdom?

How does the Kingdom operate?

Any signs of the Kingdom here and now? 

The Kingdom is the King Jesus. Where the King is, there is His Kingdom. 

The Kingdom has certain similarities with earthly kingdoms. But the differences are striking.

The Kingdom of God is the reign of God in hearts and minds of people who believe in Jesus and have committed to allow Jesus to reign in their hearts and minds.

 For example: The Kingdom of Belgium comprises all the people who live in the geographical area that is recognized as Belgium. They obey the laws of Belgium. The Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Belgium have officers and structures for their operations. That is where the similarities end.

The Kingdom of God is worldwide. It is eternal and indestructible.

 The mighty Roman Empire and many kingdoms of the world have been destroyed. 

The Kingdom of God launched by Jesus Christ in the course of His earthly ministry will never be destroyed. God will never allow the powers of hell to wipe out the Church. The Church will be there at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. 

In summary, only Faith can see the Kingdom of God right now and right here. How do we come by this strong faith? Jesus tells us:

“If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (Cf John 8:31-2). 

When you dwell in the word of God for a long time, you begin to see Jesus in you, in the priest celebrating the Eucharist, in the Church gathered for Mass, in the poor and the migrants. 

What does all this mean to us here and now? There are two types of people: those who are aware only of the earthly, material and physical kingdom. Others who belong to the the Kingdom of God whose seed is the Church.

November is the Month we pray for the Souls in PURGATORY. 

“Temporal punishments are suffered by some in this life only, by some after death, by some both here and hereafter, but all of them before that last and strictest judgment. But not all who suffer temporal punishments after death will come to eternal punishments, which are to follow after that judgment”  -Saint Augustine, Father and Doctor of the Church, (The City of God 21:13 [A.D. 419]).

For Catholic Church teaching on the Souls in PURGATORY and how to help them, click the link below:

http://seekfirst.blogspot.com/2023/10/10-ways-to-assist-poor-souls-in.html

A GREAT AMERICAN SAINT: PATRONNESS OF IMMIGRANTS.

MEMORIAL OF ST FRANCES XAVIER CABRINI. RELIGIOUS AND VIRGIN. 

"As Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem, he traveled through Samaria and Galilee. As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him.

"They stood at a distance from him and raised their voice, saying, “Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!” 

"And when he saw them, he said, “Go show yourselves to the priests.”

"As they were going they were cleansed. And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. He was a Samaritan. 

"Jesus said in reply, “Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine? Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?”

"Then he said to him, “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you.” (Luke 17: 11 - 19).

Wednesday 13th November 2024 , 32nd Week in Ordinary Time is the feast of St Frances Xavier Cabrini. (1850 - 1917). Virgin. Italian. Patroness of Immigrants.

Our saint for today overcame the first obstacle to her vocation: fear of drowning.  She founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to serve immigrants in schools, hospitals and parishes in the United States. Before she died in 1917, St Frances Xavier Cabrini had traversed the seas about 30 times planting missionary services to the vulnerable in many countries of the world.

Our Gospel of today from (Luke 17: 11 - 19) is perhaps one of the most dramatic healing stories of Jesus. Healing one leper is dramatic enough, especially if you understand the disease of leprosy and the social taboo it attracts at the time of Jesus. Healing ten lepers at once with a word of command is Only what God can do. 

Another famous leprosy healing in the Bible is that of Naaman the Leper. (2 Kings 5: 1 - 19).

"Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram." 2 Kings 5: 1). Naaman was a top General and a very capable military leader, valued highly by his king. 

His leprosy did not threaten his career. Yet he wanted to get rid of the accursed disease by any means. With the backing of his king, he traveled to Israel in search of healing. God's mercy smiled upon him and he was healed by the Prophet Elisha. Read of the gold, silver, expensive garments Naaman brought for Thanksgiving in 2 Kings 5. 

The Ten Lepers in today's story are in a worse predicament than the General Naaman. Be this as it may, the real essence of the Healing of the Ten Lepers is a lesson on Thanksgiving or Gratitude. 

Are you a thankful person? 

Everything we have: family, health, money, job, food, friends, every possession from the smallest to the largest is a gift from God. 

How do we render thanks for the gifts we enjoy?

Do you know the source of your gifts? Do you know that God expects you to render thanks?

"A sacrifice of thanksgiving honors me." (Psalm 50: 23).

This means that God is most delighted if you honor Him with the Sacrifice of the Mass (Eucharist = Thanksgiving). 

November is the Month we pray for the Souls in PURGATORY. 

“For the souls in purgatory there is great joy as well as pain as they know for certain they are bound for Heaven!” ~ St. Catherine of Genoa

For Catholic Church teaching on the Souls in PURGATORY and how to help them, click the link below:

http://seekfirst.blogspot.com/2023/10/10-ways-to-assist-poor-souls-in.html