Happy Easter Friday!
Join us in praying the following Novenas & save the date for the Feast of St Joseph!
With the death of Pope Francis and forthcoming conclave, join us in praying these two critical Novenas for the intercession of St Catherine of Siena, Co-Patroness of Rome and Europe whose Feast Day is on April 30th, and St Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church, in anticipation of his Feast of St Joseph the Worker on May 1st.
Please join us in praying for the following intentions:
The repose of the soul of Jorge Mario Bergoglio
The election of a Holy Pope who neither fears the powerful of this world nor compromises with the spirit of the age
The election of a Holy Pope who preserves, strengthens, and defends the Catholic Faith unto the shedding of their blood
The election of a Holy Pope who observes, protects, and hands on the Traditional Roman Rite of the Holy Catholic Church
Novena to Saint Catherine of Siena
Pray this novena starting on 22 April and ending on 30 April, the eve of the Feast of St. Catherine of Siena on 30 April.
Catherine, fairest and most glorious of the daughters of St. Dominic, by that spirit of prayer, which was your delight from your infancy, obtain for us the love and practice of prayer, and the grace so to converse with God as to become daily more pleasing to Him.
Pray a Gloria
By that especial love which you, O great saint, bore to the virtue of purity, consecrating yourself at eight years of age to the Lord by an irrevocable vow, and afterwards by rejecting the most honorable offers of marriage: obtain for us, we pray you, the grace to be always pure in mind and heart, and to detest and abhor everything which could offend in the smallest degree against a virtue so sublime that it raises men to the rank of angels, and makes them most beloved by God.
Pray a Gloria
By that spirit of retirement which made you, O great saint, desire to behold no one but your Jesus, Who when you were distracted by continual employment in your family, taught you to build a solitude in your heart and keep it at all times filled with thoughts of heaven: obtain for us, we pray, the grace so to love solitude and retirement, however the world may invite us to share its pleasures and its pomps, that our hearts may always turn to God amidst the most dissipating cares which may come upon us in our state of life.
Pray a Gloria
By the spirit of penance which taught you to inflict upon yourself, even in your earliest years, the most painful mortifications: obtain for us the grace to bear with patience whatever afflictions God may be pleased to order for our good, and to mortify voluntarily all the perverse inclinations of our hearts, and all the unruly desires of our senses, that we may become, in some measure, like our crucified model, Jesus.
Pray a Gloria
By that heroic charity which led you, O great saint, to attend and minister with your own hands to the poor sick who had been abandoned by all others in disgust, and for which you were repaid only by insult, rudeness, and persecution: obtain of the Lord for us the grace to be, at all times, equally ready to assist our neighbor in his necessities, and to pardon him generously when he returns only insults for the benefits we confer on him, that we may merit the blessedness promised in this life and the next to meekness and true mercy.
Pray a Gloria
By that supernatural light with which you, O great saint, were miraculously enabled to counsel the Roman Pontiff, who came in person to consult you, when you obtained for him a reconciliation with his adversaries, and his return to Rome: obtain for us of the Lord the grace to know, in all our doubts, that which is most conformable to the will of God, and most conducive to the salvation of souls, that in all our actions we may promote the honor of God and the welfare of our neighbor.
Pray a Gloria
By that especial devotion which you, O great saint, had to Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, Who sometimes communicated you with His own hands: obtain for us, we pray you, the grace to feel toward the Blessed Sacrament the most fervent devotion, that we may rejoice to converse with Jesus and receive Him into our bosoms to His honor and glory, and for the salvation of our souls.
Pray a Gloria
St. Catherine, pray for us, that we may obtain what we desire through this novena, if what we ask be pleasing to God and conducive to our eternal salvation. May the will of God be done. Amen.1
Unfailing Novena to St. Joseph
This prayer, it is said, has “has never been known to fail, provided that the request is for one’s spiritual benefit or for those whom we are praying for.” Pray it for nine mornings.
O St. Joseph, whose protection is so great, so strong, so prompt before the throne of God, I place in you all my interest and desires.
O St. Joseph, do assist me by your powerful intercession, and obtain for me from your divine Son all spiritual blessings, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So that, having engaged here below your heavenly power, I may offer my thanksgiving and homage to the most loving of Fathers.
O St. Joseph, I never weary of contemplating you, and Jesus asleep in your arms; I dare not approach while He reposes near your heart. Press Him close in my name and kiss His fine head for me and ask Him to return the kiss when I draw my dying breath. St. Joseph, patron of departing souls, pray for me. Amen.
Friday in Easter Week
"THE CLEFTS OF THE ROCK."
Oh, what a safe place of refuge shall we not find in the sacred "clefts of the rock," that is to say, in the Wounds of Jesus Christ? "The clefts of the rock," says St. Peter Damian, "are the Redeemer's Wounds; in these my soul has placed its hope."
I.
There is no means which can more surely kindle in us Divine love than to consider the Passion of Jesus Christ. St. Bonaventure says that the Wounds of Jesus Christ, because they are Wounds of love, are darts which wound hearts the most hard, and flames which set on fire souls the most cold: "O Wounds, wounding stony hearts, and inflaming frozen minds!" It is impossible that a soul which believes and thinks on the Passion of the Lord should offend Him and not love Him, nay, rather that it should not run into a holy madness of love, at seeing a God as it were mad for love of us: "We have seen," says St. Laurence Justinian, "Wisdom infatuated by too much love." Hence it is that the Gentiles, as the Apostle says, when hearing him preach the Passion of Jesus crucified, thought it a folly: We preach Christ crucified, to the Jews indeed a scandal, but to the Gentiles foolishness (1 Cor. i. 23). How is it possible, said they, that a God, almighty and most happy, such as He Who is preached to us, could have been wiling to die for His creatures?
Ah, my Jesus, if I gaze upon Thy body, without I see only Wounds and Blood. If within in Thy Heart, I find nothing but bitterness and anguish which make Thee suffer the agonies of death. Ah, God enamoured of men, how is it possible that goodness so great, and such a love, should remain so badly corresponded to by men? It is wont to be said that love is repaid by love; but Thy love -- with what manner of love can it be ever repaid? It would be necessary that a God should die for Thee to make recompense for the love which Thou hast borne towards us in dying for us. O Cross, O Wounds, O Death of Jesus, you bind me closely to love my loving Jesus!
II.
Behold your Redeemer expiring, and with His dying breath saying: It is consummated (John xix. 30). As if He had said: O men, all has been completed and done for your redemption. Love Me, then, since I have nothing more that I can do to make you love Me. My soul, look up at thy Jesus Who is now going to die. Look at those eyes growing dim, that face grown pale, that Heart which is beating with languid pulse, that Body which is now abandoning itself to death: and look at that beautiful Soul which is just on the point of forsaking that Sacred Body. The heavens are darkened, the earth trembles, the sepulchres are opened; signs that now the Maker of the world is about to die. Lo, at last, Jesus, after having commended His Blessed Soul to His Father, first giving a deep sigh from His afflicted Heart, and then bowing His head in sign of the offering of His life, which at this moment He renewed for our salvation, at length, by the violence of His sorrow, expires and renders up His Spirit into the hands of His beloved Father.
Approach, my soul, to this holy Cross. Embrace the feet of thy dead Saviour, and think that He is dead through the love which He bore to thee. Ah, my Jesus, to what has Thy affection towards me reduced Thee? And who, more than I, has enjoyed the fruits of Thy death? Make me, I beseech Thee, understand what love that must have been that a God should die for me, to the end that from this day forth I may love none other than Thee. I love Thee, O greatest Good; O true Lover of my soul, into Thy hands I here commend it. I beseech Thee, by the merits of Thy death, make me to die to all earthly loves, in order that I may love Thee alone, Who art alone worthy of all my love. Mary, my hope, pray to Jesus for me.
Hail, Jesus, our Love, and Mary, our hope!
"O riven Heart, O Love for me now crucified! Give to my soul repose within Thy wounded side!"2
— St. Alphonsus de Liguori
Finally, please save the aforementioned date for our Annual Celebration of the Feast of St Joseph the Worker on Thursday, May 1st at Epiphany of Our Lord Church in Tampa, FL! This is a tremendous opportunity to celebrate the Easter season and the Patron of Fathers, Families, Workers, and the Universal Church.
Our presenting speaker is Joshua Charles of Eternal Christendom!
https://fisheaters.com/novenas.html#siena
https://www.religiousbookshelf.com/meditations-and-readings/day/2206-Friday-in-Easter-Week.html