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June 26, 2009 -  Friday of the Twefth Week of Ordinary Time      LITURGICAL/THEME MEDITATION: "Lord, if you will, you can make me clean" UNIVERSAL CHURCH/WORLD EVENT(S): Obama Sets Afternoon Meeting With Pope; Obama Sacks Bioethicists From Bush Years SAINT OF THE DAY Blessed Raymond Lull  GENERAL MARIOLOGY THE DIVINE HISTORY AND LIFE OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER OF GOD Book Four - Chapter IV  CHRIST OUR SAVIOR IS BORN OF THE VIRGIN MARY IN BETHLEHEM, JUDA.  DIVINE MERCY Divine Mercy in My Soul Notebook IV  TEACHING/TESTIMONY/CONVICTION: Testimony of Dr. McArthur Hill, former Abortion Provider

DAILY LITURGICAL MEDITATION

Friday (6/26):  "Lord, if you will, you can make me clean" Scripture:  Matthew 8:1-4 1 When he came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him; 2 and behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, if you will, you can make me clean."  3 And he stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, "I will; be clean." And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.  4 And Jesus said to him, "See that you say nothing to any one; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a proof to the people." Meditation: What can hold us back from approaching the Lord with faith and confidence that he can change and transform us – perhaps fear, pride, and the risk of losing one's reputation and friends? Jesus did something which was both remarkable and unthinkable at the same time. He approached the unapproachables – he touched the untouchables. Lepers were outcasts of society. Their physical condition was terrible as they slowly lost the use of their limbs and withered away with open sores over their entire bodies. They were not only shunned but regarded as “already dead” even by their relatives. The Jewish law forbade anyone from touching or approaching a leper, lest ritual defilement occur. The leper did something quite remarkable. He approached Jesus confidently and humbly, expecting that Jesus could and would heal him. Normally a leper would be stoned or at least warded off if he tried to come near a rabbi. Jesus not only grants the man his request, but he demonstrates the personal love, compassion, and tenderness of God in his physical touch. The medical knowledge of his day would have regarded such contact as grave risk for incurring infection. Jesus met the man’s misery with compassion and tender kindness. He communicated the love and mercy of God in a sign that spoke more eloquently than words. He touched the man and made him clean – not only physically but spiritually as well. Some eleven centuries later, a man named Francis met a leper on the road as he journeyed towards Assisi. “Though the leper caused him no small disgust and horror, he nonetheless, got off the horse and prepared to kiss the leper. But when the leper put out his hand as though to receive something, he received money along with a kiss” (from the Life of St. Francis by Thomas of Celano). Francis did what seemed humanly impossible because he was filled with the love and compassion of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit inflames our hearts with the fire of Christ's love that we may reach out to others with compassionate care, especially to those who have been rejected, mistreated, and left utterly alone. Do you allow the Holy Spirit to fill your heart with the love and compassion of Christ for others? “May the power of your love, Lord Christ, fiery and sweet as honey, so absorb our hearts as to withdraw them from all that is under heaven. Grant that we may be ready to die for love of your love, as you died for love of our love."  (Prayer of Francis of Assisi, 13th century) Psalm137:1-6 1 By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. 2 On the willows there we hung up our lyres. 3 For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!" 4 How shall we sing the LORD's song in a foreign land? 5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither! 6 Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem  above my highest joy!   www.dailyscripture.net   RETURN TO TOP

UNIVERSAL CHURCH/WORLD EVENTS

Obama Sets Afternoon Meeting With Pope   VATICAN CITY, JUNE 24, 2009 (Zenit.org).- The Vatican confirmed today Benedict XVI will receive in audience U.S. President Barack Obama next month. The meeting, set for the afternoon of July 10, will be the first between the Pontiff and the new president. Obama's Vatican visit will take place within the context of his participation in the Group of Eight summit, which will be held July 8-10 in L'Aquila, Italy. Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, said to reporters today that "Benedict XVI is open to receive the president of the United States during the afternoon of July 10." The decision to set the meeting for the afternoon, which breaks protocol for papal audiences, is due to the president's tight schedule.   Obama Sacks Bioethicists From Bush Years Wants More Policy, Less Philosophy   WASHINGTON, D.C., JUNE 25, 2009 (Zenit.org).- U.S. President Barack Obama gave an early termination notice to bioethicists picked by his predecessor for an advisory board. According to a New York Times report from last week, Obama wants the committee to focus more on "practical policy," rather than discussion of issues. He thus ended the bioethicists' terms a few months early (they were originally to serve in the position until September), and will appoint new members to the board. According to ethicist E. Christian Brugger, the "push to get practical in bioethical discourse is a bad sign." Writing for the Culture of Life Foundation, Brugger said this shift "signals a turn away from urgent questions such as whether human embryos deserve full moral respect or whether 'human dignity' means that all persons, even the disabled and dying, possess equal value." "It turns discourse from the question of 'should' to the question of 'how,'" he lamented. Brugger contended that the chief virtue of the Bush appointees was "a willingness and ability to formulate and struggle with ethical questions." He noted that their conclusions sometimes differed from the Catholic view, but that "the commission in general took seriously the kind of people we become as a result of asking the questions. It knew that scientific advancement doesn’t always translate into good moral options." Bush appointed the council in 2001. U.S. presidents since Jimmy Carter have had a bioethics advisory council, but their leanings depend on the personal outlooks of the president.   TURN TO TOP

DAILY LITURGICAL SAINT

June 26, 2009 Blessed Raymond Lull (1235-1315)   Raymond worked all his life to promote the missions and died a missionary to North Africa. Raymond was born at Palma on the island of Mallorca in the Mediterranean Sea. He earned a position in the king’s court there. One day a sermon inspired him to dedicate his life to working for the conversion of the Muslims in North Africa. He became a Secular Franciscan and founded a college where missionaries could learn the Arabic they would need in the missions. Retiring to solitude, he spent nine years as a hermit. During that time he wrote on all branches of knowledge, a work which earned him the title "Enlightened Doctor." Raymond then made many trips through Europe to interest popes, kings and princes in establishing special colleges to prepare future missionaries. He achieved his goal in 1311 when the Council of Vienne ordered the creation of chairs of Hebrew, Arabic and Chaldean at the universities of Bologna, Oxford, Paris and Salamanca. At the age of 79, Raymond went to North Africa in 1314 to be a missionary himself. An angry crowd of Muslims stoned him in the city of Bougie. Genoese merchants took him back to Mallorca where he died. Raymond was beatified in 1514. Comment: Raymond worked most of his life to help spread the gospel. Indifference on the part of some Christian leaders and opposition in North Africa did not turn him from his goal. Three hundred years later Raymond’s work began to have an influence in the Americas. When the Spanish began to spread the gospel in the New World, they set up missionary colleges to aid the work. Blessed Junipero Serra belonged to such a college. Quote: Thomas of Celano wrote of St. Francis: "In vain does the wicked man persecute one striving after virtue, for the more he is buffeted, the more strongly will he triumph. As someone says, indignity strengthens a generous spirit" (I Celano, #11).  http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintofDay RETURN TO TOP

GENERAL MARIOLOGY

THE DIVINE HISTORY AND LIFE OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER OF GOD BOOK FOUR Describing the Anxieties of Saint Joseph on Account of the Pregnancy of Most Holy Mary,the Birth of Christ our Lord, His Circumcision,the Adoration of the Kings, the Presentation of the Infant Jesus In the Temple, the Flight into Egypt, the Death of the Holy Innocents, and the Return to Nazareth. CHAPTER IV.  CHRIST OUR SAVIOR IS BORN OF THE VIRGIN MARY IN BETHLEHEM, JUDA. The Most High announced to his Virgin Mother, that the time of his coming into the world had arrived and what would be the manner in which this was now to be fulfilled and executed. The most prudent Lady perceived in this vision the purpose and exalted scope of these wonderful mysteries and sacraments, as well in so far as related to the Lord himself as also in so far as they concerned creatures, for whose benefit they had been primarily decreed. She prostrated Herself before the throne of his Divinity and gave Him glory, magnificence, thanks and praise for Herself and for all creatures, such as was befitting the ineffable mercy and condescension of his divine love. At the same time She asked of the divine Majesty new light and grace in order to be able worthily to undertake the service and worship and the rearing up of the Word made flesh, whom She was to bear in Her arms and nourish with her virginal milk. This petition the heavenly Mother brought forward with the profoundest humility, as one who understood the greatness of this new sacrament. She held Herself unworthy of the office of rearing up and conversing as a Mother with a God incarnate of which even the highest seraphim are incapable. Prudently and humbly did the Mother of wisdom ponder and weigh this matter. And because She humbled Herself to the dust and acknowledged her nothingness in the presence of the Almighty, therefore his Majesty raised Her up and confirmed anew upon Her the title of Mother of God. He commanded Her to exercise this office and ministry of a legitimate and true Mother of Himself; that She should treat Him as the Son of the eternal Father and at the same time the Son of her womb. All this could be easily entrusted to such a Mother, in whom was contained an excellence that words cannot express. The most holy Mary remained in this ecstasy and beatific vision for over an hour immediately preceding her divine delivery. At the moment when She issued from it and regained the use of her senses She felt and saw that the body of the infant God began to move in her virginal womb; how, releasing and freeing Himself from the place which in the course of nature He had occupied for nine months, He now prepared to issue forth from that sacred bridal chamber. This movement not only did not cause any pain or hardship, as happens with the other daughters of Adam and Eve in their childbirths; but filled Her with incomparable joy and delight, causing in her soul and in her virginal body such exalted and divine effects that they exceed all thoughts of men. Her body became so spiritualized with the beauty of heaven that She seemed no more a human and earthly creature. Her countenance emitted rays of light, like a sun incarnadined, and shone in indescribable earnestness and majesty, all inflamed with fervent love. She was kneeling in the manger, her eyes raised to heaven, her hands joined and folded at her breast, her soul wrapped in the Divinity and She herself was entirely deified. In this position, and at the end of the heavenly rapture, the most exalted Lady gave to the world the Onlybegotten of the Father and her own, our Savior Jesus, true God and man, at the hour of midnight, on a Sunday, in the year of the creation of the world five thousand one hundred and ninety-nine (5199), which is the date given in the Roman Church, and which date has been manifested to me as the true and certain one. At the end of the beatific rapture and vision of the Mother ever Virgin, which I have described above, was born the Sun of Justice, the Onlybegotten of the eternal Father and of Mary most pure, beautiful, refulgent and immaculate, leaving Her untouched in her virginal integrity and purity and making Her more godlike and forever sacred; for He did not divide, but penetrated the virginal chamber as the rays of the sun penetrate the crystal shrine, lighting it up in prismatic beauty.    RETURN TO TOP

DIVINE MERCY

Divine Mercy In my soul   The Mercy of the Lord I will sing Forever. Divine Mercy in my soul. Sr. Faustina, Diary Notebook IV   Today I learned with what aversion the Lord comes to a certain soul in Holy Communion. He goes to that heart as to a dark prison, to undergo torture and affliction. I kept begging His pardon and offering atonement for the offense. The Lord made known to me that I would see my brother [Stanley] but I could not understand how this would happen or why he should come to visit me. I knew that God had given him the grace of a religious vocation, but why should he be coming to visit me? However, I put aside these thoughts and believed that if the Lord had given me to know he would come, that was enough for me. I fixed my thoughts on God, putting aside every preoccupation with creatures and entrusting everything to the Lord. When the same poor people come to the gate a second time, I treat them with greater gentleness, and I do not let them see that I know they have been here before. I do this in order not to embarrass them. And then they speak to me freely about their troubles and needs. Although sister N. tells me that is not the way to deal with beggars, and slams the door in their faces, when she is not there, I treat them as My Master would. Sometimes more is given when giving nothing, than when giving much in a rude manner. Often the Lord gives me interior knowledge concerning the persons I meet at the gate. One pitiable soul wanted to tell me a bit about herself. Taking advantage of the opportunity, I made her understand, in a delicate way, the miserable condition of her soul. She went away with a better disposition. September 17, 1937. O Jesus, I see so much beauty scattered around me, beauty for which I give You constant thanks. But I see that some souls are like stone. Always cold and unfeeling. Even miracles hardly move them. Their eyes are always fixed on their feet, and so they see nothing but themselves. You have surrounded my life with Your tender and loving care, more than I can comprehend, for I will understand Your goodness in its entirety only when the veil is lifted. I desire that my whole life be but one act of thanksgiving to You, O God. Thank You, O God for all the graces which unceasingly You lavish upon me, graces which enlighten me with the brilliance of the sun, for by them You show me the sure way. Thank You, O Lord for creating me, For calling me into being from nothingness, For imprinting Your divinity on my soul, The work of sheer merciful love. Thank you O God, for Holy Baptism Which engrafted me into Your family, A gift great beyond all thought or expression Which transforms my soul. Thank You O God, for Holy Confession, For that inexhaustible spring of great mercy, For that inconceivable fountain of graces In which sin-tainted souls become purified. Thank You, O Jesus, for Holy Communion, In which you give us Yourself. I feel Your Heart beating within my breast As you cause Your divine life to unfold within me. Thank You, O Holy Spirit, for the Sacrament of Confirmation, Which dubs me Your Knight And gives strength to my soul at each moment, Protecting me from evil. Thank You, O God, for the grace of a vocation For being called to serve You alone, Leading me to make you my sole love, An unequal honor for my soul. Thank You, O Lord, for perpetual vows, For that union of pure love, For having deigned to unite Your pure Heart with mine And uniting my heart to Yours in the purest of bonds. Thank You, O Lord, for the Sacrament of Anointing Which, in my final moments, will give me strength; My help in battle, my guide to salvation, Fortifying my soul till we rejoice forever. Thank You, O God, for all the inspirations That Your goodness lavishes upon me, For the interior lights given my soul, Which the heart senses, but words cannot express. Thank You, O Holy Trinity, for the vastness of the graces Which You have lavished on me unceasingly through life. My gratitude will intensify as the eternal dawn rises, When, for the first time, I sing to Your glory. Despite the peace in my soul, I fight a continuous battle with the enemy of my soul. More and more, I am discovering his traps, and the battle flares up anew. During interludes of calm, I exercise myself and keep watch, lest the enemy find me unprepared. And when I see his great fury, I stay inside the stronghold, that is, the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.   RETURN TO TOP

CATHOLIC  TEACHING/CONVICTION/TESTIMONY

Testimony of Dr. McArthur Hill, former Abortion Provider (This testimony was originally given at a "Meet the Abortion Providers" workshop sponsored by the Pro-life Action League of Chicago, directed by Joe Scheidler. Priests for Life offers their video, "Inside the Abortion Industry," containing excerpts of the testimonies of many former providers. Contact us for more details.) (continued) In the Crisswell Study Bible, published in 1978, five years after Dr. Crisswell had made that quotation in Christianity Today, I found these words referring to Psalm 139. The Bible thus avows that personhood exists from the very moment of conception. This is a very important matter in the question of abortion. Abortion to cover up sin or to escape responsibility is nothing less than murder. I read on in the Scriptures and found in Jeremiah 1:4, God calling Jeremiah with these words: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. Before you were born I sat you apart. I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. Once again God refers to life before birth. But the greatest evidence contained within the Bible for how God views the unborn is found in His method of sending His Son to live among us. Our omnipotent God could have sent His Son as a babe in a manger, as a 12-year-old who walked into a temple to discuss matters with his elders, or as a 30-year-old man who wandered in from the wilderness. But instead He chose to send His Son as a single-cell individual to grow within Mary's body, to communicate with His cousin, John the Baptist, while both were within their mother's wombs, and to experience birth, life, and death as each of us has and will experience. In addition to these normal events in the human life cycle, He overcame death in His glorious resurrection, leading the way for those who trust in Him to also experience a glorious resurrection upon His return. I believe that life is a gift from God, and I believe that God has directed me to lead Christians to an awareness of the sanctity of human life and to encourage active participation by the Christian community to protect all life. Proverbs 24:11-12, very familiar to most of you, and influences me greatly. When we are told to rescue those being led away to death and to hold back those staggering towards slaughter. But there is an admonition in that too. If you say, but we knew nothing about it, does not he who tests the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay each person according to what he has done? There are some who would say that that's Old Testament, and we ought to disregard it since we're now under grace. But I remind you that Jesus said in Matthew 5:17: Do not think that I have come to abolish the law of the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. He essentially restated Proverbs 24:11-12 in Matthew 25:40 and 45, when he said: I tell you the truth. Whatever you did for one of the least for these brothers of mine, you did for me, and I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me. All of my reading confirmed to me that I should continue along the path which I had started. I began to contact Southern Baptist Churches in Colorado and I offered to assist the pastors in putting together programs for their churches. In searching for materials to use in the presentation, I discovered that there were many Right-to-Life organizations affiliated with the religious groups, but I was unable to find out anything about a Southern Baptist group. Several months after I had begun doing this work, I was reading a book by Carl Landwehr, entitled, Involving your Church in the Right-to-Life Issue when I found the address for Southern Baptists for Life. I contacted them and I discovered that the people involved in that were doing the same thing in their parts of the country that I was doing in Colorado. I began to attend their meetings and eventually was elected to the Board of Directors where I now serve as their Vice President. Without support from any Southern Baptist Convention agency, Southern Baptists for Life has worked to educate the messengers at each of the past conventions by passing out literature outside the convention halls and by introducing resolutions on the floor of the convention. Sometimes the odds were so overwhelming to us, but not nearly as bad as they were in the 1970s…. At our annual meeting in June in San Antonio, Dr. Holbrook shared the heartache which he felt when he couldn't find other Baptists to join him in the fight for life. He became one of four major national speakers who toured the Right-to-Life meetings around the country during the early days, and rarely was given a chance to speak to a Baptist group. He jokingly told us at this meeting that he had been made an honorary member of the Knights of Columbus because he spoke at so many of their meetings. Eventually, seemingly without much success, he stopped speaking and he returned to his pastorate, dejected. Though it seemed to him that he had had little effect on Baptists, it was his efforts that provided the initial awakening for many Southern Baptists and actually was the beginning of Southern Baptists for Life. At that meeting we were able to share with him how the Lord had blessed the efforts that he had made, and also our efforts, as we have seen several Pro-Life men elected to positions of influence within the Southern Baptist Convention now. Dr. Richard Land is the new executive director of the Christian Life Commission. Dr. Larry Lewis, who served with me on the Executive Board of Southern Baptists for Life, and who was one of those influenced by Dr. Holbrook's early work is now serving as president of the Home Mission Board. The Home Mission Board is the group which runs the Cellar's Home in New Orleans for unwed mothers and is developing a program to help Southern Baptist churches establish ministries to women with crisis pregnancies. (to be continued)   RETURN TO TOP

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