16 Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. 17 If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. 18 I am not speaking of you all; I know whom I have chosen; it is that the scripture may be fulfilled, `He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.' 19 I tell you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he. 20 Truly, truly, I say to you, he who receives any one whom I send receives me; and he who receives me receives him who sent me."

Meditation: How do you treat those who cause you grief or harm, especially those who are close to you in some way? In his last supper discourse, Jesus addressed the issue of fidelity and disloyalty in relationships. Jesus knew beforehand that one of his own disciples would betray him. Such knowledge could have easily led Jesus to distance himself from such a person and to protect himself from harm's way. Instead, Jesus expresses his love, affection, and loyalty to those who were his own, even to the one he knew would "stab him in the back" when he got the opportunity. Jesus used a quotation from Psalm 4:9 which describes an act of treachery by one's closest friend. In the culture of Jesus' day, to eat bread with someone was a gesture of friendship and trust. Jesus extends such friendship to Judas right at the moment when Judas is conspiring to betray his master. The expression lift his heel against me reinforces the brute nature of this act of violent rejection.

Jesus loved his disciples to the end and proved his faithfulness to them even to death on the cross. Through his death and resurrection Jesus opened a new way of relationship and friendship with God. Jesus tells his disciples that if they accept him they also accept the Father who sent him. This principle extends to all who belong to Christ and who speak in his name. To accept the Lord's messenger is to accept Jesus himself. The great honor and the great responsibility a Christian has is to stand in the world for Jesus Christ. As his disciples and ambassadors (2 Cor. 5:20), we are called to speak for him and to act on his behalf. Are you ready to stand for Jesus at the cross of humiliation, rejection, opposition, and suffering?

"Eternal God, who are the light of the minds that know you, the joy of the hearts that love you, and the strength of the wills that serve you; grant us so to know you, that we may truly love you, and so to love you that we may fully serve you, whom to serve is perfect freedom, in Jesus our Lord." (Prayer of Saint Augustine)

Psalm 89:2-3,21-27

2 For thy steadfast love was established for ever, thy faithfulness is firm as the heavens.
3 20 I have found my servant David; with my holy oil I have anointed him;
21 my hand shall always remain with him; my arm also shall strengthen him.
22 The enemy shall not outwit him, the wicked shall not humble him.
23 I will crush his foes before him and strike down those who hate him.
24 My faithfulness and steadfast love shall be with him; and in my name his horn shall be exalted.
25 I will set his hand on the sea and his right hand on the rivers.
26 He shall cry to me, 'You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation!'
27 I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.
Thou hast said, "I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to David my servant:

www.dailyscripture.net

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UNIVERSAL CHURCH/WORLD EVENTS

Cardinal Warns 400,000 More Children Could Die

Appeals to Rich Countries to Stop Retracting Foreign Aid

VATICAN CITY, MAY 6, 2009 (Zenit.org).- The president of Caritas Internationalis is appealing to wealthy countries in this time of economic crisis to remember the poor, asking them not to retract foreign aid in favor of national bailouts.

Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, made this appeal in an address to Holy See ambassadors from a dozen European countries at the Caritas headquarters in the Vatican.

He spoke about how the economic crisis, cuts to foreign aid and climate change affect the poor of the world, Caritas reported today.

The cardinal noted that the "poor are suffering" because wealthier countries are directing funds to bailouts, while cutting back or "not honoring their commitment to aid."

He told the ambassadors that up to 400,000 more children could die every year if the economic crisis continues, and that millions of people could fall into poverty.

"Our fears are that the poorest people who have benefited least from decades of unequal economic growth will pay the greater price for this folly," Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga asserted.

"We can either greet 2009 with paralysis or as an opportunity for change," he said. This year, he added, could be the year to construct a "blueprint for a better world."

The cardinal called on international leaders to use their influence in order to persuade voters that "supporting the poor is not a fair-weather choice but a moral responsibility."

He added, "Each of us has a responsibility to promote and to protect the common good, and to hold our governments to account for their actions."

Referring to the Pauline year, Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga expressed the hope that the leaders of wealthy countries will experience their own "road to Damascus moment."

"There must be a conversion away from the old system of blind greed to one where our eyes are opened to justice and dignity for all," he said.

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DAILY LITURGICAL SAINT

May 7, 2009

Blessed Rose Venerini

(1656-1728)

Rose was born at Viterbo in Italy, the daughter of a doctor. Following the death of her fiancé she entered a convent, but soon returned home to care for her newly widowed mother. Meanwhile, Rose invited the women of the neighborhood to recite the rosary in her home, forming a sort of sodality with them.

As she looked to her future, Rose, under the spiritual guidance of a Jesuit priest, became convinced that she was called to become a teacher in the world rather than a contemplative nun in a convent. Clearly, she made the right choice: She was a born teacher, and the free school for girls she opened in 1685 was well received.

Soon the cardinal invited her to oversee the training of teachers and the administration of schools in his Diocese of Montefiascone. As Rose's reputation grew, she was called upon to organize schools in many parts of Italy, including Rome. Her disposition was right for the task as well, for Rose often met considerable opposition but was never deterred.

She died in Rome in 1728, where a number of miracles were attributed to her. She was beatified in 1952. The sodality, or group of women she had invited to prayer, was ultimately given the rank of a religious congregation. Today, the so-called Venerini Sisters can be found in the United States and elsewhere, working among Italian immigrants.

Comment:

Whatever state of life God calls us to, we bring with us an assortment of experiences, interests and gifts—however small they seem to us. Rose’s life stands as a reminder that all we are is meant to be put to service wherever we find ourselves.

http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintofDay

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GENERAL MARIOLOGY

THE DIVINE HISTORY AND LIFE

OF THE

VIRGIN MOTHER OF GOD

BOOK TWO

Treats of the Presentation of the Princess of Heaven in the Temple, the

Favors She Received at the Hand of God, the Sublime Perfection

with which She Observed the Rules of the Temple,

the Heavenly Excellence of Her Heroic Virtues

and Visions, Her Most Holy Espousal and

other Events up to the Incarnation

of the Son of God

CHAPTER VI.

THE TRIALS OF THE QUEEN IN THE TEMPLE AND THE DEATH OF HER PARENTS.

During these words of the holy angels to Joachim, his spouse, holy Anne, stood at the head of his bed and by divine disposition She heard and understood what they said. In the same moment the holy patriarch lost the use of speech and, treading into the path common to all flesh, he commenced his agony in a marvelous struggle between his joy at this message and the pain of death. In this conflict of the interior powers of his soul he made many fervent acts of divine love, of faith, of admiration, of praise, of thanksgiving, of humility and heroic acts of many other virtues. Thus absorbed in the knowledge of so divine a mystery, he arrived at the term of his natural life and died the precious death of the saints (Psalm 115, 15). His holy soul was carried by the angels to the limbo of the Patriarchs and just souls and, for a new consolation and light in the protracted night in which they lived, the Most High sent the soul of Joachim as the last messenger and legate of the Lord to announce to the whole congregation of the just that the dawn of the eternal day was at hand; that the morning light was breaking upon the world in most holy Mary, Daughter of Joachim and Anne; that from Her was to be brought forth the Sun of the Divinity, Christ, the Redeemer of all the human race. This great news the holy fathers and the just in limbo heard and received with jubilee and in their exultation they sang many hymns of thanksgiving to the Most High.

The first affliction, which our Princess suffered, was that the Lord suspended the continual visions, which He had so far vouchsafed Her. So much the greater was the sorrow occasioned Her thereby, in proportion as it was a new and unaccustomed experience and in proportion as the treasure thus withdrawn was high and precious. Also the holy angels concealed themselves from Her, and at the withdrawal from her sight of so many, so excellent and heavenly beings, which took place all at once (although they did not cease to surround Her invisibly for her protection), that most pure Soul seemed to Herself entirely forsaken and left alone in the dark night occasioned by the absence of her Beloved.

It was a great surprise to our little Queen; for the Lord, though He had in general prepared Her for the coming of tribulations, had not specified their nature. And as the innocent heart of the most simple Dove harbored no thoughts, and entertained no practical conclusions except such as were conformable to her humility and incomparable love, She explained all according to this same light. In her humility She began to think, that She had not merited the further presence and possession of the lost Good on account of her ingratitude; and in her inflamed love She sighed and yearned after It with such great and loving affection and sorrow, that there are no words to express them. She turned with her whole soul to the Lord in this new state and said to Him:

"Highest God and Lord of all creation, infinite in bounty and rich in mercies, I confess, my Lord, that such a vile creature cannot merit thy favors and my soul in utmost sorrow reproaches itself with its own ingratitude and with the loss of thy friendship. If my ingratitude has eclipsed the Sun, which vivified, animated and illumined me, and if I have been remiss in giving thanks for the great benefits, I acknowledge, my Lord and Shepherd, the sin of my great negligence. If, like an ignorant and simple little sheep, I did not know how to be thankful and do what is most acceptable in thy eyes, see me prostrate on the earth, adhering to the dust, in order to be raised from my poverty and destitution by Thee, my God, who dwellest on high. Thy powerful hands have formed me (Job 10, 8), and Thou canst not be ignorant of our composition (Psalm 102, 14) and in what kind of a vase Thou has placed thy treasures. My soul wastes away in bitterness (Psalm 30, 11); and in thy absence, since Thou art its sweetest life none but Thou can restore its drooping life. To whom shall I go in thy absence? Whither shall I turn my eyes without having light to direct them? Who shall console me when all is affliction? Who shall preserve me from death, when there is no life left?"

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DIVINE MERCY

Divine Mercy In my soul

NOTEBOOK II

The Mercy of the Lord I will sing Forever.
Divine Mercy in my soul.
Sr. Faustina, Diary
Notebook II

But after a short while, I entered into the sufferings which Jesus underwent in the Garden of Olives. This lasted until Friday morning. On Friday, I experienced the Passion of Jesus but, this time, in a different way. On that day, Father Bukowski came from Derby. Some strange power pushed me to go to confession and tell him about everything that had happened to me and about what Jesus had said to me. When I told Father, he was quite different and he said to me, “sister, don’t be afraid of anything; you will come to no harm, for the Lord Jesus will not allow it. If you are obedient and persevere in this disposition, you need not worry about anything. God will find a way to bring about His work. You should always have this simplicity and sincerity and tell everything to Mother general. What I said to you was said as a warning, because illusions may afflict even holy persons, and satan’s insinuations may play a part in this, and sometimes this comes from our own selves, so one has to be careful. And so continue as you have thus far. You can see, sister, that the Lord is not angered by this. And sister, you can repeat these things that have happened to you at present to your regular confessor [Father Sopocko].”

From this I came to understand one thing: that I must pray much for each of my confessors, that he might obtain the light of the Holy Spirit, for when I approach the confessional without first praying fervently, the confessor does not understand me very well. Father encouraged me to pray fervently for these intentions, that God would give better knowledge and understanding of the things He is asking of me. “Make novena after novena, sister, and God will not refuse the graces.”

Good Friday. At three o’clock, I saw the Lord Jesus, crucified, who looked at me and said, I thirst. Then I saw two rays issue from His side, just as they appear in the image. I then felt in my soul the desire to save souls and to empty myself for the sake of poor sinners. I offered myself, together with the dying Jesus, to the Eternal Father, for the salvation of the whole world. With Jesus, through Jesus and in Jesus is my communion with You, eternal Father. On Good Friday, Jesus suffered in His soul in a way which was different from [His suffering on] Holy Thursday.

Mass of the Resurrection. April 12, 1936. when I entered the chapel, my spirit was immersed in God, its only treasure. His presence flooded me.
O my Jesus, my Master and Director, strengthen and enlighten me in these difficult moment of my life. I expect no help from people; all my hope is in You. I feel alone in the face of Your demands, O Lord. Despite the fears and qualms of my nature, I am fulfilling your Holy will and desire to fulfill it as faithfully as possible throughout my life and in my death. Jesus, with You I can do all things. Do with me as You please: only give me Your merciful Heart and that is enough for me.
O Jesus my Lord, help me. Let what You have planned before all ages happen to me. I am ready at each beckoning of Your Holy will, enlighten my mind that I may know Your will. O God, You who pervade my soul, You know that I desire nothing but Your Glory.
O divine will, You are the delight of my heart, the food of my soul, the light of my intellect, the omnipotent strength of my will; for when I unite myself with Your will, O Lord, Your power works through me and takes the place of my feeble will. Each day, I seek to carry out God’s wishes.
O incomprehensible God, how great is Your mercy! It surpasses the combined understanding of all men and angels. All the angels and all humans have emerged from the very depths of Your tender mercy. Mercy is the flower of love. God is love, and mercy is His deed. In love it is conceived; in mercy it is revealed. Everything I look at speaks to me of God’s mercy. Even God’s very justice speaks to me about His fathomless mercy, because justice flows from love.

There is one word I heed and continually ponder; it alone is everything to me: I live by it and die by it, and it is the Holy will of God. It is my daily food. My whole soul listens intently to God’s wishes. I do always what God asks of me, although my nature often quakes and I feel that the magnitude of these things is beyond my strength. I know well what I am of myself, but I also know what the grace of God is, which supports me.

April 25, 1936. Walendow. On that day, the suffering in my soul was more sever than ever before. From early morning, I felt as if my body and soul had separated. If felt that God’s presence had penetrated my whole being; if felt all the justice of God within me; I felt I stood alone before God. I thought: one word from my spiritual director would set me entirely at peace; but what can I do? He is not here. However, I decided to seek light in holy confession. When I uncovered my soul to the priest, he as afraid to continue hearing my confession, and that caused me even greater suffering. When I see that a priest is fearful, I do not obtain any inner peace. So I have decided that only to my spiritual director will I open my soul in all matters, from the greatest to the least, and that I will follow his directions strictly.

Now I understand that confession is only the confessing of one’s sins, and spiritual guidance is a different thing altogether. But this is not what I want to speak about. I want to tell about a strange thing that happened to me for the first time. When the confessor started talking to me, I did not understand a single word. Then I saw Jesus crucified and He said to me, it is in my Passion that you must seek light and strength. After the confession, I meditated on Jesus’ terrible Passion, and I understood that what I was suffering was nothing compared to the Savior’s Passion, and that even the smallest imperfection was the cause of this terrible suffering. Then my soul was filled with very great contrition, and only then I sensed that I was in the sea of the infathomable mercy of God. Oh, how few words I have to express what I am experiencing! I feel I am like a drop of dew engulfed in the depths of the bottomless ocean of divine mercy.

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CATHOLIC TEACHING/CONVICTION/TESTIMONY

On St. John Damascene

"God Wants to Rest in Us"

VATICAN CITY, MAY 6, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave today during the general audience in St. Peter's Square. He continued his series on great writers of the Church in the Middle Ages, focusing today on St. John Damascene.

* * *

Dear brothers and sisters:

I would like to speak today about John Damascene, a prominent personality in the history of Byzantine theology, a great doctor in the history of the universal Church. He is above all an eye witness of the passage from the Greek and Syriac culture, shared in the eastern part of the Byzantine Empire, to the culture of Islam, which took over space with its military conquests in the territory ordinarily recognized as the Middle or Near East.

John, born to a rich Christian family, took on while still young the post -- perhaps also held by his father -- as the economic head of the kingdom. Quite soon, however, unsatisfied with life at court, he fully developed a choice for the monastic life, entering the monastery of San Sabas, close to Jerusalem. It was around the year 700. Never leaving the monastery, he dedicated himself with all his strength to ascesis and literary activity, without spurning a certain pastoral activity, of which his numerous homilies give witness. His liturgical memorial is celebrated Dec. 4. Pope Leo XIII proclaimed him a doctor of the universal Church in 1890.

In the East, he is remembered above all for his three discourses against those who calumniate holy images, [discourses] which were condemned after his death by the iconoclast Council of Hieria (754). These discourses, however, were the principal motive for his reinstatement and canonization by the orthodox fathers gathered in the Second Council of Nicaea (787), the Seventh Ecumenical Council. In these texts it is possible to find the first important theological attempts to legitimize the veneration of sacred images, uniting to them the mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God in the womb of the Virgin Mary.

John Damascene was also one of the first to distinguish between the public and private worship of Christians, and between adoration (latreia) and veneration (proskynesis): The first can only be directed to God, highly spiritual; the second on the other hand can use an image to direct oneself to he who is represented by it.

Obviously, a saint cannot in any way be identified with the material of which an icon is made. This distinction quickly resulted very important to respond in a Christian way to those who claimed as universal and perennial the observance of the severe prohibition in the Old Testament about the use of images in worship. This was a great discussion also in the Islamic world, which accepts this Jewish tradition of the total exclusion of images for worship. Christians on the other hand, in this context, considered the problem and found a justification for the veneration of images.

Damascene wrote: "In other times, God had never been represented in an image, being incorporeal and without a face. But given that now God has been seen in the flesh and has lived among man, I represent what is visible in God. I do not venerate matter, but the Creator of matter, who has made himself matter for me and has deigned to dwell in matter and carry out my salvation through matter. I will never cease because of this to venerate the matter through with salvation has come to me.

"But I do not venerate it absolutely like [I do] God! How could God be that which has received existence from non being? ... Rather I venerate and respect also all the rest of the matter that has procured salvation, inasmuch as it is full of holy energies and graces. Is not perhaps matter the wood of the cross thrice blessed? ... And the ink and the holy book of the Gospels are not matter? The salvific altar that dispenses us the bread of life is not matter? ... And before all, is not matter the flesh and the blood of my Lord? Should the sacred character of all of this be suppressed? Or should it be conceded to the tradition of the Church the veneration of the images of God and that of the friends of God that are sanctified by the name they carry, and because of this reason are dwelt in by the grace of the Holy Spirit. Do not be offended therefore by matter: It is not despicable because nothing that God has made is despicable" (Contra imaginum calumniatores, I, 16, ed. Kotter, pp. 89-90).

We see that, because of the Incarnation, matter appears as divinized, is seen as the dwelling place of God. This is a new vision of the world and material realities. God has become flesh and flesh has become truly the dwelling place of God, whose glory shines forth in the human face of Christ. Therefore the invitations of the doctor of the East are even today extremely current, considering the great dignity that matter has received in the Incarnation, able to come to be, in faith, efficient sign and sacrament of man's encounter with God.

John Damascene is, therefore, a privileged witness of the veneration of icons, which would come to be one of the most distinctive aspects of Eastern theology and spirituality up to today. And nevertheless it is a form of worship that simply belongs to the Christian faith, to the faith in this God that has become flesh and made himself visible. The teaching of St. John Damascene thus is inserted in the tradition of the universal Church, whose doctrine on the sacraments takes into account that material elements taken from nature can change through grace in virtue of the invocation (epiclesis) of the Holy Spirit, accompanied by the confession of the true faith.

United to these underlying ideas, John Damascene also places the veneration of the relics of the saints, on the base of the conviction that holy Christians, having been made participants in the resurrection of Christ, cannot be considered simply as "the dead." Enumerating, for example, those whose relics or images are worthy of veneration, John specifies in his third discourse in defense of images: "Before all (we venerate) those among whom God has rested, the only holy one who dwells among the saints (cf. Isaiah 57:15), such as the holy Mother of God and all the saints. These are those who, inasmuch as possible, have made themselves similar to God with their will and by the indwelling and help of God, [and] are really called gods (cf. Psalm 82:6), not by nature, but rather by contingence, as red-hot iron is called fire, not by nature, but by contingence and through participation in the fire. It is said, in fact: "You will be holy because I am holy" (Leviticus 19:2)" (III, 33, col. 1352 A).

After a series of references of this type, Damascene could serenely deduce, therefore:"God, who is good and superior to all goodness, did not content himself with the contemplation of himself, but rather wanted there to be beings benefited by him who could come to be participants in his goodness: For this he created out of nothing all things, visible and invisible, including man, a visible and invisible reality. And he created him thinking of him and making him a being capable of thinking (ennoema ergon) enriched by the word (logo[i] sympleroumenon) and oriented toward the spirit (pneumati teleioumenon)" (II, 2, PG 94, col. 865A).

And to clarify later this thought, he adds: "It is necessary to leave oneself full of awe (thaumazein) at all the works of providence (tes pronoias erga), praise them all and accept them all, overcoming the temptation to point out in them aspects that to many seem unjust or iniquitous (adika), and admitting instead that God's project (pronoia) goes beyond the cognitive and understanding capacity (agnoston kai akatalepton) of man, meanwhile on the other hand only he knows our thoughts, our actions and even our future" (II, 29, PG 94, col. 964C).

Already Plato, on the other hand, said that all philosophy begins with awe: Also our faith begins with awe at creation, at the beauty of God who becomes visible.

This optimism of natural contemplation (physikè theoria), of this seeing in visible creation the good, the beautiful and the true, this Christian optimism is not a naïve optimism: It takes into account the wound inflicted on human nature by free choice desired by God and used inappropriately by man, with all the consequences of widespread disharmony that have come from it. From here stems the need, clearly perceived by the theology of Damascene, that the nature in which the goodness and beauty of God is reflected, wounded by our fault, "would be strengthened and renewed" by the descent of the Son of God in the flesh, after in many ways and on many occasions God himself had tried to show that he had created man so that he would be not only in "being," but in "being good" (cf. La fede ortodossa, II, 1, PG 94, col. 981).

With a passionate exclamation, John explains: "It was necessary for nature to be strengthened and renewed and that the path of virtue would be indicated and concretely taught (didachthenai aretes hodòn), [the path] that banishes corruption and leads to eternal life ... Thus appeared on the horizon of history the great sea of the love of God for man (philanthropias pelagos) ..."

It is a beautiful expression. We see, on one hand, the beauty of creation and on the other, the destruction caused by human fault. But we see in the Son of God, who descends to renew nature, the sea of the love of God for man.

John Damascene continues: "He himself, the Creator and Lord, fought for his creature, transmitting his teaching to him with his example ... And thus the Son of God, while subsisting in the form of God, descended from the heavens and lowered himself ... toward his servants ... carrying out the newest thing of all, the only thing truly new under the son, through which he manifested in fact the infinite power of God" (III, 1. PG 94, col. 981C-984B).

We can imagine the consolation and the joy that filled the hearts of the faithful with these words so full of fascinating images. We too hear them today, sharing the same sentiments of the Christians of that time: God wants to rest in us, he wants to renew nature also through our conversion, he wants to make us participants in his divinity. May the Lord help us to make these words the essence of our lives.

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