Daily Reflections

PRAYER FOR THE MONTH OF OCTOBER

Hasten, O most powerful destroyer of heresy, hasten the hour of mercy, seeing that the hour of judgement is dearly challenged by innumerable offenses…. Enable me to live, a just life on earth, and reign with the just in Heaven, whilst with the faithful throughout the world, O Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, I salute thee and cry out: Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, pray for us! Amen.

Ephesians 2:20, 22, 21

You are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
with Jesus Christ himself being the cornerstone.
– In whom you also are built together into an habitation of God in the Spirit

In whom all the building, being framed together, groweth up into an holy temple in the LORD.
– In whom you also are built together into an habitation of God in the Spirit.

Thursday of the Twenty-Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

Feria after Pentecost (Traditional)

Saint Wilfrid, (England)

“How much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:5-13). Jesus knows that the real answer to prayer that we all need is not merely a material object or earthly good, but the presence of God Himself. Thus, the LORD invites us to beg with persistence and to be steadfast in the deeper meaning of prayer—our constant attachment to a personal God.

SAINT WILFRID, BISHOP

Born in Northumberland in 634, St. Wilfrid was educated at Lindesfarne and then spent some time in Lyons and Rome. Returning to England, he was elected Abbot of Ripon in 658 and introduced the Roman rules and practices in opposition to the celtic ways of northern England. In 664, he was the architect of the definitive victory of the Roman party at the Conference of Whitby. He was appointed Bishop of York and after some difficulty finally took possession of his See in 669. He laboured zealously and founded many monasteries of the Benedictine Order, but he was obliged to appeal to Rome in order to prevent the subdivision of his diocese by St. Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury. While waiting for the case to be decided, he was forced to go into exile, and worked hard and long to evangelize the heathen south Saxons until his recall in 686. In 691, he had to retire again to the Midlands until Rome once again vindicated him. In 703, he resigned his post and retired to his monastery at Ripon where he spent his remaining time in prayer and penitential practices, until his death in 709. St. Wilfrid was an outstanding personage of his day, extremely capable and possessed of unbounded courage, remaining firm in his convictions despite running afoul of civil and ecclesiastical authorities. He helped bring the discipline of the English Church into line with that of Rome. He was also a dedicated pastor and a zealous and skilled missionary; his brief time spent in Friesland in 678-679 was the starting point for the great English mission to the Germanic peoples of continental Europe. His feast day is October 12th.

From a letter to the Philadelphians by Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr
(1, 1-2, 1; 3, 2-5: Funk 1, 226-229)

One Bishop with the presbyters and deacons

Ignatius, also called Theophorus, to the church of God the Father and the LORD Jesus Christ located at Philadelphia in the province of Asia. You have found mercy and have been strengthened in the peace of God; you are now filled with gladness because of the Passion of Our LORD, and by His mercy you are made believers in His Resurrection. I greet you in the Blood of Jesus Christ. You are my abiding and unshakeable joy, especially if your members remain united with the Bishop and with his presbyters and deacons, all appointed in accordance with the mind of Christ who by His own Will has strengthened them in the firmness which the Spirit gives.

I know that this bishop has obtained his ministry, which serves the community, neither by his own efforts, nor from men nor even out of vainglory, but from the love of God the Father and of the LORD Jesus Christ. I am deeply impressed by his gentleness, and by his silence he is more effective than the empty talkers. He is in harmony with the Commandments as is a lute with its strings. I call him blessed, then, for his sentiments toward God, since I know these to be virtuous and perfect, and for his stability and calm, in which he imitates the gentleness of the living God.

As sons of the light of truth, flee divisions and evil doctrines; where your shepherd is, follow him as his flock.

For all who belong to God and Jesus Christ are with the bishop; all who repent and return to the unity of the Church will also belong to God, that they may live according to Jesus Christ. Do not be deceived, my brothers. If anyone follows a schismatic, he will not obtain the inheritance of God’s Kingdom; if anyone lives by an alien teaching, he does not assent to the Passion of the LORD.

Be careful, therefore, to take part only in the One Eucharist; for there is only One Flesh of Our LORD Jesus Christ and One Cup to unite us with His Blood, One Altar and One Bishop with the presbyters and deacons, who are his fellow servants. Then, whatever you do, you will do according to God.

My brothers, I overflow with love for you and with a joyous heart I make you strong—although it is not so much I but Jesus Christ. Although imprisoned for His sake, I fear more because of my imperfection. But your prayers will perfect me in the eyes of God so that I might yet receive the inheritance promised me by the merciful God. I seek refuge in the person of Christ through the Gospels and I appeal to the true ministry of the Church through the Apostles.

DAILY MEDITATION 

 God asks of us a full, perfect, and faithful correspondence to grace, in all circumstances in which we may find ourselves. The grace of beginners is not the same as that of those who are more advanced, and the grace of those who are advanced is not the same as that of those who are consummated in the way of perfection. A disposition that is good in a beginner is not so in one who is more advanced; such and such a practice is proper for one state and would not be so for another. We must, then, understand how to take them up and leave them, following the instinct of grace, and not to attach ourselves to any one of them with any kind of obstinacy. Still less must we desire to raise ourselves above our present state, until God himself reaches us; nor must we undertake or wish for what is beyond our strength, or imagine we can do what we admire in the saints, or think we may allow ourselves certain liberties that God grants only to those souls who have passed through every sort of trial….

God asks of us that when we have given ourselves to Him, we shall never take ourselves away from Him in anything; that we shall never act on our own responsibility, but always consult Him in everything, and also those guides whom He has given us to direct us, especially when we wish to do anything extraordinary. He asks that we shall remain passive and submissive to His Will in any state in which it pleases Him to place us; that we shall never do anything of ourselves to go out of this state, on the pretext that it is too painful for human nature and that we cannot bear it any longer. We must not ask Him to deliver us from a temptation, or a humiliation, or an interior trial, if He Wills that we should be tempted, or humiliated, or tried for our greater  purification; but we must ask of Him the courage and strength to bear it to the end.

Fr. Jean Nicolas Grou [d.1803] – French Jesuit, priest, and spiritual director, whose writings sustained the spiritual life of  many during the French revolution.

Ask, Seek, Knock

I beg you, Son of the Living God, You have worked so many miracles. You changed water into wine at Cana to enlighten Israel. You healed the eyes of the blind; You restored hearing to deaf ears and movement to paralysed limbs. You corrected the stammering tongue, freed the possessed, made the lame run like the deer, raised up the dead, and taking him by the hand You made Peter walk upon the water, safe from sinking.

You have left us this saying: Ask and you will receive, knock and it will be opened to you. All that you ask of the Father, in My name, I too will ask of My Father, that you may have it. I ask that I may receive, seek that I may find, knock that it may be opened to me. I ask in Your name that You will ask Your Father and He will hear me. I am ready to pour out my blood as a victim for Your name’s sake, to bear any torment. You, LORD, are the One who hears and protects me; defend me from the enemy.

May the angel of Light protect me, for You have said, What you ask of Me with Faith in prayer, I will grant. May Your Spirit work in me and Your Will be accomplished in me, that I may be wholly Yours, all the days of my life.

A prayer attributed to Saint Cyprian of Antioch

Saint Cyprian of Antioch († 304), a magician or sorcerer in his youth, was converted to Christianity by Saint Justina and died a martyr. [From Hymns to Christ: And a Concert of Miniatures. ©]

“The refusal to take sides on great moral issues is itself a decision. It is a silent acquiescence to evil. The tragedy of our time is that those who still believe in honesty lack fire and conviction, while those who believe in dishonesty are full of passionate conviction.” – Ven. Archbishop Fulton Sheen