Saturday 9 February 2013

Our Lady's Saturday - St Cyril and The Mother of God


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Dear Reader

On this Saturday dedicated, as are all Saturdays, to the honour of Our Lady let us pray with fervour remembering the example of St. Cyril of Alexandria the great defender of the Mother of God. He defended Her title of Theotokos (God-Bearer) against the heretics of his day. So let us remember that Our Lady is not just the Mother of Christ but though the Trinity and the consubstantial nature of Christ,  is also the Mother of God. This Saturday as it is the 9th of February is the feast of St. Cyril of Alexandria so today we may both honour him and his Belovd Mother.


St Cyril composed a beautiful prayer which expresses in an extraordinary way the role and majesty of the Mother of God, which I recommend for recitation on this day.


“Hail Mary, Mother of God,
Crowned Treasure of all the Universe,
Star without Decline,
Crown of Virginity,
Sceptre of the True Faith,
Indestructible Temple,
Dwelling of the Incommensurable,
Mother and Virgin.

We salute you because you are called Blessed in the Holy Gospel
and you come in the name of the Lord.
We salute you, Mother of God,
because you contained in your virginal womb
what Heaven could not contain.

Through you, in whom Heaven rejoices,
the Holy Trinity is glorified and worshipped in every land. “

May Almighty God bless you and may the Most Holy Mother of God intercede for you with Her divine Son.

Yours in Christ
Dominic Maria

Friday 8 February 2013

On A Great Love


J+M+J


Dear Reader

Though I had not intended write to you again today I have decided to write about one of my greatest loves. This is a love I share with St. John of Matha whose feast is today and whom I did recall in my previous correspondence with you. So what is it that I share a love for with St. John? It is that most adorable of things, the Most Holy Trinity. As St. John responded when asked why he so often celebrated the Votive Mass of the Most Holy Trinity he answered simply “For there is nothing holier in Heaven.” This holiness is what draws us close to Him this wonder of The Trinity. The Trinity is a mystery beyond any level of human comprehension how can we understand Three Persons in one, different but indivisible? Nothing in our apparent physical world can properly reflect it but still we can come to a certain comprehension of its nature.


Its nature is what inspired St. John of Matha as he worked to free slaves. It inspired St. John of the Cross while he was cruelly imprisoned and abused by his captors, and it is that which was the only consolation of the Mother of God during the Most Sorrowful Passion. For the nature of the trinity is Love, the truest Love, a Love without limits or boundaries. The Love between The Father and the Son was what brought forth the Holy Spirit, the Spirit being the fruit of this most fertile Love.

The Trinity is in itself the very substance and nature of the Godhead, the Trinity is the very core and as the Trinity is indivisible this make sit the key to the understanding of God. So the Trinity is bound together as The One God, what binds them together? Well that question is actually simpler than may be thought, it is Love. The Trinity is bound together closer than man and wife by the passage of love from each person unto the others.

So now we have a glimpse into the nature of the Mystery, how best can we relate to it? We must Love God, Our Neighbour and Ourselves, God being first. For really all true Love emerges from Love of God, a theme I will likely expand on soon. For The Trinity is True Love, the only way to relate and interact is to reciprocate that Love as perfectly as we can and throw ourselves head first into a wild Love affair with the divine, we must hold nothing back but rather must sing with Joy the praises of God!


As Psalm 150 does declare

“[1] Praise ye the Lord in his holy places: praise ye him in the firmament of his power. [2] Praise ye him for his mighty acts: praise ye him according to the multitude of his greatness. [3] Praise him with sound of trumpet: praise him with psaltery and harp. [4] Praise him with timbrel and choir: praise him with strings and organs. [5] Praise him on high sounding cymbals: praise him on cymbals of joy: let every spirit praise the Lord.”


Let us go forth now with Love and praise to honour the Lord and to bring the mystery of the trinity to live within us. For let us not forget the whole of the Trinity is present in the Blessed Sacrament of the altar and by adoring that most wonderful sacrament we adore the whole of the Indivisible and Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Until the next time I wish you all the best, I hope that you my dear Reader, can correspond with me and inform me of where my meagre ability has failed me in my description of this Mystery. May The Most Holy Trinity bless you and all your loved ones.

 

Yours in Christ

Dominic Maria

St. John of Matha


J+M+J

 

 

Dear Reader

 

Today being the 8th of February is the feast of St. John of Matha. A great example to us in these modern days despite the reduction of his particular mission. He is a confessor and founder of a religious order in this case the Order of the Most Holy Trinity. To start with let’s read what is recorded in Lesson III of Matins for his feast.

 

John of Matha was born at Faucon in Provence of devout and noble parents. When he was celebrating his first Mass, he understood from a vision that he was to devote himself to ransoming those taken captives by the infidels. Because of this sign from God, he retired into the wilderness, where he found Felix of Valois, who had been living in that same place for many years. Here they both devoted themselves most fervently to prayer. After being advised three times in dreams, they went to Rome and obtained the approbation of Pope Innocent III for the new Order of the Most Holy Trinity for the Ransoming of Captives. They then built their first monastery in the diocese of Meaux, and Felix remained there as superior. But John returned to Rome with some companions, where Innocent gave them the house, church, and hospital of St. Thomas in Formis on the Coelian Hill. He also gave them letters to present to Miramolin, King of Morocco, and thus the work of ransoming captives was auspiciously begun. Then John went to Spain, a great part of which was oppressed under the Saracen yoke. Having moved the hearts of all to pity the captives, he built hospitals and ransomed many prisoners. At length, he returned to Rome; there, broken in health by his toils and by illness, he died in the Lord on the 21st day of December, in the year 1213.”

 

Here we can see that his mission was a vocation, a divine call from God to serve the lowest and neediest of the time, in this case those people who had been captured by the infidels and were being used as slaves.  This being the 6th of the corporal works of mercy. It is important to note that before he began his mission in earnest he had first been deep in prayer and then had sought confirmation of this vocation from Church Authority. He did not run off on his own feelings but was sent by The Church, this is an example to us to wait and be patient, for we are at the disposal of God who works through The Church He founded.

 

To be canonised one must show “Heroic Virtue” and though we are all called to express the virtues to this level, most of us will not succeed in doing so and indeed one does not need to be worthy of canonisation to take a seat in Heaven. In this case though St. John shows his total love of God by his absolute commitment that leaves him “broken in health by his toils” this is a reminder to us not to hold back from doing that which God asks us but by the virtue of diligence throwing ourselves completely into His work.

 

I hope that all of us can take something from the example of this great saint. Let us pray to St. John of Matha that through the coming season of Lent we may through prayer and penance be once more freed from all stain of sin.

 

Yours in Christ

Dominic Maria

Thursday 7 February 2013

7 Deadly Sins - Pride


J+M+J

 

Dear Reader

This is post one of Series One, wherein we will focus on the 7 deadly sins. Today appropriately we start with the primordial sin, the Sin of pride.

The Venerable Abp Fulton Sheen describes Pride as follows:


“Pride is an inordinate love of one’s own excellence, either of body or mind or the unlawful pleasure we derive from thinking we have no superiors. Pride being swollen egoism, it erects the human soul into a separate centre of origin apart from God, exaggerates its own importance, and becomes a world in and for itself.”

From this description we can see why Pride is the primordial sin, indeed why it was such a sin which caused The Enemy to fall from Grace and again caused mankind to fall in the Garden of Eden. Pride attempts to put us outside of God’s jurisdiction, convincing us that it does not matter that we go against the will of God, that we know best for ourselves anyway. It is the putting of the person above everything else; it can be expressed in various ways.


Atheism expresses a tremendous pride it states that man is capable by himself or all he does. That man can govern himself how he sees fit without recourse to any external authority. Atheism is a great expression of pride, an absolute rejection of God.


Pride can very often be seen in  its action, Our Enemy’s declaration “I will not Serve”, Martin Luther’s “I can do no Other” and recently the declaration of the House of Commons that it has the power to redefine that which God has decreed. All three are examples of Man turning directly against the will of God.  Though this, turning from God, is characteristic of all sin it is clearest in the sin of pride, indeed pride is a particularly noxious sin that can be commonly found within the other sins. Most sin is directly or indirectly an act of pride, it declares that “I know better”, it is an attempt to determine one’s own course without submission to the will of God.

Pride is a temptation that can emerge from pondering the vastness of the universe. If everything is too big we can just shrink it all down, put man on top, reason logic etc and voila it is not quite so scary anymore, it’s small and simple and manageable. The reverse can also be done with Pride you just make yourself so big that everything else is small. A degree, a seat in parliament, titles, money all of that can be used as merely a tool to make one think, “I have all of this so I matter more than X, Y and Z”. This makes Pride a poison to Charity as it leads to one thinking “As if I am worth so much more than everyone else why should I even attempt to express charity to this person? Surely I should be using my power, money etc to benefit myself?” So for example the prideful man may support an interest group of some description to further expand his own interests and that pride can be used as a hammer to crush down those not matching their power, money etc.


Thus Pride expands from a simple interior fault to a public cancer that bites and damages all aspects and limbs of society. This leads to irresponsible governance and decay in societal structure. This can lead into modern Capitalist and communist Structures which glorify man and lead to the reduction of the common people to numbers and figures that can be abused for “the greater good”.

 

Both Capitalism and Communism are prideful in that they reject the divine law and operate unto themselves, feeling fit to determine their own laws and morals, which often show little regard to Natural or Divine Law. This links back to the whole idea of the prideful becoming a world unto themselves. When one casts god out then it is Pride that comes and takes up its place.

Pride is such a vast subject I will probably return to this vice soon. I would appreciate any feedback, on the content and writing style. You can also expect the follow up post on the virtue of humility before long. 


Yours in Christ

Dominic Maria

Series 1 – The 7 Deadly Sins


J+M+J

 

Dear Reader

My first series for this blog will be on the 7 Deadly Sins.  Why such an odd and gloomy subject to start with? Well in effect because they are the root of all the other sins and is the rot gnawing at the heart of our modern society. There should be a least one post on each sin but individual sins may have multiple postings. To keep up spirits each sin will be matched with its corresponding Heavenly Virtue.

As an introduction to the series here are the Sins matched with their Virtues.

Pride – Humility

Covetousness – Charity

Lust – Chastity

Anger/Wrath – Patience

Gluttony – Temperance

Envy – Kindness

Sloth – Diligence


The first post should be up soon, so I will see you then.


Yours in Christ

Dominic Maria

Genesis - First Post


J+M+J


Dear Reader

Welcome to anyone who happens to come across this post. I thought I would start by outlining the purpose if this blog. This blog will focus on the various events that take place in culture as well as examining the messages to be found in the lives of the saints and in the Liturgy. In regards to liturgy the focus will mostly be upon the Roman Rite of 1962 though there may be mentions of the Novus Ordo and the various eastern and oriental rites. Posting should be quite regular but I am not expecting to be churning out multiple posts each day, most likely there will be a post every day or two.

 

So now your here sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.

Yours in Christ

Dominic Maria