Daily Reflection – Everyone Should Read His or Her Book of Life Backward
Minute Meditation – The Mysterious Faces of God
Here in Ephesus, she was now as she was then: a girl, a woman, waiting and watching for the angel who would announce the word of her passing into the heaven where her Son ruled at the right hand of the Father. She was not afraid. She needed no Gabriel to reassure her. She’d lived too long in the immensity of the mystery to doubt. Nor did she wonder who she would be in eternity. She would be who she always was: Mary, the mother of God’s Son. She suspected that would be her role for all eternity: mother, woman, the completion of the love of the mysterious faces of God—Father, Son, Holy Spirit—the mystery moving through the three of them into her, visible in eternity as it is invisible on earth.
— from the book Nourishing Love: A Franciscan Celebration of Mary
by Murray Bodo, OFM
//Franciscan Media//
Saint of the Day – May 18 – Saint Felix of Cantalice
St. Felix of Cantalice (d. 1587) was born to a pious peasant family in Italy. He grew up tending sheep and was hired out to work for a farmer at the age of nine, which he did for twenty years. He evidenced signs of holiness and spent his free time in prayer. He had a friend read him the lives of the saints from which he drew much inspiration. Felix eventually joined the Capuchin Franciscans and served in Rome as the Order’s official beggar. Although he could not read, and received no formal study, he had great influence over the Roman people because of his piety and the labors he undertook to convert even the most hardened sinners. Felix also encouraged those he met to lead greater lives of virtue, regardless if they were dignitaries or peasants. Men who lived scandalous lives retreated from his presence, lest he convict them of their sins. St. Felix’s special apostolate was among the children of the city to whom he gave religious instruction with childlike humility and simplicity. He was a contemporary and friend of St. Philip Neri, who declared Felix to be the Church’s greatest living saint. St. Felix served in this way for 42 years. He was beatified immediately after his death, becoming the first Capuchin Franciscan ever canonized. His body rests under an altar dedicated to him in the church of the Immaculate Conception in Rome. His feast day is May 18.
//The Catholic Company//
Meditation of the Day – The People of God Share in the Royal Office of Christ
Jesus Christ is the one whom the Father anointed with the Holy Spirit and established as priest, prophet, and king. The whole People of God participates in these three offices of Christ and bears the responsibilities for mission and service that flow from them. On entering the People of God through faith and Baptism, one receives a share in this people’s unique, priestly vocation: … The baptized, by regeneration and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, are consecrated to be a spiritual house and a holy priesthood.” “The holy People of God shares also in Christ’s prophetic office,” above all in the supernatural sense of faith that belongs to the whole People, lay and clergy, when it “unfailingly adheres to this faith . . . once for all delivered to the saints,” and when it deepens its understanding and becomes Christ’s witness in the midst of this world. Finally, the People of God shares in the royal office of Christ. He exercises his kingship by drawing all men to himself through his death and Resurrection. Christ, King and Lord of the universe, made himself the servant of all, for he came “not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” For the Christian, “to reign is to serve him,” particularly when serving “the poor and the suffering, in whom the Church recognizes the image of her poor and suffering founder.” The People of God fulfills its royal dignity by a life in keeping with its vocation to serve with Christ.—The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 783-786
//The Catholic Company//
Morning Offering – Love Mary!
“Love Mary! She is loveable, faithful, constant. She will never let herself be outdone in love, but will ever remain supreme. If you are in danger, she will hasten to free you. If you are troubled, she will console you. If you are sick, she will bring you relief. If you are in need, she will help you. She does not look to see what kind of person you have been. She simply comes to a heart that wants to love her.”
— St. Gabriel Possenti of Our Lady of Sorrows
//The Catholic Company//
Minute Meditation – What Waiting Reveals
How much is revealed about who we really are when we are forced to wait, especially when we’re not sure what we’re waiting for. Is that what Mary was doing—just waiting and praying—when the undreamed of annunciation happened: Gabriel invading her private waiting, announcing that the Lord was with her? She was being told that whoever it was she was waiting for was greater than she imagined and was already there: the Word of God. And Mary says, “Be it done unto me according your word.” So it was for Mary; so it can be for us who wait in silent prayer seemingly unable to do anything to change our circumstances. We can choose to be and let God do. We can choose to let the Holy Spirit work, let the Holy Spirit come upon us that the Word might be born again in and through us. We can be still, and let the Word send down His Spirit.
— from the book Nourishing Love: A Franciscan Celebration of Mary
by Murray Bodo, OFM
//Franciscan Media//
Daily Reflection – I Give You Myself and This Mess
Saint of the Day – May 17 – Blessed Antonia Mesina
Blessed Antonia Mesina (1919-1935) was one of ten children born to a poor family on the island of Sardinia in Italy. Being the second oldest child, she had to leave school to help with the family chores after her mother became bedridden, a task which she accepted with obedience, humility, and joy. Antonia’s mother referred to her daughter as “the flower of my life.” Antonia was also active in her parish, joining the Young Women of Catholic Action organization at the age of ten and encouraging others to do the same. On May 17, 1935, while in the forest with a friend gathering firewood, Antonia was assaulted by a teenage boy who attempted to rape her. Her friend ran for help while Antonia bravely defended herself against her attacker. The young man, unable to achieve his goal due to her continuous resistance, brutally attacked Antonia with dozens of blows with a rock. By the time help arrived, it was too late. /Antonia died at the age of sixteen. The entire town accompanied her body to the site of her burial. She is considered a martyr of sexual purity, and was beatified by Pope St. John Paul II in 1987. Her story has been likened to that of St. Maria Goretti. Blessed Antonia Messina is the patron of rape victims. Her feast day is May 17th.
//The Catholic Company//
Meditation of the Day – It is Pleasing to Him When We Bear Every Pain and Fatigue for the Salvation of Souls
“Very pleasing to Me, dearest daughter, is the willing desire to bear every pain and fatigue, even unto death, for the salvation of souls, for the more the soul endures, the more she shows that she loves Me; loving Me she comes to know more of My truth, and the more she knows, the more pain and intolerable grief she feels at the offenses committed against me.”— God to St. Catherine of Siena, p. 9
//The Catholic Company//
Daily Reflection – Reaching a Child’s Mind
