Contemplation Is A Divine Fire

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Then Brother Giles said to a certain friar, "Father, I would fain know what is contemplation?" And the friar answered: "Father, truly I know not." Then Brother Giles said: "To me it seems that contemplation is a divine fire, a sweet devotion infused by the Holy Ghost, a rapture and suspension of the mind inebriated by the unspeakable savor of divine sweetness, and a sweet and tranquil enjoyment of the soul which is rapt and suspended in loving admiration of the glories of heaven, and an inward burning consciousness of that celestial and unspeakable glory."

Saint Francis of Assisi
LITTLE FLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS
Part Four
Chapter XI

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True Obedience Means We Must Die To Self

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Padre Pio

St. Francis was asked on one occasion who was a truly obedient person and he gave the example of a dead body. "Take a corpse," he said, "and put it wherever you like. You will see that it does not object to being transferred, does not complain about where it is put, and does not protest when it is cast aside. If you set it on a throne it will look down, not up; if you dress it in royal robes, it will only seem paler than ever. "

Saint Francis of Assisi
Bonaventure, Major Life
Chapter VI

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Modesty Is An Ornament Of All Ages

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Modesty is an ornament of all ages, the witness of innocence, the sign of a virtuous mind, and the badge of all uprightness.

Saint Francis of Assisi
Celano, First Life
Chapter VI

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Find Time To Be Alone

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Photo of the "South 40" of the Portiuncula Hermitage

in Jerusalem, Ohio

If you wish to grow in your spiritual life, you must not allow yourself to be caught up in the workings of the world; you must find time alone, away from the noise and confusion, away from the allure of power and wealth.

THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
THOMAS A KEMPIS

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Great Peace And Tranquility

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"If the body takes its food in quiet, which, along with itself, will become the food of worms, with what great peace and tranquility should not the soul take its food, which is God himself."

Saint Francis of Assisi

Celano, Second Life

CHAPTER LXIII

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"This is a warning to Catholics" say Spanish Bishops

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"This is a warning to Catholics, that they can't vote in favour of this and that they won't be able to receive communion unless they ask forgiveness ... They are in an objective state of sin".

This is what Juan Antonion Martinez Camino (pictured right), the spokesman of Spain's Catholic bishops' conference, told a news conference about Spanish Members of Parliament who had voted in favour of a bill to make abortion more readily available.

I'm in Sydney, Australia, for my son's graduation at Campion College where one of the guests will be Cardinal Pell, the redoubtable church leader who's known for taking a similar position on such matters.

Pro-lifers and pro-life strategists should never underestimate the significance of such statements for the following reasons:

• Such statements reflect accurately the gravity of voting to kill the innocent. We would not be surprised by bishops refusing Communion to politicians who would vote to kill bishops. Their refusal would reflect the seriousness of the politicians' sin in voting in such a way. The same is true of bishops' refusal of communion to politicians voting to kill unborn babies.
• Such statements have the effect of building a great campaign for life, called for in Pope John Paul II's great encyclical on pro-life matters Evangelium Vitae, 95, in which he said: "What is urgently called for is a general mobilization of consciences and a united ethical effort to activate a great campaign in support of life".

The "united ethical effort", to which Pope John Paul II refers, comes about because when the bishops make such appropriate, bold, statements, they reflect and strengthen the sentiment of ordinary people throughout the world whose respect for the fundamental human right to life is written in their hearts. Abortion supporters both inside and outside the churches will know for certain they have lost their campaign when bishops' conferences throughout the world follow the Spanish bishops' example.

As I said in my talk (also in Spanish and Italian) at the 4th World Congress for Life in Spain earlier this month:

"Here in Spain, the unity between the pro-life movement and your Catholic bishops on life issues is your greatest asset in your battle against your government's attacks on human life, marriage, parental rights and responsibilities, and the family. The loss of that unity would be the greatest threat to your pro-life and pro-family battle. The Church and the pro-life movement throughout Europe must learn from your example."

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Pope Soros And The Novus Ordo Seclorum

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[We are] not bound to obey if a minister commands anything that is contrary to our life or his own conscience, because there can be no obligation to obey if it means committing sin.

Saint Francis of Assisi

THE RULE OF 1221

Chapter 4

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Seek Out Solitary And Wild Places

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The Portiuncula Hermitgage

"For a matter as intimate as converse with God, one should choose that place which least occupies and most transcends the human side of our natures. And then it must not be a place that is pleasant and delectable to our feelings (such as some habitually contrive to find) for, so instead of the recollection of the spirit in God, naught is achieved but recreation and pleasure and feelings of delight. Therefore, that place is good which is solitary, and even wild, so that the spirit wholly and directly soars upward to God, not hindered nor detained by visible things: for even though these sometimes help to raise the spirit, that is better done by at once forgetting them and resting in God."

St. John of the Cross

The Ascent of Mount Carmel

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The Forgiveness Prayer

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Photo of the pond at the Portiuncula Hermitage

 in Jerusalem, Ohio

Lord Jesus Christ, I ask today to forgive everyone in my life. I know that You will give me strength to forgive and I thank You that You love me more than I love myself and want my happiness more than I desire it for myself.

Lord Jesus, I want to be free from the feelings of resentment, bitterness, and unforgiveness toward You for the times I thought You sent death, hardships, financial difficulties, punishments and sickness into our family.

Lord, I forgive myself for my sins, faults and failings. For all that is truly bad in myself or all that I think is bad, I do forgive myself. For any delvings in the occult; Ouija boards, horoscopes, seances, fortune telling, lucky charms, Reiki, for taking Your name in vain, for not worshiping You, for hurting my parents, for getting drunk, for taking dope, for sins against my purity, for adultery, for abortion, for stealing, for lying. I am truly forgiving myself today. Thank you, Lord, for Your grace at this moment.

I truly forgive my mother. I forgive her for all the times she hurt me, resented me, was angry with me and for all the times she punished me. I forgive her for the times she preferred my brothers and sisters to me. I forgive her for the times she told me I was dumb, ugly, stupid, the worst of the children or that I cost the family a lot of money. For the times she told me I was unwanted, an accident, a mistake or not what she expected, I forgive her.

I forgive my father. I forgive him for any nonsupport, any lack of love, affection or attention. I forgive him for any lack of time, for not giving me his companionship, for his drinking or arguing and fighting with my mother or the other children. For his severe punishments, for desertion, for being away from home, for divorcing my mother or for any running around, I do forgive him.

Lord, I extend forgiveness to my sisters and brothers. I forgive those who rejected me, lied about me, hated me, resented me, and competed for my parents' love, those who hurt me, who physically harmed me. For those who were too severe on me, punished me or made my life unpleasant in any way, I do forgive them.

Lord, I forgive my spouse for lack of love, affection, consideration, support, attention, communications, for faults, failings, weaknesses and those other acts or words that hurt or disturb me.

Jesus, I forgive my children for their lack of respect, obedience, love, attention, support, warmth, understanding, their bad habits, falling away from the church and bad actions which disturb me.

My God, I forgive my in-laws, mother, father, son or daughter-in-law and other relatives by marriage. For their lack of love, words of criticism, thoughts, actions or omissions that injure and cause pain, I do forgive them.

Please help me to forgive my relatives, my grandmother and grandfather who may have interfered in our family, been possessive or my parents, who may have caused confusion or turned one parent against the other.

Jesus, help me to forgive my co-workers who are disagreeable or make life miserable for me. For those who push their work off on me, gossip about me, won't cooperate with me, try to take my job, I do forgive them.

My neighbors need to be forgiven, Lord. For all their noise, letting their property run down, not tying up their dogs who run through my yard, not taking in their trashcans, being prejudiced and running down the neighborhood, I do forgive them.

I now forgive my clergyman, my congregation and my church for all their lack of support, pettiness, bad sermons, lack of friendliness, not affirming me as they should, not providing me with inspiration, for not using me in a key position, for not inviting me to serve in a major capacity and for any other hurt they have inflicted. I do forgive them today.

Lord, I forgive all professional people who have hurt me in any way: doctors, lawyers, policemen, hospital workers, for the things that they did to me, I truly forgive them today.

Lord, I forgive my employer for not paying me enough money, for not appreciating my work, for being unkind and unreasonable with me, for being angry or unfriendly, for not promoting me and for not complimenting me on my work.

Lord, I forgive my schoolteachers and instructors of the past, as well as the present. For those who punished me, humiliated me, insulted me, treated me unjustly, made fun of me, called me dumb or stupid, made me stay after school.

Lord, I forgive my friends who have let me down, lost contact with me, do not support me, were not available when I needed help, borrowed money and did not return it, gossiped about me.

Lord Jesus, I especially pray for the grace of forgiveness for that one person in life who has hurt me the most. I ask to forgive anyone who I consider my greatest enemy; the one who is the hardest to forgive or the one who I said I would never forgive.

Thank You, Jesus, that I am free of the evil of unforgiveness. Let Your Holy Spirit fill me with light and let every dark area of my mind be enlightened.

Amen.

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Mass of Divine Mercy Sunday (Ordinary Form) - Sunday, April 19

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Consider It Joy When We Are Crushed And Broken

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Fr. Michael Scanlan, TOR, 

former President and former Chancellor 

of the Franciscan University of Steubenville

R.I.P. my dear friend.

I truly miss my dear friend and mentor, Fr. Michael Scanlan, TOR, especially when just the two of us walked around the hills surrounding the Franciscan University of Steubenville discussing theology.  When Father was a guest on my radio talk show he shared a word from the Lord with our listening audience that was given to him when his journey had reached bottom, and a word we should all openly embrace within our own hearts whenever we are crushed and broken:

"Now you are broken and helpless. You can't possibly continue as you have in the past. Now I will show you MY ministry, and all you have been doing will be organized around it. You are sufficiently out of the way, with your eyes seeking me, for me to move with MY ministry, unmistakably marked with my character."

Father Michael Scanlan, T.O.R.

The Truth About Trouble

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The Heart's Innocence

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Chris Dickson standing in front of the 

Portiuncula Hermitage in Jerusalem, Ohio

along with "Sorella Chiara" 

Since spiritual joy springs from the heart's innocence and the purity of incessant prayer, these are the two virtues we need to acquire and keep.

Mirror of Perfection

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St. Francis Regarding Ezekiel 3:18

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"I would take it to mean that you should be so on fire with life and holiness that the light of your example and the manner of your speaking would be a reproach to the wicked. So, as I understand it, your life shining and your goodness spreading like a sweet odor will proclaim to the wicked their own wickedness."

Celano - Second Life

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You Cannot Have Resurrection Without First Going Through Crucifixion

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Fully experience that our love cannot more perfectly rest in anything than in a loving compassion for Christ; and that the more we are transformed into Christ crucified, the more we are transformed into the most high and glorious God...For if we fly from his passion, we shall be sepaqrated from him in his glory, according to the words of the apostle Saint Paul: "If we suffer with him, we shall also be glorified with him."

Admonitions of St. Francis

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Planting Of Flowers

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Francis told the brother gardener not to plant the whole garden with food, but to set aside a plot for those plants which in their season would bloom with Brother Flowers. He said the reason the brother gardener should plant this pretty little flower bed with its sweetly scented herbs and flowering plants was because it would invite all who saw it to praise God; for every creature says, "God made me for you, oh human!"

Writings of Leo, Rufino and Angelo

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Goodness

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He is not perfectly good who cannot be good among the wicked.

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Environmentalists: Lost In Slavery To A False god

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"For created things are less than the human person. They are made for you, not you for them, and so they can never satisfy you. Only I can satisfy you...These souls in one way or another have identified with the earth in their love, and so they have in fact become earth themselves...Some lose me in their slavery to creatures...And the more disordered their love in possessing, the greater is their grief in loss....They suffer because they do not have what they long for." 

Catherine of Siena

"If through delight in the beauty of these things

men assumed them to be gods,

let them know how much better than these is the Lord,

for the author of beauty created them...

For from the greatness and beauty of created things

comes a corresponding perception of their Creator...

and they trust in what they see,

because the things that are seen are beautiful.

Yet again, not even they are to be excused;

for if they had the power to know so much

they could investigate the world,

how did they fail to find sooner the Lord of these things?" 

Wisdom 13:3, 5, 7b-9

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We Are All Lepers

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"We are all lepers. Even if we hide our sores under the finest clothes and lie to each other to convince ourselves that we are healthy and happy, forgetting the only real reason we should be happy...that God loves us, despite the sores we hide. God loves us so much that he became one of us and was nailed naked to the cross, showing his sores to the world."


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The New Age "Modernist" Catholic Church

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"By the time Padre Pio was beginning his studies for the priesthood, nontraditional religious thinking was making its inroads into nearly all Christian denominations. Led my priests such as Alfred Fermin Loisy (1857-1940) in France, George Tyrell (1861-1909) in England, and Romolo Murri (1870-1944) and the youthful Ernesto Buonaiuti (1881-1946) in Italy, biblical scholars of the modernist movement were seeking to reinterpret Roman Catholic dogma and doctrine in light of modern science and philosophy. Questioning the inerrancy of Scripture, they contended that biblical writers of both the Old and New Testaments were conditioned by the times in which they lived and that, therefore, religious truth was subject to a constant evolutionary process and tended to stress social reform. They provoked a strong reaction from leaders of the Roman Catholic Church, and in 1907 Pope Pius X (r. 1903-1914) condemned Modernism as "the synthesis of heresies." Eventually, most of the leaders of the movement in the Roman Church were forced from the priesthood or left voluntarily. "

(Excerpt from "Padrio Pio: the true story by C. Bernard Ruffin, Our Sunday Visitor 1982)

Now, unfortunately, the vast majority of Roman Catholic hierarchy are now Modernists, including the pope. ~ Chris Dickson

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Palm Sunday, 2020

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The Portiuncula Hermitage Before Social Distancing

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Have not left the house in six weeks

Still not one single Coronavirus case in Monroe County, Ohio

So it must be Working !!!!!

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"Come to the Quiet" During The Coronavirus Quarantine And Grow Closer To God

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Chris Dickson, Servant General of the Franciscan Lay Apostolates (F.L.A.) 

What is a “Come to the Quiet” Retreat?

A “Come to the Quiet” Retreat is a SILENT RETREAT. All you need is a Bible, a Breviary, and a Rosary,  which means no cell phones, beepers, and only limited use of computers to look up the Divine Hours each day, and no outside communication except for a specified time set aside each day.  To be fair to yourself, these rules must be vigorously adhered to. Joining together with God and being able to listen to Him as He speaks to us in the Silence of Prayer is the sole purpose for this retreat.

The Seven Hours of the Divine Office are:

Matins (during the night, at about 2 a.m.); also called Vigil and perhaps composed of two or three Nocturns

Lauds or Dawn Prayer (at dawn, about 5 a.m., but earlier in summer, later in winter)

Prime or Early Morning Prayer (First Hour = approximately 6 a.m.)

Terce or Mid-Morning Prayer (Third Hour = approximately 9 a.m.)

Sext or Midday Prayer (Sixth Hour = approximately 12 noon)

None or Mid-Afternoon Prayer (Ninth Hour = approximately 3 p.m.)

Vespers or Evening Prayer ("at the lighting of the lamps", about 6 p.m.)

Compline or Night Prayer (before retiring, about 7 p.m.)

"The office of readings seeks to provide God's people, and in particular those consecrated to God in a special way, with a wider selection of passages from sacred Scripture for meditation, together with the finest excerpts from spiritual writers. Even though the cycle of scriptural readings at daily Mass is now richer, the treasures of revelation and tradition to be found in the office of readings will also contribute greatly to the spiritual life" (General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours [GILH], no. 55).

Morning Prayer

"As is clear from many of the elements that make it up, morning prayer is intended and arranged to sanctify the morning. St. Basil the Great gives an excellent description of this character in these words: "It is said in the morning in order that the first stirrings of our mind and will may be consecrated to God an d that we may take nothing in hand until we have been gladdened by the thought of God, as it is written,'I was mindful of God and was glad' (Ps 77:4 ;Jerome's translation from Hebrew]). or set our bodies to any task before we do what has been said: 'I will pray to you, Lord, you will hear my voice in the morning; I will stand before you in the morning and gaze on you' (Ps 5:4-5)"

Celebrated as it is as the light of a new day is dawning, this hour also recalls the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, the true light enlightening all people (see Jn 1:9) and "the sun of justice' (Mal 4:2), "rising from on high" (Lk 1:78). Hence, we can well understand the advice of St. Cyprian: "Ther should be prayer in the morning so that the resurrection of the Lord may thus be celebrated: (GILH, no. 38).

Daytime Prayer

(can be prayed at Midmorning, Midday, or Midafternoon)

"Following a very ancient tradition Christians have made a practice of praying out of private devotion at various times of the day, even in the course of their work, in imitation of the Church in apostolic times. In different ways with the passage of time this tradition has taken the form of a liturgical celebration.

"Liturgical custon in both East and West has retained midmorning, midday, and midafternoon prayer, mainly because these hours are linked to a commemoration of the events of the Lord's passion and of the first preaching of the Gospel." (GILH, no. 74-75

Evening Prayer

"When evening approaches and the day is already far spent, evening prayer is celebrated in order that 'we may give thanks for what has been given us, or what we have done well, during the day.' We also recall the redemption through the prayer we send up 'like incense in the Lord's sight,' and in which 'the raising up of our hands' becomes 'an evening sacrifice' (see Ps 141:2). This sacrifice 'may also be interpreted more spiritually as the true evening sacrifice that our Savior the Lord entrusted to the apostles at supper on the evening when he instituted the sacred mysteries of the Church or of the evening sacrifice of the next day, the sacrifice, that is, which, raising his hands, he offered to the Father at the end of the ages for the salvation of the whole world.' Again, in order to fix our hope on the light that knows no setting, 'we pray and make petition for the light to come down on us anew; we implore the coming of Christ who will bring the grace of eternal light.' Finally, at this hour we join with the Churches of the East in calling upon the 'joy-giving light of that holy glory, born of the immortal, heavenly Father, the holy and blessed Jesus Christ; now that we have come to the setting of the sun and have seen the evening star, we sing in praise of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…'" (GILH, no. 39).

Night Prayer

"Night prayer is the last prayer of the day, said before retiring, even if that is after midnight" (GILH, no. 84).The Psalms that are chosen for Night Prayer are full of confidence in the Lord. 

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