St. Francis' Prayer Praising Mary the Mother of God

Hail, O Lady, Holy Queen,
Mary, holy Mother of God:
you are the Virgin made Church
chosen by the most Holy Father in Heaven
whom He consecrated with His most holy beloved Son
and with the Holy Spirit the Paraclete,
in whom there was and is all fullness of grace and every good.

Hail His Palace!
Hail His Tabernacle!
Hail His Dwelling!
Hail His Robe!
Hail His Servant!
Hail His Mother!

And hail all you holy virtues
Which are poured into the hearts of the faithful
through the grace and enlightenment of the Holy Spirit,
that from being unbelievers,
you may make them faithful to God.

AMEN

Assumption of Mary

On November 1, 1950, Pius XII defined the Assumption of Mary to be a dogma of faith: “We pronounce, declare and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma that the immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul to heavenly glory.” The pope proclaimed this dogma only after a broad consultation of bishops, theologians and laity. There were few dissenting voices. What the pope solemnly declared was already a common belief in the Catholic Church.

We find homilies on the Assumption going back to the sixth century. In following centuries the Eastern Churches held steadily to the doctrine, but some authors in the West were hesitant. However, by the 13th century there was universal agreement. The feast was celebrated under various names (Commemoration, Dormition, Passing, Assumption) from at least the fifth or sixth century.

Scripture does not give an account of Mary’s Assumption into heaven. Nevertheless, Revelation 12 speaks of a woman who is caught up in the battle between good and evil. Many see this woman as God’s people. Since Mary best embodies the people of both Old and New Testament, her Assumption can be seen as an exemplification of the woman’s victory.

Furthermore, in 1 Corinthians 15:20 Paul speaks of Christ’s resurrection as the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

Since Mary is closely associated with all the mysteries of Jesus’ life, it is not surprising that the Holy Spirit has led the Church to belief in Mary’s share in his glorification. So close was she to Jesus on earth, she must be with him body and soul in heaven.


Comment:

In the light of the Assumption of Mary, it is easy to pray her Magnificat (Luke 1:46–55) with new meaning. In her glory she proclaims the greatness of the Lord and finds joy in God her savior. God has done marvels to her and she leads others to recognize God’s holiness. She is the lowly handmaid who deeply reverenced her God and has been raised to the heights. From her position of strength she will help the lowly and the poor find justice on earth, and she will challenge the rich and powerful to distrust wealth and power as a source of happiness.

Taken from Saint of the Day

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) - Martyred by the Nazis

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein), (1891-1942) a brilliant philosopher who stopped believing in God when she was 14, Edith Stein was so captivated by reading the autobiography of Teresa of Avila (October 15) that she began a spiritual journey that led to her Baptism in 1922. Twelve years later she imitated Teresa by becoming a Carmelite, taking the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.

Born into a prominent Jewish family in Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland), Edith abandoned Judaism in her teens. As a student at the University of Gottingen, she became fascinated by phenomenology, an approach to philosophy. Excelling as a protege of Edmund Husserl, one of the leading phenomenologists, Edith earned a doctorate in philosophy in 1916. She continued as a university teacher until 1922 when she moved to a Dominican school in Speyer; her appointment as lecturer at the Educational Institute of Munich ended under pressure from the Nazis.

After living in the Cologne Carmel (1934-38), she moved to the Carmelite monastery in Echt, Netherlands. The Nazis occupied that country in 1940. In retaliation for being denounced by the Dutch bishops, the Nazis arrested all Dutch Jews who had become Christians. Teresa Benedicta and her sister Rosa, also a Catholic, died in a gas chamber in Auschwitz on August 9, 1942.

Pope John Paul II beatified Teresa Benedicta in 1987 and canonized her 12 years later.

Comment:
The writings of Edith Stein fill 17 volumes, many of which have been translated into English. A woman of integrity, she followed the truth wherever it led her. After becoming a Catholic, Edith continued to honor her mother's Jewish faith. Sister Josephine Koeppel, O.C.D. , translator of several of Edith's books, sums up this saint with the phrase, "Learn to live at God's hands."

Quote:
In his homily at the canonization Mass, Pope John Paul II said: "Because she was Jewish, Edith Stein was taken with her sister Rosa and many other Catholics and Jews from the Netherlands to the concentration camp in Auschwitz, where she died with them in the gas chambers. Today we remember them all with deep respect. A few days before her deportation, the woman religious had dismissed the question about a possible rescue: 'Do not do it! Why should I be spared? Is it not right that I should gain no advantage from my Baptism? If I cannot share the lot of my brothers and sisters, my life, in a certain sense, is destroyed.'"

Addressing himself to the young people gathered for the canonization, the pope said: "Your life is not an endless series of open doors! Listen to your heart! Do not stay on the surface but go to the heart of things! And when the time is right, have the courage to decide! The Lord is waiting for you to put your freedom in his good hands."

Her feast day is August 9th.

(taken from American Catholic.org website)

The Feast of Santa Maria degli Angeli Porziuncola

Porziuncola is a small church located within the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli about 2 miles from Assisi, Umbria, Italy. It is the place from where the Franciscan movement started.

It is the church that St Francis rebuilt after misunderstanding God's command to "rebuild His Church."

The name Porziuncola (meaning "small portion") was first mentioned in a document from 1045.

There is an indulgence connected to this feast.

The norms and grants of indulgences were reformed by Pope Paul VI after the Second Vatican Council in his Apostolic Constitution Indulgentiarum Doctrina (1967).

According to the Enchiridion Indulgentiarum, the complete list of all recognized indulgences for the Catholic Church, Catholics may gain a plenary indulgence on August 2 (the Portiuncula) or on such other day as designated by the local bishop, if he or she has visited any church (originally only a Franciscan church) and there received Reconciliation and Eucharist, offered prayers for the intentions of the Pope, prayed the Lord's Prayer, the Hail Mary, a Glory Be and the Creed.

To gain this, as any plenary indulgence, the Faithful must be free from any attachment to sin, even venial sin. Where this entire detachment is lacking, the indulgence is partial.

Blessed Titus Brandsma - Martyred by the Nazis

Blessed Titus Brandsma (Bolsward, February 23, 1881 – Dachau July 26, 1942) was a Dutch Carmelite priest and philosophy professor. Brandsma opposed Nazi ideology and antisemitism speaking out against both many times before the World War II.

Blessed Brandsma was born at Bolsward, Netherlands in 1881. He was baptized Anno Sjoerd Brandsma. He joined the Carmelites on September 17, 1898, and took the religious name Titus. Brandsma was ordained a priest in 1905

He was a student of Carmelite mysticism and was awarded a doctorate in philosophy at Rome in 1909. Among his many academic accomplishments was a translation of the works of St. Teresa of Ávila into Dutch.

One of the founders of the Catholic University of Nijmegen (now called Radboud University), Brandsma became a professor of philosophy and the history of mysticism at the university in 1923. He later served as Rector Magnificus for the school. He was known for making himself available to any student or professor who needed his assistance.

Fr. Brandsma also worked as a journalist and, in 1935, become the ecclesiastical adviser to Catholic journalists. He came to the attention of the Nazis when he wrote vehemently against the spread of Nazi ideology and for his support of educational and press freedom.

He was arrested in January, 1942, while trying to persuade Dutch Catholic newspapers not to print Nazi propaganda (as was required by law of the Nazi German occupiers). He had also drawn up a Pastoral Letter read in all Catholic parishes, by which the Dutch Roman Catholic bishops officially condemned the German anti-Semitic measures and the deportation of the first Jews. In the Pastoral Letter, the Dutch Bishops also outlined Nazism as incompatible with Catholicism in its core ideology.

After this Pastoral Letter, the first 3,000 Jews to be deported from the Netherlands were all Jewish converts to Roman Catholicism. Brandsma was transferred in February, 1942 to Dachau concentration camp on June 13, after being held prisoner in Scheveningen, Amersfoort and Cleves.

He died on July 26, 1942, by a lethal injection administered by an Allgemeine SS doctor to whom Brandsma gave his rosary.

Titus Brandsma is honored as a martyr in the Catholic Church. He was beatified in November 1985 by Pope John Paul II. His Feast Day is 27 July. His patronage includes journalists, tobacconists and Friesland, his homeland.

In 2005, Brandsma was chosen by the inhabitants of Nijmegen as the greatest citizen to have ever lived there.

In his biography (2008, Valkhof) of Titus Brandsma, The Man behind the Myth, Dutch journalist Ton Crijnen claims that Brandsma's personality combined some vanity, a short tempered character, extreme energy, political simpleness, true charity, unpretentious piety, thorough decisiveness and great personal courage. His ideas were very much those of his own age and modern as well.

Abbot Gregor Mendel: Father of Modern Genetics

Gregor Johann Mendel (July 20, 1822 – January 6, 1884) was an Austrian scientist and Augustinian friar and later, Abbott of the monastery, who created the new science of genetics. Mendel showed that the inheritance of traits in pea plants follows particular patterns, now referred to as the laws of Mendelian inheritance. His three laws of genetics formed the foundation of the modern science of genetics.

During a speech marking the 100th anniversary of the death of Fr. Mendel in 1984, Blessed Pope John Paul II said, "Gregor Mendel was a man of Christian and Catholic culture. During his life, prayer and praise sustained the research and reflection of this patient observer and scientific genius."

"Based on the example of his teacher, St. Augustine, Gregor Mendel learned through the observation of nature and the contemplation of its Author to unite with one leap the search for the truth with the certainty of already knowing it in the Creator-Word," the late Pope said.

Journalist Alberto Carrara explained that Fr. Mendel, who was born in Heinzendorf (in the present-day Czech Republic), took an interest in science because of his passion for agriculture. In 1843 he entered the Augustinian monastery at Altbrunn and in 1847 he made his religious vows and was ordained a priest.

While studying theology, he also attended courses on agriculture and vine growing, where he learned from Franz Diebl the method of artificial pollination as the main way of improving controlled plant growth.

Between 1851 and 1853, he studied at the University of Vienna where he heard the theories of Fr. Unger for the first time, on the mutation of species and the age of the earth.

In 1865 during a conference of the Natural Sciences Society, Fr. Mendel presented the results of his research, which would later form the scientific basis for modern genetics.

Mendel’s three laws of genetics have proven to be essential in modern-day research.

The first law, called the Law of Segregation, states that offspring receive a pair of genes for each inherited trait, one gene from each of its parents. These pairs separate randomly when the offspring’s genes are formed. Thus, a parent hands down only one gene of each pair to its offspring.

The second law, called the Law of Independent Assortment, states that offspring inherit each of its traits independent of other traits because they are sorted separately.

The third is the Law of Dominance, which states that when offspring inherit two different genes for a trait, one gene will be dominant and the other will be recessive. The trait of the dominant gene will appear in the offspring.

(Taken from Catholic News Agency)

Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Today (July 16) is the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Hermits lived on Mount Carmel near the Fountain of Elijah (northern Israel) in the 12th century. They had a chapel dedicated to Our Lady. By the 13th century they became known as “Brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.” They soon celebrated a special Mass and Office in honor of Mary. In 1726 it became a celebration of the universal Church under the title of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. For centuries the Carmelites have seen themselves as specially related to Mary. Their great saints and theologians have promoted devotion to her and often championed the mystery of her Immaculate Conception.

St. Teresa of Avila called Carmel “the Order of the Virgin.” St. John of the Cross credited Mary with saving him from drowning as a child, leading him to Carmel and helping him escape from prison. St. Theresa of the Child Jesus believed that Mary cured her from illness. On her First Communion she dedicated her life to Mary. During the last days of her life she frequently spoke of Mary.

There is a tradition (which may not be historical) that Mary appeared to St. Simon Stock, a leader of the Carmelites, and gave him a scapular, telling him to promote devotion to it. The scapular is a modified version of Mary’s own garment. It symbolizes her special protection and calls the wearers to consecrate themselves to her in a special way. Obviously, no magic way of salvation is intended. Rather, the scapular is a reminder of the gospel call to prayer and penance—a call that Mary models in a splendid way.

“The various forms of piety toward the Mother of God, which the Church has approved within the limits of sound and orthodox doctrine, according to the dispositions and understanding of the faithful, ensure that while the mother is honored, the Son through whom all things have their being (cf. Colossians 1:15–16) and in whom it has pleased the Father that all fullness should dwell (cf. Colossians 1:19) is rightly known, loved and glorified and his commandments are observed” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, 66.)

Taken from Saint of the Day