I thought I would share some stories that encouraged me. The first two will be taken from the Canada: "Michael" Journal. For starters: On the evening of the last day of his October 1995 visit to the United States, Pope John Paul II was scheduled to greet the seminarians at St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore. It had been a very full day, beginning with Mass at the Oriole Park in Camden Yards, followed by a parade through the downtown streets, a visit to the Basilica of the Assumption, the first cathedral in the country, lunch at a local soup kitchen, run by the Catholic Charities, a prayer service at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in the north Baltimore area, and finally a quick stop at St. Mary’s Seminary. The schedule was tight so the plan was to simply greet the seminarians while they stood outside on the steps. But Pope John Paul II made his way through their ranks and into the building. His plan was first to make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament. When his wishes were made known, security personnel flew into action ahead of the Pope. Their activities included a sweep of the building, playing closest attention to the chapel where Pope John Paul II would be praying. For this purpose, highly trained dogs were used to detect any persons who might be present. The dogs are trained to locate living people in collapsed buildings after earthquakes and other disasters. These intelligent and eager canines went through their rounds in the halls, offices and classrooms quickly, and were then sent into the chapel. They went up and down the aisles and past the pews, and finally into the side chapel where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved. Upon reaching the tabernacle, the dogs sniffed and whined and pointed, refusing to leave; they were convinced that they discovered SOMEONE there and firmly remained, their attention riveted to the tabernacle, until called out by the handlers. We Catholics know they were right; they found a REAL LIVING PERSON in the tabernacle! In the Hearts of Jesus and Mary!
Story no. 2 Here's another inspiring article (for me at least :wink: !). The author's name is Paul Fournier. Rain, I'm just pulling these from the Michael Journal. I haven't heard of them elsewhere. On July 18, 1946, Father Gino C. Violini stood before a small wooden church in a little town nestled in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies in Southern Alberta. St. Joseph's was a forlorn, nearly-abandoned little mission church. A small group of people gathered around this man dressed in mourning. They said they didn't need a priest; Cowley didn't need a priest, and if it ever came to pass that they needed one, they would inform Bishop Carroll of the fact. Futhermore, they didn't want to see him praying his breviary, and he could get rid of that cassock. He celebrated his first Mass at St. Joseph's the following Sunday. There were nine people in the pews. Well, he had to start somewhere, and he delivered the best sermon ever, in his opinion, to those nine people. The following Sunday, there were only four who had come to worship their God. The next two years were not crowned with success. The collection was laughable. He could afford a loaf of bread which he could cut into seven pieces, one part for each day of the week, and feasted on dandalion salad. Winter is an especially cruel season to Crowley, and he'd find his blankets snow covered when he awoke in the morning, as the rectory walls were split open from the many seasons that had dried and shrunk the logs apart. His first Christmas collection was a dollar and thirteen cents. The church was no warmer than the rectory, so the water would freeze in the cruets, even though he placed them on a little coal stove. Father had had it. One day he sat down and wrote a sixteen-page letter, addressed to Bishop Francis P. Carroll, the gist of which was- this town is a write-off, and I want to stamp the dust of it off my feet. The Bishop rejected each and all of his requests for a transfer, and told him to stay put. He had full confidence in Father Violini, and he expected him to bring about a full Catholic revival in this parish, which had so long been neglected. Father was ready to pray for a noble death. But he was in for a great revelation. On the feast of Corpus Christi, he awoke early and headed for the Church for morning prayers. As he walked to the church, he noticed the front door hanging on its hinges. He hurried in and gazed at a scene of great destruction. The walls were in shambles, the statues destoyed and he noticed the tabernacle had been split opened and the consecrated Hosts were scattered down the main aisle. One by one, he gathered them up, counting each one. They were all there except the large Benediction Host which he could find nowhere. It was raining. The gray sky reflected his anguish. He notified Father Harrington of the Crowsnest deanery who quickly organized a search party of some two-thousand people. They searched Bellevue and Hillcrest, Blairemore and Coleman; some came from as far as Michel and Natal in British Columbia, yet none of the people of Cowley would help. The search party combed miles of Highway 3. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police picked up two suspects at Cowley and questioned them at Blairemore. They had stolen a pickup truck and abandoned it down the highway when the police had discovered them. Fr. Gino recognized them as transients from Lethbridge who had been seated next to him at a baseball game a couple of days before, and who were looking to find work at the coal mines at Crowsnest Pass. He listened to the questioning by Sergeant Parsons: "Remember, it may not mean much to you or me, but you fellows stole his Jesus." Father explained the meaning of the Blessed Sacrament to them, and how precious it is to Catholics. He then offered to drop all the charges if they would tell him where they discarded the Host. Touched by his explanation, they began to show remorse and offered to help find it. One admitted to having discarded it through the truck window just before the police took them into custody. He didn't know what it was, but he knew it was incriminating evidence. The rain had hardly stopped when they piled into the police criuser, the two suspects still handcuffed. Father calculated that if the Host had been dropped as these two men said, the search parties would surely have found it if the rain had not dissolved it. It was about six o'clock that evening when they arrived at the spot. The sky was clearing: there was a bit of blue in the West. As they rounded a corner east of Bellevue, they all saw the Host suspended in midair beside the highway. Beautiful rays of colored light shone from it. Even before the car had stopped, Father leaped from the car and ran towards this astonishing sight. Sergeant Parsons was right behind him. Father fell to his knees in adoration, overcome with joy and wonder. Sergeant Parsons did likewise and landed in a pool of mud. Father stood up and reached for the Host. It looked as fresh as the day he had consecrated it. As he touched it they heard: "Father Gino, please take me back to Cowley." Here was Christ on the road, asking to be returned to a desecrated church; to a parish that Father had long wanted to leave. As they returned to Cowley, Sergeant Parson's eyes constantly left the road to gaze at the wonder Father held there, beside him. The Bishop arrived the next day. He told Fr. Gino that he would be the one to rededicate the church. The Bishop prayed with him in the devastated sanctuary. As he finished, he turned to Father Gino to say: "Great changes will soon take place in this parish." Sergeant Parsons came to ask for instruction a few days later. His wife and children soon joined him, and later two constables from Pincher Creek. As time went on, more and more Catholics began to return to their church. The parish mission was so popular that the beer hall shut down when it was in progress. The patrons, many of whom were not Catholic, would carry the bar stools to the church to listen to Father's sermons. They even had to take out the pot-bellied stove to make troom for everyone. The little church, so long abandoned, was now full to overflowing every Sunday. I love how this miraculous event led to a number of conversions. Alleluia! Safe in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary!
Wonderful Terry, thank you. Have you been reading up on the Professor in your country who desecrated the host by driving a rusty nail through it. Strange times indeed. http://www.zenit.org/article-23381?l=english
The professor's in for a surprise. A quote from the Zenit article: Father John Trigilio, Jr., the president of the confraternity, a U.S. association of 600 priests and deacons, sent a statement this week asking Catholics "to join in a day of prayer and fasting that such offenses never happen again." This I will do, and I'll pray that the hearfelt response of thousands of Catholics will overwhelm the professor with a spirit of repentance and conversion! Ps 51 Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy steadfast love; according to thy abundant mercy blot out my transgressions...
I've been reading his blog, Terry and without being uncharitable, I have a real sense of the diabolic here; especially in the comments section of his 'supporters'...there's something irrational and uncanny about all this. :shock:
