Just saw this and loved it. Wanted to share! Spirit Daily December 15 at 7:56am · LOOK ALWAYS FOR THE MANGER To receive from God, give what you have gotten. Look for the manger. This is said as a lesson in the Season of the Manger, one that has become, however, the season of mammon. The manger can be found not just in Bethlehem but at sites of legitimate Marian apparition. The manger can be located in the middle of Africa — at the approved apparition site of Kibeho. Here is a gigantic lesson for our gilded age: The Blessed Mother said the reason she chose the tiny dirt-poor hamlet several dirt-road hours west of Kigali — in the middle of “nowhere” in Rwanda — is because it is “one of the last places on earth that is pure.” The purity comes, she said, from the “poverty,” or at least what we define as poverty: people eat what they grow and live in huts with earthen floors. A child will wear the same second-hand t-shirt (given to them by missionaries) for six months to a year. They have virtually nothing material but have simplicity and wholesomeness and are close to God’s Creation, as the Holy Family was so close to nature — to a dirt floor, to animals — in Bethlehem. What did Jesus wear? What did He eat? What did He leave? He left no “will” but left us everything. Fascinating it is how often Mary chose to appear, in a similar way, to peasants and material-poor shepherd children at Guadalupe, Lourdes, Fatima, LaSalette, Laus, Knock, and Medjugorje (which at the time had dirt or concrete floor in thatched huts). There is as yet no Our Lady of Wall Street. Always ask yourself, when the temptation to be swank comes, how the apostles lived, what Saint Paul and later Saint Francis chose to do instead of pursuing wealth. Look at neighborhoods and ask yourself: would Jesus live there? Would He fit in a mansion, or a luxury high rise? Can you see Him disembarking from a limousine? Look for the Spirit of the Manger. Some ask why the Blessed Mother doesn’t appear in some place like midtown Manhattan. The answer: she goes where she is comfortable, where she is welcome, where it is deserved, where there is both simplicity and humility. It is not up to God to prove Himself to us. It’s up to us to prove ourselves to Him. The world’s greatest wealth? It makes it not beyond the grave. Celebrity? It is a vapor upon death. Give what you have gotten, in whatever way the Holy Spirit leads you to do that, in coming days. And when you do, let Mary put the bow on it. No mall elf is as adept at doing that. [resources: books of devotion]
I can't believe how quickly Christmas has crept up on me this year. I am afraid my Advent feels an awful lot like a bit of a failure. Usually I get an Advent book of Meditations and read from it. I also should have stepped up prayer and penecne and fasting, but zilch. ...and so I come to the crib with empty hands. But God is such a generous giver this time of year I know that there are many graces coming all our ways. I think the greatest manger of all is our own hearts. We imitate Mary by giving Birth to Jesus in our own hearts. I pray for the grace of being able to give a gift to someone else this Christmas. A real grace gift. That is the great grace of Christmas giving to others. Lord Jesus, baby Jesus give me a gift this Christmas, grant me the conversion of a soul. Give me a soul for Christmas that they may reach heaven. Give me a soul this Christmas. Grant I may save some poor soul from hell for Christmas. I will try harder this week.
I am making the Infant Jesus novena. I am going to zero in on “ give me one soul”. I like that. As usual I have my long list!! Doesn’t hurt to just leave it to Him. The soul He wishes to save.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen told a wonderful story. He was just about to return from Lourdes. Down in the grotto to say his last goodbyes he offered up suffering to save a soul. On his was back to his hotel he noticed a woman following him. He asked her who she was and it turned out she was an atheist from Holland . A party of sixty atheists from there were down on a trip to the region and for some unknown reason she left them in Lourdes (the whole busload went of the side off the mountain in the Pyrennes after she got off there...they were all killed). The saint never left Lourdes till she was converted. But then his troubles started. No one would accept his train ticket all the way back to Paris and it took him days getting home. He got thrown off the train in all kinds of strange God forsaken places in the middle of nowhere. This though the poor man's ticket was very good. Poor Fulton I thought of this today outside St Patricks after mass. I had just bought six rolls of heavy wall paper. It took ages for the bus to come and when it did it broke down right at my bus stop and everyone got off , there was a huge crowd it being Christmas. So I hoofed it on home wielding that huge bag. I thought of the ask for a soul and remembered the Fulton Sheen story. I put on a sour face walking along thinking what suffering this soul might cost be from now to Christmas when I heard Our Lord say, 'Its no good offering it up if it's not done with joy!' This caused me to burst out laughing as I felt anything like joyful. But God has a sense of humour, I think I heard Him laughing too. So anyway I do offer it up and anything else for that poor soul. Fulton Sheen tells the story of the soul here: But have mercy Lord. Don't kill me stone dead. Fulton giving communion at the Massabielle.
I read a report about a priest who met Jacinta, the young visionary of Fatima. It was very ,very touching . She asked the priest about hell and asked him if he ever prayer for poor sinners? She begged and begged him to pray for poor souls with great urgency, apparently she did this with everyone she met. She had seen hell and it told. I think you get this thirst for souls in every saint you come across. Mother Angelica was such a good example of this. Her great sanctity was very deceptive in its simplicity. When I fist started to watch her on utube I just thought what a wonderfully simple nun, but a good person whom I very much enjoyed listening too while doing the housework . I never realized. But then down the years it gradually dawned on me , to my great surprise tat I was listening to and watching a saint. Then a few days ago I was listening to Raymond Arroyo talking about working with her, he said what a great perfectionist she was in her work. It suddenly dawned on me tha tthis perfectionism came from her thirst for souls. She hungered for them and that was what EWTN was all about.
I used to love the old novenas and prayers which saints like St Brigid of Sweden wrote promising by Revelation so many souls for each novena made. Wouldn't it be great to count souls saved like the beads of the rosary.
I magine if we got to heaven that there was a little crowd of souls we saved waiting to thank us. How nice would that be? We none of us get to heaven..or hell alone. We get to heaven because we take other with us. As St James said, anyone who saves a soul can count ti to his own salvation. We save them and in saving them we save ourselves.
Vol. 11, October 1914 «My daughter, as recompense for having written the Hours of my Passion, for each word you have written I will give you a kiss - a soul.» And I: « My love, this is for me; and what will You give to those who will do them?» And Jesus: «If they do them together with Me and with my own Will, I will also give them a soul for each word they will recite, because the greater or lesser effectiveness of these Hours of my Passion is in the greater or lesser union that they have with Me. By doing them with my Will, the creature hides within my Volition, and since it is my Volition that acts, I can produce all the goods I want, even through one word alone; and this, for each time you will do them.» Taken from the Hours of the Passion by Luisa Piccarreta.
This is my opening screen on my computer. Every time it goes to sleep and I come back to it, this is what I see... and say PRAYER TO FREE 1000 SOULS FROM PURGATORY: PROMISE PRAYER A Prayer Which Would Release 1,000 Souls From Purgatory Each Time It Is Said!
San Sebastian de Garabandal also. Maria Saraco who regularly takes pilgrims to Garabandal has a great talk about the Miracle of the Host and she states that the Miracle of the Host occurred directly outside of a small stable similar to where we would imagine Christ was born. https://www.bing.com/videos/search?...EE9E1F66F3F446ED94D7EE9E1F66F3F446E&FORM=VIRE Edited to add: What is also very interesting in the testimony of Jose "Pepe" Diaz in the first video above is when he describes what he saw when the Holy Eucharistic appeared on Conchita's tongue. His description reminds me of the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima. Pepe states that the host on her tongue swirled around and appeared to increase in size, etc., I never realized this connection before. https://www.garabandal.us/prph_miracle This is the first video in the 14 part series. I think if you start here each video will play one after the other if you are interested. The first one is probably the most crucial to watch because it gives you the background and the messages for the world which the was the main purpose of the apparition imho.
