Posted on August 28, 2016 View all news
Laudetur Jesus Christus! Gelobt sei Jesus Christus! Sia lodato Gesù Cristo! Praised be Jesus Christ!
This past week it was brought to my attention that someone was observed talking on their cell phone during one of our adoration times. This is not acceptable in the presence of the Lord. If anyone observes this happening, please ask the person to stop right away. The Lord is exposed in adoration for our benefit, not for His. We can do nothing to add to the glory of God. So while in adoration, we must always be in a spirit of prayer and worship before the Lord. Talking with others, talking on the telephone, sleeping, or doing anything that isn’t keeping a prayerful spirit should not occur before the Lord exposed. If we truly believed that what is before us is the Lord, the God of Heaven and Earth, we would probably die of awe and fright. May the Lord help our unbelief through our prayerful spirit and atmosphere.
This upcoming week we celebrate the Feast of the Passion of St. John the Baptist. St. John the Baptist stood up for the dignity of marriage, seeking to defend the sanctity and awesome wonder that this institution is. For this defense, he ultimately was asked for his life by King Herod. May we always strive to defend marriage, first and foremost by our own example. Especially for those who are married, love your spouses as you would love Christ. Do you best to treat them well and live out the marriage vocation in joy. If anything will help the crisis we find in marriage, it will be good and holy examples of those who live this vocation well.
Pray together as families and strive to do things together as families. Even something as simple as eating together has become a luxury that many families do not do anymore. The Lord appreciated marriage so much that He made it a Sacrament, to help married couples with special graces to live out this vocation. He Himself is compared to the bridegroom, with the Church Herself as the bride. If we get lost in the process of how to live out this vocation, simply look to the example of Christ and the Church. The former willingly sacrificed His life for His bride, so that She could be the source of all graces for us the children of the Church.
Please find this brief reflection by St. Ambrose on this Feast. Have a blessed week ahead!
We must not hurry past the record of blessed Baptist John. We must ask what he was; by whom he was slain; and why and how. He was a righteous man, murdered for his righteousness by adulterers. He was a judge, who suffered condemnation to death by the guilty ones because he had justly judged their guilt. He was the prophet whose death was a fee paid to a dancing-girl for a lascivious dance. And lastly a thing from which even savages would shrink his head was served up as a dish at a banquet. For the order to commit the atrocity was given amid the merriment of a dinner-party; and the servants of the murderer introduced the murder amid the courses of the meal, running from banquet to prison, and from prison to banquet! See how many infamies are contained in this one crime. – St. Ambrose