Fr. Groeschel's Surprising Secret

https://soundcloud.com/franciscan-friars/father-groeschels-surprising-secret 

 

June is the month dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The late Fr. Benedict Groeschel told me that he had based his entire spiritual life on the Sacred Heart devotion. I remember being quite surprised by this declaration. Father was a renown author, psychologist and speaker. For all his mighty gifts and towering intellect - it was the devotion to the Sacred Heart which guided his relationship with God.

Appearing as the Sacred Heart, Jesus once told Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque that Saint Francis was the saint who best understood his heart. I wonder if this revelation sparked Father Groeschel's interest. The heart of the Sacred Heart devotion is the belief that God comes close to us in Jesus. God is real. God knows me and is concerned about me. In his love for me God provides for me. He can ask me to love him with all my heart (the shema of Deuteronomy 6) because he has first loved me with his whole heart! (see 1 John 4).

While praying at a local convent this morning, I saw a strange site. The Sacred Heart of Jesus was welcoming me to a big white cooler. "What is in the cooler?" , I asked. "The cool and refreshing Living Water of the Holy Spirit", was his answer.

John 4: 10, 13-14

Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water ... Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 

+ Fr. Luke Mary Fletcher, CFR

Yonkers, NY

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Jacob's Song // Teaser

Get ready people! Brother Isaiah - Jacob's Song // Teaser



https://youtu.be/kDYpqXqxtyQ

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My Joyful Mysterious Secret

https://soundcloud.com/franciscan-friars/my-joyful-mysterious-secret

Podcast from Fr. Luke Mary Fletcher, CFR. On the feast of the Visitation, learn the secret to living your faith like Mary!

May 28 Ordination Mass Online

Timothy Cardinal Dolan will ordain fourteen men (five are CFR friars) to the priesthood at Saint Patrick's Cathedral on Saturday, May 28 at 9 AM ET

Watch the Priestly Ordination Mass online when it is live!

here: http://saintpatrickscathedral.org/live

or here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/saintpatrickslive

Graduates of the Class of 2016 at St. Joseph’s Seminary, Dunwoodie, look relaxed and confident as their priestly ordination approaches. Cardinal Dolan will ordain 14 men, his largest class as Archbishop of New York, at a Mass in St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Saturday, May 28, at 9 a.m. Nine of the men will serve as priests of the archdiocese and five are Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. The ordination class includes Father John Wilson and Father Jesús Ledezma Castro, who have studied at Pontifical North American College in Rome. St. Joseph’s ordinands are, seated from left: Father Hartley Bancroft, Father Dismas Marie Kline, C.F.R., Father Cruz Alejandro Sánchez Mares and Father Christian Amah. Standing, from left: Father Xavier Mariae Meiergerd, C.F.R., Father Innocent Montgomery, C.F.R., Father Bernardino Maria Soukup, C.F.R., Father Jon Tveit, Father Jean-Pierre Seon, Father James Sheridan, Father Thomas Colucci and Father Antonio Maria Diez de Medina, C.F.R.

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To read their stories: click here

Podcast Be Still And Know That I Am God

Podcast from Fr. Jeremiah Shryock, CFR. If you really want to know who God is you must learn to become quiet and still.

https://soundcloud.com/franciscan-friars/be-still-and-know-that-i-am-godmp3

Podcast Do You Want to be Touched by God?

https://soundcloud.com/franciscan-friars/do-you-want-to-be-touched-by-god

Podcast from Fr. Luke Mary Fletcher, CFR. Surprising ways that God touches us. The Kingdom of God is at hand, and this hand reaches out to touch us especially in the Sacraments. Given in honor of the friars who will be ordained Deacons this evening and Priests this Saturday.

Do You Believe in the Son of Man?

https://soundcloud.com/franciscan-friars/do-you-believe-in-the-son-of-manmp3

In Christianity faith is not a belief in an ideology or a particular system of morality. It is the belief in a God who created us, loves us and is continually calling us to realize the intimacy with Him that is possible. Jesus' question "Do you believe in the Son of Man" invites us to take yet another step in our life of faith.

Podcast from Fr. Jeremiah Shryock, CFR.

Pentecost

The culmination of Salvation History. Ever since Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden, God has made incremental steps toward humanity. Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David: through each period of Jewish history the mystery of God became a little more accessible and relatable. In Jesus, it became tangible, engagable. God lived and moved among his creation as a man.

The son’s mission was twofold: to finally redeem man from Adam’s sin and bestow upon him the fullness of life. His death and resurrection accomplishes the former while the coming of the Holy Spirit accomplishes the later. Thus the Son’s mission doesn’t end with the Resurrection and Ascension. The movement of the Son, ultimately, isn’t an upward thrust drawing us out of this world and up into God. It is, in fact, a downward hurling of the Spirit into us and so into this world. Yes, the Son had descended into the womb, the river, to the netherworld and had risen and ascended again, yet his final act isn’t in an ascending but a plunging motion, a swan dive into the heart of man.

(Let us recall that the Father, the Son and the Spirit are one. We are not polytheists—believers in multiple Gods. We are staunch monotheists. We say in the creed that we believe in One God and we mean it. As Jesus said to Philip, if you have seen me, you have seen the Father. So when the Father sends his Spirit at the Son’s request into the apostles and all the baptized, it is the one Godhead that arrives—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—to dwell within man.)

Pentecost, the full and lasting descent of the Divine into the Human is a mystery beyond comprehension but not beyond experience. While it is a fact of baptism, it is nevertheless, a reality to which the believer must assent. For once the Spirit comes in Baptism, he doesn’t arrive like a static stone or a stagnant puddle, but like rivers of living water or like a fire to which your will (hopefully) plays the part of the log.

+ Br. Joseph Michael Fino, CFR
Bronx, NY
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May 2016 Ordinations

Franciscan Friars of the Renewal to Ordain Six to the Diaconate

Please pray for the following brothers who will be ordained to the transitional diaconate by Bishop Peter Byrne at St. Crispin Friary in the South Bronx on May 23, 2016:

Br. John-Mary Johannssen, C.F.R.

Br. Justin Jesusmaria Alarcón, C.F.R.

Br. Giles Maria Barrie, C.F.R.

Br. Tansi Mary Ibisi, C.F.R.

Br. Roch Mary Greiner, C.F.R.

Br. Stephen Marie Dufrene, C.F.R.

 
Franciscan Friars of the Renewal to Ordain Five to the Priesthood

Please pray for the following brothers who will be ordained to the Priesthood, along with their New York classmates, by His Eminence Timothy Cardinal Dolan at 9 AM at St. Patrick's Cathedral on May 28, 2016:

Rev. Br. Antonio Diez de Medina, C.F.R,

Rev. Br. Dismas Kline, C.F.R.

Rev. Br. Innocent Montgomery, C.F.R.

Rev. Br. Bernardino Soukup, C.F.R.

Rev. Br. Xavier Meiergerd, C.F.R.

 

The first Mass will be on Sunday, May 29th, at 10 AM at St. Crispin Friary in the South Bronx.

(back row) Br. Justin, Br. Tansi, Br. Stephen, Br. John-Mary, Br. Roch, Br. Giles
(front row) Br. Xavier, Br. Bernardino, Br. Antonio, Br. Dismas, Br. Innocent

Podcast - Will You Also Go Away?

https://soundcloud.com/franciscan-friars/will-you-also-go-awaymp3

Podcast from Fr. Jeremiah Shryock, CFR. Jesus' question "Will you also go away?" is a question about our freedom. How will we choose to live? With our freedom we can choose good or evil, love or hate and everything in between. Ultimately, the choice is up to us.

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