Open Your Heart to Christ (3 of 4)

3) "Receiving Blessings from Chosen Vessels" (3 of 4)

 

Mary is the Model of Christian Discipleship, since she loved Jesus most purely from her Immaculate Conception and faithfully all the way through the Cross and Resurrection. We know that God has made her the Mediatrix of All Graces. And yet God still chooses to employ further "mediations" for grace to reach us, including: events, circumstances (especially crosses), and people - especially the poor and our "enemies".

Because the poor and afflicted are "empty vessels", they become for us like "other Marys" who mediate JESUS to us (often unknowingly, both to them and to us!). They are like a prism that of itself gives off no light, but when sunlight flows through it there shines out the most brilliant colors and radiance.

 

God didn't just make a "New Adam" (Jesus); He also made a "New Eve" (Mary)! She is the Perfect Archetype of the Church's filial obedience to God in love, whose heel crushes the head of the Enemy of mankind. She best represents how souls are called to be united to God.

 

Jesus is not *only* present inside of physical church buildings. Yes, Christ isreally present in His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Most Holy Eucharist in a most amazing way. But He also chooses to be present to us and among us - in and through the members of His Mystical Body the Church (i.e. in our sisters and brothers!).

 

The only way we can really prove our love for God is how we love our neighbor in imitation of Christ. (For how can we love the God we don't see if we don't love the people we do see?)

 

There is no closer place on earth to God and to Heaven after the Eucharist than in our brethren, and indeed in our own soul. And whomever we find more difficult to love (perhaps even in our own families), the more graces we receive - since our faith and love will be all the more pure and empty of tainted, selfish motives.

 

+Br. Philip Maria Allen, CFR

St. Felix Friary

Yonkers, NY, USA

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2nd Sunday of Advent

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Open Your Heart to Christ (2 of 4)

2) "Greater Reverence and Love for Every Person" (2 of 4)

 

While God calls each of us to love Him and one another as Jesus has loved us, we also have an Enemy who desires just the opposite. The Enemy, using whatever means possible (especially the high-powered people and media of our age), tries to label, categorize, marginalize, and ultimately eliminate people - especially the poor and people who believe in God and love their neighbor.

 

Jesus died for everyone, setting us free to share in His own full, abundant, divine life eternally. By loving us first, He revealed God's Love for us and showed us what it means to love.

 

 

All of us are called to recognize in our brothers and sisters the sublime dignity of one redeemed by Christ's Most Precious Blood shed on the Cross for our salvation, and to receive them as we ourselves want to be received by God. We need to honor people for the goodness and gifts we see in them as reflections of God's own Glory and "living conduits" of His Divine Mercy, however weak or broken they may appear to be to our very imperfect spiritual vision.

 

We are created for compassion, to sympathize with others' sufferings, and to prodigally lavish the Love of our Heavenly Father upon all without limits. Only in completely giving ourselves will we also be filled completely and to overflowing by the Holy Spirit and His Divine Indwelling, Whom we have already received 'as a first installment' through Baptism, Confirmation, and in every Communion.

 

This is an essential part of the "New Pentecost" the Church is ardently longing for. It will come when enough people freely offer themselves as a living sacrifice of praise to the Father for the salvation of souls - in union Jesus, Mary, and the Church - however He wills.

 

+Br. Philip Maria Allen, CFR

St. Felix Friary

Yonkers, NY, USA

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HolyHaiku Advent Season

 

The #Advent Season

He came, when will He return?

watching and waiting

 

 

 

 

 

#holyhaiku #Jesus

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1st Sunday of Advent

 

The Waiting of Advent

by Br. Bernadino Maria Soukup, CFR

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GrayFriar News Winter 2014 Tribute to Fr. Benedict Groeschel, CFR

May the Lord give you His peace!

As we enter into the holy days of Thanksgiving, Advent and Christmas, we are happy to offer our recent newsletter. This edition is a special tribute to our dear Fr. Benedict with great pictures and a moving remembrance written by Fr. Glenn. A must read!

(click here to find it)

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Live Stream Blessing of the Cross in Nica

Thanksgiving Day Special!

EWTN Español will broadcast the blessing of the Cross & Virgin of Guadalupe
which has been built by our friars in Matagalpa, Nicaragua.

Live on Thursday, November 27, @ 4 PM (EST)
Replay @ 9:30 PM (EST)
(1 hour 30 minute program)

Watch it live here:

Same as Chromeless Video Player, but does not start playing until user manually starts playback

Open Your Heart to Christ (1 of 4)

Open Your Heart to Christ

(4-part series on the graces of serving Christ in our brothers and sisters)

 

 

1) "Awe and Wonder in God's Presence" (1 of 4)

 

Whenever you spend time serving Jesus in your brothers and sisters, especially in those who are most in need, God confers a multitude of graces upon your soul. What are some of these graces? (there are certainly many more than these)

 

a) Awe and wonder in God's Presence in your brother or sister

 

b) Greater reverence and love for every person created in God's divine image and likeness

 

c) Reception of blessings from the pure vessel of a poor and empty heart

 

d) The priceless opportunity to give yourself to God in others by humble charity.

 

Christian ministry to Christ in the poor (cf. Matthew 25: "whatever you did to the least of my brothers, you did it to me") is not just a secularized humanitarian form of service. It is rather a whole-hearted embrace of the Presence of the Lord dwelling within people, and of persons themselves for Christ's sake. This first involves acknowledging with the eyes of faith that your sister or brother is one of your own kin, part of your family (the one human family), and part of GOD'S Family.

 

Your neighbor is "a presence of Christ" on earth, and so after your own relationship to God in prayer we are called to a very important "being with" our brethren in a spirit of grateful solidarity, selflessness, and availability. This includes spending time with people, smiling and welcoming them, making them feel "at home" with you, being present to them, listening attentively to them and *their* "love story" with God (including the trials!), learning more about them and how God is alive and working in their life, affirming them in their humanity as they are now with all their shortcomings and failures, and encouraging and challenging them forward toward ever greater union with the Lord in humble, joyful love.

 

For whenever we truly encounter another person in love, Christ encounters us through them, and so we also encounter Christ in a new and deeper way.

 

+Br. Philip Maria Allen, CFR

St. Felix Friary

Yonkers, NY, USA

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Famous Drawing of Fr. Benedict Groeschel, CFR

The story behind the drawing we used for Fr. Benedict's funeral card!

Homily Video: Need Versus Want