The Passing of a Friend

On 3rd February our very good friend and benefactor, Mr John Friel passed away after a long fight against cancer.

John was our first parishioner and supporter on Stronsay and had lived on the island since the early 1980s.  Over the 15 years since our arrival here in Orkney, he provided invaluable assistance in the building of our monastery as well as being a regular at Holy Mass on Stronsay.  One of our priests was with him for the hour leading up to his death repeating the prayers for the dying, and encouraging his soul in its last agony.

It was John's great wish to be buried on Papa Stronsay.  His body was brought to Papa Stronsay the day before the ceremony and laid in the chapel.

After the sung funeral Mass the procession made its way to the Monastery cemetery.

There was something very beautiful and special about the procession as it made its way along the beach, the sun setting as the day began to close.

Fr Yousef Marie conducted the burial.  John's two brothers, Philip and Glenn, were present also.

As is our custom once the burial ceremony is over the grave is immediately filled in.

All the men present take it in turns to do their part, while the rosary is prayed.

It brings finality and a sense of completion.

Br Nicodemus Mary plants the funeral processional Cross.

John's dearest wife, Marilyn, lays flowers on his grave.  Our prayers and our deepest sympathies go out to her.

A final blessing upon his final resting-place.

We owe a great deal to John Friel.  We hope we will continue to be the beneficiaries of his solicitude in the form of intercession from his eternity.

Requiescat in pace. Amen.

Yesterday's Feast of Christ the King

The Feast of Christ the King gives us an occasion to honour Our Lord as Our Sovereign and to consider the aspects and grandeur of His Royalty.  Jesus is often spoken of as ‘King of Love’ and with special reference to His Sacramental presence on our altars.  Whosoever would have an audience with the King of kings and the Lord of lords, must simply visit a church in which the Blessed Sacrament is reserved.  But it is not only from our churches that Christ wishes to reign as King.  In giving answer to Pontius Pilot, who inquired of Him concerning His Kingship, Jesus said that His Kingdom was not of this world.  No, far from it and indeed He is far above the petty dignities of a merely earthly dominion, to which there is always an end.  But Christ’s Kingdom is God’s Kingdom and of this Kingdom there is no end.  While Christ’s Kingdom is not earthly, He is nevertheless Ruler of the entire universe.  He sits at God’s right hand and all heaven worships Him and all creatures bow to His Name.  O glorious King!  O happy lot of all who share in His eternal dominion!

Considering the purely spiritual aspect of Christ’s Kingdom, we may say that it is located in the souls of the just.  The kingdom of God is within us and it is from our minds and hearts that Christ wishes to reign.  He is given the chance to do this when we keep His commandments and do the will of His Father.  He is King in pure souls, where His grace abounds and they are His most faithful subjects, His dearest children and His closest friends.  To honour and imitate the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the best way to honour His Majesty and to prepare the way for His Kingdom within us.  We must love God and love our neighbour.  Love is learned by loving and if we have charity and peace of conscience, we have God living and reigning within us.  ‘If any man shall love Me,’ says the Lord, ‘he will keep My word, and We will come to him and will make Our abode with him.’  John 14. 23.

Three Lives Saved

 Today at the abortion clinic here in Lincoln, Nebraska, we had the great joy of saving three lives!  That’s right, three women, after seeing people praying outside the abortuary, decided not to kill their child, but to let it live!  This is the result not only of prayer, but also of having a visible presence outside the abortion clinic.  All these women and children need our prayers and certainly the graces they received were obtained by prayers in one form or another, but if our counsellors had not been there to talk to the ladies and offer them support, if Our Lady’s Army had not been there praying and giving visible encouragement, who knows but that those three precious lives might by now have been snuffed-out.

If you are in the Lincoln area and can make it to the Lincoln abortuary on a Tuesday, please do come out and join us in praying for an end to abortion and for the women and children who are harmed by abortion.  Who knows how many babies God will save from death if only there are enough people out there praying for it.  Our Lady said at Fatima “Many souls go to hell because they have no one to pray for them.”  Clearly we are not talking about hell for these innocent little babies, but could it not also be said: many babies are slaughtered each day by abortion BECAUSE THERE IS NO ONE TO PRAY FOR THEM?  If you are not in the Lincoln area or cannot make it but know people who could please share this with your friends so that we can get an many people out there praying for mothers and their children as possible.

5631 S. 48th Street

Suite 100

Lincoln, NE 68516

There is parking available.

Heaven is Sweet – Heaven is Near – Heaven is Mine

Some of the members of our Congregation had

 the privilege of knowing Sr Judith  Meisner,

 an elderly Norwegian Sister of St Joseph,

 who lived out the final years of her life

 in the Zaitzkofen seminary in Bavaria.

 She often told the story of an event that had made a profound impression on her as young nun. 

Sister, who had received the gift of the Faith as schoolgirl with her future Congregation, while a novice and not yet 20 years of age, recalled that a Redemptorist Missioner had come to their convent. The priest preached a profound retreat which affected all, and on one of the days he gave a conference which ended with the words – and Sister would say them very slowly and solemnly – 

“Heaven is Sweet, Heaven is Near, Heaven is Mine”. 

“Heaven is Sweet, Heaven is…” 

she would repeat a few times making sure you understood the import of those words. 

Like the ending of every retreat conference the nuns went their way to their cells for the night, moved at what  the priest had said, but thinking no more about it than that. Early the next morning after the usual common prayers they were awaiting the appearance of the Missioner in the Convent Church to celebrate the Holy Mass when a nun burst into the choir and quite excitedly told them that
 Father had died in his sleep during the night… 

“Heaven is Sweet, Heaven is Near, Heaven is Mine,” 

Sister would repeat again solemnly… 

“those were his last words!” 

For us who remain in this Valley of Shadows, 

perhaps those words are no more appropriate than
 in this time of Advent. 

For now Salvation at Hand, 
now amidst the Winter Darkness

 we await that 

Heaven on Earth Who is Sweet, and Near, and Who can be Mine

 if only I will open my heart to Him,

if perhaps I make that good and holy confession that I need to make,

if I forgive that soul who is most in need of my mercy,

if I give up that person, that place, that object, that amusement

which is causing my darkness and unhappiness through sin. 

On Christmas Night Heaven will bow down to Earth and

 let drop the Sweet Dew of 

Our God and Saviour, Our Little Lord Jesus Christ.

Would it not be so SWEET if then He would be NEAR,
 if He would be MINE?

It is not certain that the “Way of Bethlehem” was written by Our Holy Father St Alphonsus;

 but tradition has always ascribed it to him, 

and in our most small
 Congregation of the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer

 the devotion has always held a special place of honour. 

This year in order to help our Friends know
 and love these beautiful prayers

 we have arranged the 12 stations as little images

 for the 12 days preceding Christmas.

 Each image shows a “Bambino” or “Niño”

 which in some way expresses the mystery
 described in the station.

 Some of them bear very lovely names

 “Infant of Great-Sorrow”, “Infant Nazarene”, “Infant of the Four-Winds” etc.

Most of all we hope that they remind you each day that

Heaven is Sweet

Heaven in Near

And … 

may Jesus Bambino

 be your Heaven this coming Christmas.

Veni Domine et noli tardare!

Come O Lord, and tarry not!

Nothing more precious...Nothing regarded more cheaply.

 

Have pity on me, have pity on me, at least you my friends, because the hand of the Lord hath touched me.

Month of the Holy Souls

Holy Souls' Mass

Transalpine Redemptorist Monastery,

 Christchurch, New Zealand.

Dear Readers, during this month 

we pray especially for the Faithful Departed. 

We encourage the old custom of writing out the names of our dead 

and having them placed upon the altar to be remembered during Mass.

Memento etiam, Domine, famulorum famularumque

tuarum N. et N. ...

Be mindful also, O Lord, of Thy servants and handmaids

N. and N. ...

 Therefore I warmly invite you 

to make a list of those departed members of your family, 

or a list of your friends who have died, 

and even including your enemies; 

since Our Lord has told us 

to pray for them as well. 

...who have gone before us with the sign of faith

and sleep in the sleep of peace.

... qui nos praecesserunt cum signo fidei

et dormiunt in somno pacis.

Having made the list email it to us. 

We will print it out and place it on the altar 

near the tabernacle. 

Every day during Holy Mass at the Memento of the Dead 

the priest will include those souls in the Mass he is offering. 

What you could so easily do for your dead relatives, friends and enemies
is to make a list of their names and have them included too.

By this act you will be doing something useful for these souls

if they are in Purgatory. 

The Church applies the following words of Holy Scripture

to the dead who,

from the other world, cry to you

pleading for the charitable assistance

that you could easily lend them:

 Have pity on me, have pity on me, 

at least you my friends, 

because the hand of the Lord hath touched me. 

(Job 19:21) 

Address your List of the Dead 

to:

chapel@the-sons.org   

Resignation in expiation for our sins and for the Holy Souls

Who are the dead that suffer in the expiatory flames?
Are they great criminals, public and scandalous sinners,
who have died under the anathema of the Church
and of their fellow citizens?

No;
they are souls sanctified by grace,
who have to expiate only light faults,
slight acts of unfaithfulness,
or even only the temporal punishment
of faults already forgiven.


Among them are some
who acquired on earth eminent virtue,
who consequently, are more humble,
more chaste, more obedient,
more charitable,
and especially more patient than we.

They suffer, without complaint
and even with much love,
intolerable pains which surpass all we can imagine
or endure in this life.

A fire, like that of hell,
burns them without ceasing, without mercy,
and a pain far greater still,
that of loss,
completes their torments.

And we who have so much and,
perhaps, so greviously sinned,
we complain of the slightest suffering!

Are we ignorant of the law
that obliges us to expiate our sins,
in this life or in the next?

And is it not better to pay our debts now to our Lord's mercy,
which forgives so easily,
than to fall later under the blows of His justice,
which requires full payment to the last farthing? (Mat. 5:26)

Moreover, by bearing on earth afflictions and trials,
we embellish more and more our eternal crown,
whilst in purgatory we shall have to pay,
without increase of merit, the whole of our debt to God.

Can we hesitate between those two alternatives,
either to have our purgatory in this life
by suffering patiently and meritoriously,
or
to await the torments of next life,
when we shall have to satisfy rigorously
and unprofitably for heaven,
the divine justice in full?

Prayer and Resolutions

O Lord, it is evidently more advantageous for me
to deny myself and suffer now for Thee,
than to defer it till later.

Wherefore I embrace from this day forward
all the trials it will please Thee to send me;
bitterness, disgust, annoyances, infirmities,
pains, humiliations and contradiction.

I am therefore resolved,

first,
when tempted to impatience,
to think of purgatory and the souls
so lovingly suffering therein;

and

secondly,
often to offer Thee my sufferings in union with Thine,
as an expiation for my sins,
and for the relief of the faithful departed,
who are still indebted to Thy justice.

[From this morning's Meditation book.]