Everyday at noon staff members at the Texas Right to Life headquarters spend time in prayer. Join us with your prayers of adoration, thanksgiving, reparation, or petition by posting them here in our prayer forum. You can return to edit your prayer or post an update on how God has answered. You are always welcome to visit our office in Houston to pray with us.
This is Mardi Gras day in those parts of the world that celebrate a carnival before Lent begins. It brings back all my childhood and youth memories of carnival in New Orleans. One memory in particular stands out for me. It was Mardi Gras of 1950 and that night I was at the Rex ball with my date. Suddenly, in the middle of one of the dances, the music stopped abruptly and the captain came to the microphone and asked that everyone clear the floor. My first thought was that there was a fire in the auditorium where the ball was being held. But no; there was some excitement at the door, and then the Duke and Duchess of Windsor came in, dressed in appropriate finery. He had been for a few months King Edward VIII of England, but had abdicated about 13 years earlier in order to marry the woman who was a twice-divorced, American commoner. The pair made their way to a place before the stage where Rex and his queen were enthroned, and there the duke and duchess bowed and curtseyed to the make-believe king and queen of Misrule, as is the official title of Rex in New Orleans every year.
Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, when our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI will, I suppose, follow his custom of going to our Dominican mother church of Santa Sabina on the Aventine Hill and there he will receive ashes from one of the cardinals and then give them to many others who will be there.
As we think of the make-believe kings of carnival and the almost make-believe rulers of the world's constitutional monarchies, we should also remember that the REAL king of the entire universe – Christ the King – never wore a crown except one of thorns, and never held a scepter except a reed that was thrust into his hands in ridicule. Instead of being a King of Misrule, he is the Lord who tells us to love God and our neighbor – the basis of all human wisdom, and who, instead of surrounding himself with jewels and gold and pomp, tells us "learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart". Let us laugh at the kings of carnival, but let us lovingly adore the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.from Father Brown in Texas |
In just a few hours from now, we will come to the end of the first Ordinary Time of this year and will begin the Holy Season of Lent. And, as we know, Lent will reach its climax in the passion and death of Our Lord on the cross and then his resurrection from the tomb.
In the life of Jesus, we know that very shortly before his sufferings and death, he raised his friend Lazarus from the tomb. In fact, his raising of Lazarus was one of the main reasons why his enemies decided that it was IMPERATIVE that Jesus be killed because he had worked this stupendous miracle right under their noses – within a few miles from the city of Jerusalem, the temple, and the place where the Sanhedrin – the high court of the priests and scribes regularly met. They simply could not tolerate these manifestations of his divine power in the very heart of their nation and their religious structure.
There is a great difference between the resurrection of Lazarus and that of Jesus. Lazarus came out of the tomb after four days of death, but would die again. Jesus came out of the tomb after forty hours of death, never to die again. I doubt very much that we will die the kind of death that Lazarus died just before Jesus called him out of the tomb. There doesn't seem to be any reason for that. But I certainly hope that after our death, at the end of time, we will come forth from the tomb as Jesus did, never to die again. And how will that occur? What force will bring us back to life? Our Lord tells St. Martha very clearly at the time of her brother Lazarus' death: I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. Let us believe firmly in Our Divine Lord; let us base our entire lives on his teachings. Then, one of these days, we will die. That is, body and soul will separate. The body will decompose, but the soul will remain alive, and then at the end of time, a new body will be fitted to the soul and we will live again as we were intended to: a composite of body and soul.
Let us think of these divinely revealed truths especially throughout this holy season of Lent. from Father Brown in Texas |
For the last few days, the incoming mail on my computer has been filled with concern about the actions of the man who is, unfortunately, our president. Actually, he is showing himself to be a moral moron, who has no concern about the sacredness of human life, about the evil of abortion and sterilization, and about the freedom of religion of the citizens of this nation.
If we Catholics were a relatively small group that could qualify as a cult, or a marginal religion holding odd views like those who travel by horse-and-buggy, or who refuse to salute the flag, or to seek medical treatment even for their gravely ill children, the situation would be somewhat different. But we are the single largest religious denomination in the nation. The contributions which the Catholic Church has made and continues to make to the education of American children and young people, the health care for the sick of this country regardless of race, creed, and color, and the social work among the needy of our national community are all enormous. Our willingness to defend even with our very lives the principles of American liberty has been second to none. And now this Barak Obama is willing to force us to close all our health-care facilities if we cannot in conscience perform abortions and other procedures which violate the fifth commandment of the law of God.
Catholic service men and women have served, fought, and died in every sector of our military establishment. For what? For the freedoms which President Franklin Roosevelt famously identified as "the four freedoms": Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. And now this man in the White House is trying to overturn our freedom of religion, and even more basically, to overturn the right of the children of our nation to their own lives. My dear friends, pray for our nation at this crucial moment in our history; pray for the Church in America at this moment, and do what you can to add your support to that of our American bishops and religious leaders of many kinds. They are trying to uphold morality and human rights in a nation in which one man, totally without competence in the field of morality and divine law, arbitrarily changes the law of God and ignores the rights of the millions of our Catholic Americans. May God help us in this effort. from Father Brown in Texas |
We Dominican friars live in religious houses that are called priories; our priories are directed by the member of the community who is called a prior, and who is elected by the men of the priory for a term of three years. He can be reelected for a second three-year term, but no more than that consecutively.
The time has come for that election of a prior, either the one who has served us for the past three years or someone else. During the past weekend, we gathered to discuss the coming election, and this Monday morning, we celebrated the Mass of the Holy Spirit, asking the guidance of God upon our deliberations and upon whoever will serve this priory of Holy Rosary in Houston for the next three years. I ask that you join your prayers to ours for our election which will take place this week, for the man who will be elected, and for all of us as we continue to live this life to which we have been called. The very fact that you read or hear this daily message makes you a part of our preaching apostolate. We need and ask your prayers that Our Lord will put grace into our hearts, words into our mouths and into your ears and minds – the words that he wants us to preach and you to hear.
The whole dynamic of preaching is much like that wonderful event on the hillside over the Lake of Galilee when Our Lord found himself surrounded by about five thousand people at the end of the day. The apostles told Our Lord that he better dismiss the crowd so that they could go buy some food for supper. And Our Lord replied, that the apostles should give them something to eat. What in the world was he talking about? How could these twelve men feed that great crowd with practically nothing to give them? So he took what meager provisions they had, blessed them, and gave them to the apostles with the instructions to distribute them to the crowd. So the apostles gave, and gave, and gave, and found themselves doing the impossible, and yet the basket which each of them held seemed to have no bottom as the bread and the fish kept appearing until the whole hungry crowd had had all they wanted. The people of God are hungry, and they pray for food and drink. Our Lord calls us to be preachers, that is, providers of the food and drink. And we give and give and give.
Just yesterday, a young woman in the parish thanked me for these daily messages. She's been reading them for years. We do not produce the bread or the fish; all we do is take what Our Lord has blessed and multiplied, and we distribute it. We need your prayers, your support, your attention, and the Word of God which nourishes both us and you, for we are not above the Church but members of it, needing its ministry as much as you do. So please pray for us, that the Lord may always put food into the baskets from which we distribute it to you. from Father Brown in Texas |
This Friday, January 27th, the Church commemorates St. Angela Merici, a lady from the north Italian lake country who in the year 1516 founded a group of teaching Sisters whom she called the Ursulines, in honor of a special favorite saint of hers, St. Ursula. A little more than one hundred years later, the Ursulines of Europe sent a group of their Sisters to begin the religious instruction of the girls in the city of Quebec on the St. Lawrence River in what is now Canada. They have been there ever since: from the year 1639 to the present: 373 years. Then, when the French government was asked to send women to educate the girls of the brand new settlement of New Orleans near the mouth of the Mississippi River, Ursuline Sisters were sent there, too. That was in 1727, 285 years ago. The Ursulines are still in Quebec and still in New Orleans. Their history in North America is one of the most glorious parts of the long saga of Catholicism and of education in the United States and Canada.
As we read the gospel of today's Mass in honor of St. Angela, I was struck by the importance of the words of Our Lord. On one occasion, the apostles asked Jesus who among them was the most important – a question that indicates their pride and lack of understanding of the mentality of Our Lord. St. Mark tells us that Jesus took a small child, placed him in their midst and said to them, "Whoever welcomes a child such as this for my sake welcomes me. And whoever welcomes me welcomes not me, but him to sent me." This is a beautiful statement of Our Lord's thoughts about those who are good to children. And certainly true religious education is one of the highest forms of goodness to little ones. It introduces him to them, and them to him. So today we celebrate St. Angela, the foundress of the Ursulines, and we also celebrate the 658 years of their goodness to the women of North America. And that doesn't include their teaching in Galveston and in Dallas and maybe other Ursuline schools in Canada or this country of which I'm not even aware. These years of teaching are treasures in heaven which have been laid up, and for which St. Angela certainly gets some of the credit and merit. from Father Brown in Texas |
There is a beautiful little city in the French Alps called Annecy; it is surrounded by the mountains; a stream flows through the town, and empties into the sparkling lake on whose shore the town is built. January 24th is the feast of St. Francis de Sales who was born in that beautiful part of Europe and left his mark there to a remarkable degree.
He became a priest – the great desire of his young life – and soon his holiness and qualifications to be a bishop were recognized by the Holy See. But the local diocese was that of Geneva, which is now in Switzerland, and that city had become the headquarters of the Calvinists, the most aggressive of the Protestants during that time of the so-called Reformation. Francis could not even enter the city of which he was the bishop because of the danger of being killed by his enemies. So he established himself in the town of Annecy, quite close to Geneva, in the hope of soon going to Geneva to take up his duties there.
He was never able to realize that dream; the wars of religion lasted longer than his own life, and thus he spent his entire episcopal life outside his own see of Geneva in the town of Annecy.
His great talent was writing, so he used his time to write all sorts of pamphlets, booklets, tracts, and his most famous book, “Introduction to the Devout Life”. I was impressed when I visited Annecy and noted that above the door of the house where he lived during his years there, an inscription says, not "St. Francis de Sales lived here," but rather "in this house St. Francis de Sales wrote “Introduction to the Devout Life”".
In Annecy, he became acquainted with a noblewoman whom we know as St. Jane Frances de Chantal. The two of them collaborated in the foundation of the Nuns of the Visitation for the education of girls. That community is still flourishing; its most famous member is St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, to whom Our Divine Lord appeared and revealed the devotion to his Sacred Heart. On a hill in the town of Annecy stands the Basilica of the Visitation where these two saints are buried side by side before the main altar.
It is a far cry from the days of writing with pen and ink on paper. Now, we have all sorts of electronic devices to spread whatever word the user wishes to disseminate. St. Francis de Sales is the patron of all Catholic journalism, and we might well pray through his intercession that the truths of our holy faith will be well served by these new means of publication so that we may have a part in the mandate of Our Lord, "Go therefore, make disciples of all nations..."from Father Brown in Texas |
Years ago, I knew a young man who had married and whose wife then became involved with another man. She left her husband to go and live with the other man, causing enormous grief to her lawful husband. I can remember him telling me time and again that his greatest suffering was his inability to stop arguing internally with her. When he was trying to concentrate on his work or on any other aspect of his life, he would find himself mentally composing conversations with her that would convince her of what a terrible thing she had done, and would persuade her to come back to him. I don't think it ever happened, and I imagine that by now, both of them have remarried.
During those very painful months, he read a number of books about marital separation and divorce; they agreed that infidelity within a couple who were once very much in love and who made permanent commitments to one another is one of the most devastating sufferings that we human beings can inflict upon one another. And he was finding that out in fact as well as in theory.
I am reminded of those two fairly often, because when we read the psalms in our daily prayer, we often come to the passages where God speaks of his people as his bride, and himself as their bridegroom. He calls himself "a jealous God" who is enraged by the infidelity of his people. This is symbolized very forcefully by the story of Moses who went up to the top of Mt. Sinai to receive the commandments of the law from God. On his way down, he is infuriated to see that the people have fashioned a golden calf which they are now worshipping in idolatry rather than the true God. To indicate that the commandments were a covenant between God and the people, and that they had broken that covenant, Moses took the stone tablets on which God had inscribed the commandments and smashed them on the ground, breaking physically what the people had broken in spirit.
When you and I sin, we are being unfaithful to the Lord who loves us so much that he is jealous even of us, small and insignificant as we are. It's almost incredible that God would become that interested in us. But then, he made us IN HIS IMAGE AND LIKENESS, and he does take us very seriously and love us very fervently. Just as a very loving married couple are deeply devoted to one another and would never deliberately do anything to offend one another, so let us fear to offend God and do all we can to please and obey him, and thus carry out his holy will.from Father Brown in Texas |
On my bookshelf just above the computer on which I compose this message there is a piece of ancient masonry about the size of a small egg. Some years ago I brought it from my first visit to the capital city of Hungary. When I was there, I went out to the island called Margitsziget – Margaret's Island – in the middle of the Danube river, between the cities of Buda and Pest which together compose one city now called Budapest. I went to that island because that is where the King, Bela IV, built a monastery of Dominican Nuns because his daughter, Margaret, wanted to become one. Not wanting her to go far away, he built a new convent right in the middle of the river. I don't know what it was called before she came to live there, but from the time of Princess Margaret – now St. Margaret – the island is Margitsziget and a small piece of the Dominican convent graces my bookshelf. That convent is now in ruins and the community of nuns have moved elsewhere, but each year on January 18, the Church and especially our Dominican Nuns throughout the world celebrate this royal Hungarian princess who is one of our canonized saints.
I also want to ask you today: do you know what a slingshot is? It is the sort of weapon with which the young David, before he became king of Israel, killed the Philistine giant, Goliath. The story of David and Goliath appeals to all boys, I suppose; it surely fascinated me when I first came across it in my Bible history book when I was about seven or eight.
A slingshot is basically a square of leather with a long leather thong attached to each of its four corners. The two thongs on one side of the square are wrapped around the lower arm of the person intending to use it. The other two are held firmly in the hand of that same arm. A skillful slingshot user places a stone in the square, then whirls it repeatedly over his head until it is traveling at great speed. And then, he lets go the two thongs in his hand, and the stone flies with great force at the target. Back in the days of the boy David, every shepherd in that part of the world became adept at using slingshots to defend his flock from the wolves, hyenas, jackals, and other predators always lurking around the flock for a free meal of lamb or mutton. And since the Holy Land is a very stony, rocky area, there is always an abundance of rocks which can be hurled with lethal precision at man or beast. In today's first reading at Mass, the boy David hurls a rock at a very tall, massive man belonging to the enemy army, who was planning to kill David. The rock struck the giant Goliath right in the forehead and either killed him or at least knocked him unconscious. And the boy David, to prove that Goliath was dead, took the giant's sword from its scabbard and with it, cut off the giant's head.
The boy David is a prophecy in action referring to Our Lord. Our Savior was only one person, but he conquered the entire army of evil for the good of humankind, just as the boy David, by killing Goliath, won the war of Israelites against Philistines. To thank David for this victory, the Jewish nation made him their king. To thank Our Divine Lord for his victory, God our Father has made him the universal King of the entire universe. Long live Christ our King! from Father Brown in Texas |
Today the Church celebrates the famous St. Anthony of the Desert, sometimes called St. Anthony the Abbot. He was born into the Christian community of Egypt in about the year 250 and lived about a hundred years – remarkable for that period, the austerity of his life and the severe heat and aridity of Egypt. As a very young man, he felt the call to go out into the desert to live a contemplative life. He didn't realize how many others had that same inclination but lacked the leadership to implement their desires. Anthony was the leader they needed, and by the time of his death as a very old man, he left colonies of hundreds of monks out in the Egyptian desert as the beginnings of Christian religious life. They are called "The Desert Fathers" by church historians, and have left us a rich heritage of spiritual writings and example.
In today's Mass, one of the responsorial passages which can be used after the first reading in honor of St. Anthony is taken from the 16th psalm. In it, the psalmist reflects upon the fact that he has not inherited wealth or real estate or slaves or any material possessions. He has inherited nothing less than God himself. "O Lord," he exclaims, "you are my allotted portion ... you it is who hold fast my lot." The psalmist is saying that he and his fellow Jewish people are more fortunate than the gentiles, because God gives himself to them as their divine Lord, Guide, and Protector. He goes on to say, "For me the measuring lines have fallen on pleasant sites; fair to me indeed is my inheritance."
This passages always brings to my mind a visit that Archbishop Leo Binz of Dubuque, Iowa, made to our seminary to confer Holy Orders on some of us on our way to the priesthood. He spoke of that passage in a way that struck me more forcefully than I had ever heard it explained before, and even now, when I hear "fair indeed is my inheritance" I think of Archbishop Binz and am grateful to him for his words and ideas.
Think of your own case, my dear friends. You might have been born in some part of the world where there is poverty, famine, epidemics of deadly diseases, and where the very Name of Jesus has never been preached? Do we realize how blessed we are, how grateful we should be, for all that we have in terms of material wealth, physical well-being, and above all, our spiritual wealth because of our holy faith which brings to us Our Lord Jesus Christ, his blessed Mother, and the saints? Indeed, our inheritance is fair; we are God's highly favored ones. from Father Brown in Texas |
This morning in the New Orleans obituaries I found the name of an old friend of mine. Art Leto and I were students at Loyola University together, and became good friends. In the summer of 1948, he and I were invited to go with another Loyola student and two of his relatives to go with them to Mexico. It was a wonderful three-week trip which we all thoroughly enjoyed and about which I have very happy memories to this day.
After we graduated from college, Art and I went our separate ways. He married five years later, and I went into the navy during the Korean conflict. Only once after that did Art and I ever see one another again. During the '70's, I was pastor of St. Dominic parish in New Orleans, and was conducting a wedding rehearsal. When I was introduced to the young people in the wedding party, there was a groomsman named Leto. I asked if he was related to my old Loyola friend, Art. Art was his father! So I asked the young man to tell his dad that I wanted very much to see him when he came to the wedding the following night. Art came back to the sacristy, and we had a great reunion after about 25 years.
I remember so well that during our college days and the trip to Mexico, Art often teased me by calling me a rather vulgar name which amused me. So that night, in the sacristy, Art, was a 47-year old man, talking to a priest whom he had known for years. I couldn't resist the temptation to remind him of that name that he used to call me those years ago. And he seemed thoroughly embarrassed by it; but I assured him that he wasn't going to hell because he used that expression about a college friend who was now a priest!
That's the last time I ever saw Art. And now he is gone – to heaven, I trust. And I am here praying for him and being grateful to God and to Art for lots of fun and very happy memories of those days when I was eighteen and Art was twenty. Art died two days ago, when he was 84 and I am 82. I think you can imagine the kinds of thoughts and feelings that come to me as I think of this event. Because he was of Italian extraction and we traveled together in Mexico and spoke some Spanish, I can say to him, "Arrivederci, Arturo" and "Hasta la vista, amigo". And I can also ask his prayers for me. from Father Brown in Texas |
I am reading a very good book these days by a Jesuit priest, Fr. James Martin, S.J. It is called "My Life with the Saints" and it contains accounts of how he has come to be devoted to his favorite saints, and then what in their lives attracts him to them. I certainly recommend it to you.
It struck me yesterday that we tend to assume that other people know as much as we do about the saints, and of course, that isn't true. Before I entered the Dominican Order, I knew practically nothing about St. Dominic, and very little about St. Thomas Aquinas or St. Catherine of Siena. And those are three of the most prominent Dominican saints.
So, let me point out to you today that St. Therese of Lisieux, whom the Catholic world calls "the Little Flower", spent months toward the end of her very short life suffering the terrible cross of what is called "the dark night of the soul". It is a very painful experience in which an individual loses most or all of the joy of one's faith and is attacked by doubts and questions about things that were rock-solid in one's mind and heart before.
The Little Flower entered the Carmelite monastery of Lisieux, where she grew up, when she was just fifteen. She died when she was twenty-four. But during those nine short years, she became not only a very great saint, but one of the only three female Doctors of the Church.
We usually think of her as a smiling, happy, young woman for whom the religious life was very close to heaven on earth. But her own autobiography contradicts that idea completely. In her "dark night", she spoke very confidentially to her blood sister who was also her religious superior in the convent, and told her of the spiritual darkness that she was experiencing. Her sister suggested that Therese write down some of the doubts and questionings that were assailing her, thinking that by putting them down on paper, she might gain some relief from them. Therese rejected that idea. No, she said. They are so ugly, so contrary to the goodness of God, that I would feel that I were writing down blasphemy and gross irreverence if I were to put them on paper.
Shortly before her death, during her very severe physical sufferings from tuberculosis as well as the spiritual trials, she cautioned her superior: when a sister is suffering as I am, be careful not to leave bottles of medicine within her reach that could do her harm if she took them all. That sounds a lot like temptations to suicide. And yet this is the great saint whom we think of as the smiling nun who was always gloriously happy in her religious vocation.
I speak of these things today because, as the old saying goes, "misery loves companionship". To know that Therese suffered greatly is of greater help to us than to think of her as always light-hearted and happy. To contemplate Our Lord on the cross is certainly more meaningful than to think of an adolescent Jesus playing games with his teen-age friends in the streets and on the hillsides around Nazareth. The madonnas of our Christmas cards are less convincing than the pietas – those representations of Our Lady sitting on the ground with her dead Son in her arms after he had been taken down from the cross. Have you noticed that we often speak of the Mater Dolorosa (the Mother of Sorrows) but rarely of the Mater Gaudiosa (the Mother of Joys)?
Sin brings suffering, and the toleration of suffering makes atonement for our own sins and those of others. So, as Our Lord tells us, "take up your cross daily and follow Me". from Father Brown in Texas |
We pray for Perpetual Protection Society, those who have included Texas Right to Life in their estate plans. The following individuals have included Texas Right to Life in their wills:
Carl Z., Marlys R., Loretta C., Jean K., and John R.
The following individuals have included Texas Right to Life in their wills and now labor for the Culture of Life from their eternal reward:
Catherine, Mary Lee, and Rory.from Texas Right to Life in Texas |
I will pray for Texas Right to Life in my morning prayers.
I will read Sacred Scripture for 30 minutes/one hour every day/week for Texas Right to Life.
I will fast one day every week/month for Texas Right to Life.
I will pray for Texas Right to Life in my night prayers.
from Texas RIght to Life in Texas |
I will pray each morning that God, our Creator, that God will protect unborn children.
I will pray at noon to Jesus our Brother, that Pro-Life workers will pour love into their ministries.
I will pray in the evening that the Holy Spirit will guide mothers to embrace Life.
from Texas Right To Life in Texas |
O God, creator of the universe, we greet this new day you have given us with prayers of thanksgiving. We especially give you thanks for all the souls yet unborn who are known and loved by you alone. We pray to you for your hand of protection over them that they may escape all harm from those who do not know them as precious children of your creation. Amen.
Dear Jesus our brother who lived and died as one of us, be with us in the midst of this busy day of labor. Most especially, we lift to you those whose days are spent in the work of saving the lives of the unborn. Grant them both wisdom and courage as they go about their many tasks. Amen.
Holy Spirit, as we come to the end of this day, be present with us and give us comfort and peace as we lay down to rest. Keep watch over those mothers who are struggling with unplanned pregnancies. Give them guidance to make right decisions and encourage and strengthen their wills. Finally, surround them with the comfort and peace that comes from knowing that God is with them. Amen.
from Texas Right to Life in Texas |
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