Between Heaven, "the place of refreshment, light and peace."
and Hell the abode of eternal torment,
there is, till the day of general judgement, a middle state, called Purgatory,
for those Souls that depart this life justified, but still in need of final purification.
In this place of punishment and purification, of justice and mercy,
dwell the Souls that have venial sins to expiate,
or temporal punishment to undergo, or both.
Our Catholic Faith
teaches that in the Eucharist Our Lord Jesus Christ is truly and substantially present under the species of bread and wine. The presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is "real' not in the sense of excluding all other types of presence as if they were 'not real' but because it is a presence in the fullest sense: a substantial presence whereby Christ, the Man-God, is wholly and entirely present... the consecration of the bread and wine effects the change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. And the Holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called this change transubstantiation"
(Ecclesia de Eucharista n. 15)
"The Eucharist is a mystery of presence, the perfect fulfillment of Jesus' promise to remain with us until the end of the world (Mayne nobiscum Domine, n.16)"
Reflection
The Lord is present in many diverse ways. At Mass, he is present when his Word is proclaimed, he is present in the congregation that gathers to celebrate the Mass, he is present in the person of the priest who represents him during the celebration, but above all, Christ is present in the Eucharist, when after the words of the consecration, the bread and wine become His very Body and Blood: "Take this, all of you and eat it. This is my Body... This is the cup of my Blood."
How much do we appreciate the fact at Mass, Jesus is truly and really present to us, by the way we comport ourselves and participate at Mass? People run to shrines or alleged apparition sites to experience the presence of the divine, forgetting that at Mass, we have Jesus with us in a most intimate and real way. Do we really show respect and reverence to Christ's presence at Mass? It is because Christ is truly present whenever we celebrate Mass that the Mass is the most precious treasure that we, as a Church possess. What can be more important than Jesus whenever we celebrate the Mass? Our cell phones? Our cars? Our comfort? Do we really believe in the Lord's real presence at Mass that we make an effort to be in Church in time to dispose ourselves properly for mass to encounter Him?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, thank you for the gift of yourself in the Eucharist. Increase my love and devotion to your abiding Presence in the Blessed Sacrament. Come Lord Jesus, be the center of my life... now and forever. Amen
St. Faustina Kowalska was a Polish nun who died on October 5,1938 at only 33 years of age. She had lived a very simple life proclaiming an extremely simple message: the Heart of Jesus is overflowing with divine mercy towards sinners and wants all to come to him with trust-filled love. This invitation is powerfully expressed in the classic painting of the Risen Christ, which an artist executed under the guidance of Sr. Faustina herself who, on February 22, 1931 had seen Him with red and pale rays of light emanating from His chest.Those rays of light recalled the blood and water that flowed down from the pierced heart of Christ on the cross and symbolized the inexhaustible richness of his merciful love made present and available to all through the Sacraments.
Jesus himself had instructed Sr. Faustina to have the sentence "JESUS I TRUST IN YOU" written at the bottom of that painting. this sentence expresses the response of humble faith on the part of the sinner to the endless mercy with which God views mankind and constantly brings about the salvation of the world.
This is the mercy that brought God's son to become a human being and to give his life on the cross for all sinners. This is also the same mercy that led the Risen Christ to go in search of His disciples the very day He rose from death, to reassure them of His forgiving love. No revenge for having been deserted by them right when he needed their allegiance most, but only the gifts of His peace and comforting presence. No bitterness against the doubting Thomas who persisted in rejecting the witness of his companions, but only patient understanding for his weakness and a tender desire to arouse in him faith in the Resurrection.
"My Lord and my God!" exclaimed the bewildered apostle as he felt himself inundated by the love of the Man-God who had only words of mercy and forgiveness for him.
"Jesus, remember me when you enter into your reign!" had been the earnest plea of the man being executed with Him on calvary as he viewed his life as a total failure and Jesus' mercy as his only hope. And he was not disappointed.
"Jesus have mercy on me, I trust in You!" is the expression of complete self surrender which all of us should address to our Savior as we realize our unworthiness and our need to be forgiven. What can save us from the devastating consequences of our sins is only God's merciful love.
And this is what we implore, in all humility and confidence, not only on the Second Sunday of Easter, but throughout our lives, until our last moments. Like the repentant thief dying on a cross, side by side with the Innocent Victim, we place all out trust in Jesus, the King of Divine Mercy. The Divine Mercy Novena Jesus asked that the Feast of the Divine Mercy be preceded by a Novena to the Divine Mercy which would begin on Good Friday. He gave St. Faustina an intention to pray for on each day of the Novena, saving for the last day the most difficult intention of all, the lukewarm and indifferent of whom He said: "These souls cause Me more suffering than any others; it was from such souls that My soul felt the most revulsion in the Garden of Olives. It was on their account that I said: 'My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass Me by.' The last hope of salvation for them is to flee to My Mercy." In her diary, St. Faustina wrote that Jesus told her: "On each day of the novena you will bring to My heart a different group of souls and you will immerse them in this ocean of My mercy ... On each day you will beg My Father, on the strength of My passion, for the graces for these souls."
The Chaplet of Mercy is recited using ordinary rosary beads of five decades. The Chaplet is preceded by two opening prayers from the Diary of Saint Faustina and followed by a closing prayer.
This is an account of the events leading up to the Crucifixion of Christ by a 19th century German stigmatic and visionary, Anne Catherine Emmerich. This once-obscure book recently achieved a much higher profile because it was used as an inspiration for the screenplay of Mel Gibson's controversial movie, The Passion of the Christ. A riveting 'you are there' account of this pivotal event, the story is told with great attention to small details, many not mentioned in the Gospels. This is not a novelization; it is a recounting of Emmerich's ecstatic visions, which were accompanied by painful and mysterious physical torments. Emmerich was practically illiterate and this book was dictated by her, which makes the fact that the narrative is so internally coherent all the more compelling.
Some readers will note passages which by contemporary standards might be considered anti-Semitic, particularly in the way that the Jewish population is presented as having collective responsibility for the death of Christ. Of course, without apologizing for this in the slightest, it is to be noted that religious and secular institutions of the time sanctioned anti-Semitism in one form or another, so this view was not atypical. On the whole, however, the account considers each of the numerous actors in the drama, Christian, Jewish, or Roman, as individuals with particular motivations, strengths and weaknesses.
Emmerich was beatified on Sunday, October 3rd, 2004 by Pope John Paul II, the final step before sainthood. Her feast day is the anniversary of her death on February 9th, 1824.
The Way of the Cross represents the sorrowful journey that Jesus Christ made with the cross to die on Calvary. The church teaches that the Souls in Purgatory undergo a process of purification that must include suffering. By praying and making sacrifices for the Holy Souls, you have the marvelous power and privilege to relieve their pain. In return, their gratitude will bring you countless blessings. May a stream of mercy flow from you to the Holy Souls in Purgatory.
The sentence of Pilate against our Savior having been published in a loud voice before all the people, the executioners loaded the heavy Cross, on which He was to be crucified, upon his tender and wounded shoulders. In order that He might carry it they loosened the bonds holding his hands, but not the others, since they wish to drag Him along by the loose ends of the ropes bound his body. In order to torment Him the more they drew two loops around his throat. The Cross was fifteen feet long, of thick and heavy timbers. The herald began to proclaim the sentence and the whole confused and turbulent multitude of the people, the executioners and soldiers, with great noise, uproar and disorder began to move from the house of Pilate to mount Calvary through the streets of Jerusalem. The Master and Redeemer of the world, Jesus, before receiving the Cross looked upon it with a countenance full of extreme joy and exultation such as would be shown by a bridegroom looking at the rich adornments of his bride, and on receiving it, He addressed it as follows...
Two executioners sit him on the chest to have it still. A third party will take the right arm holding it with one hand in the first part of the forearm and the other where the fingers end. The fourth, which is already in hand the long pointy nail ... supports the point of the nail on the wrist, up the hammer and tee off ... The breaking nail penetrates muscles, veins, nerves and bones dislocating them.
The right hand is stuck. Passed to the left. The hole does not correspond to the carpus. Then catch a rope, tied her left wrist and pull to dislocate the joint and tendons and muscles abused ... nailing where they can, that is, between the thumb and fingers, right in the center of the metacarpal. Here comes more easily spot but more spasm, because important nerves must be cut, so that the fingers are inert, while others on the right have contractions and tremors that confirm its vitality.
Now is the turn of the feet. Six feet from the end of the cross, is a small wedge, barely enough for a foot. About this is taken to check the feet as well. And know that's a little lower and get bad feet, ankles stretched by poor martyr. The rough wood of the cross rubbed both wounds, remove the crown, moving abusing and threatening new hair and the hips.
Those sitting on the chest of Jesus stand up to scroll knees ... And tread on his knees skinned, poor and crowded in warm bruised, while the other two make the operation more difficult, the nailing of one foot over the other, trying to combine the two joints of the tarsi at a time ... subjected foot moves by the vibration of the nail, and it should almost desclavar because, having entered the soft, cloves and blunted by having pierced the right foot should be brought closer to the center a little. And knock, knock, knock ...
Now the cross is dragged to the hole, shaking the poor Crucified bounces on the uneven ground. The cross is raised twice escaping to the rise and falls once a blowout, one in the right arm of the same, giving a rough torment Jesus because the sudden jolt injured joints removed. But then when the cross is dropped in his hole, before being secured with rocks and dirt, flies in all directions, the poor printing continuous displacements of Jesus Body suspended by three nails. The suffering must be atrocious.
The whole body moves forward and down, and the holes are elongated, especially the left hand, and enlarged the hole in the foot while blood pours harder. And if it drips foot lot, the fingers on the ground and runs down the wood of the cross, it follows by the hands forearms because they are higher than the wrist and armpit, by force of the position, ribs also watered down the armpit to the waist. The crown, when the waves cross before being posted, because the head moves back jerks from behind the neck pressing on the bulk knot of thorns crown ends in stabbing and then getting back gently on the forehead and spider, spider, without mercy.
Finally the cross is assured and there is only the torment of being hanged. Izan thieves also, which, once set vertically, screaming as if they were skinned alive for the torture of the ropes that cut wrists and hands do get black, with swollen veins like ropes. Jesus is silent. The crowd is not silent, but it resumes its infernal din.
Since the top of Golgotha has his trophy and his honor guard. In the higher limit (side) the cross of Jesus. Next B and C the other two. Half a century of soldiers with guns to walk all around the top, within the armed siege of ten felled to play dice convicted dresses. Straight up, between the cross of Jesus and that of the right, Longinus. And they seem mountains honor guard Martyr King. The other half century, rest, is under the command of Longinus assistant in the path to the left and the lower square, waiting to be used in case of need. Among the soldiers there is almost total indifference. Only a face lift to the crucified once in a while.
Our Catholic Faith
teaches that in the Eucharist Our Lord Jesus Christ is truly and substantially present under the species of bread and wine. The presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is "real' not in the sense of excluding all other types of presence as if they were 'not real' but because it is a presence in the fullest sense: a substantial presence whereby Christ, the Man-God, is wholly and entirely present... the consecration of the bread and wine effects the change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. And the Holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called this change transubstantiation"
(Ecclesia de Eucharista n. 15)
