Today is the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Church rightly teaches that Mary was conceived without the stain of Original Sin, based upon the anticipated merits of the passion, death, and resurrection of her Son, Jesus Christ. In 1854, Pope Pius XI proclaimed in Ineffabilis Deus the following: We …
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Advent begins on Sunday. It is the traditional time of preparation for both comings of Jesus: it’s a memorial of His first coming as a baby as well as an anticipation of His Second Coming in Triumph to judge all nations and history. This latter is obvious if you pray the Liturgy of the Hours …
For this Sacred Heart Friday I will relate another way the Two Heart of Jesus and Mary are allied. They are allied at the Foot off the Cross. Luke 2:34-35 And Simeon blessed them, and he said to his mother Mary: “Behold, this one has been set for the ruin and for the resurrection of …
Continue reading ‘The Alliance of the Two Hearts of Jesus and Mary! Part 4’ »
For this Sacred Heart Friday I am reviewing two great books on the Sacred Heart Devotion. Both of them are by Anne Costa, of Revive Hope and Healing Ministries. I wish Anne had written these years ago. Waybackwhen I’d always wanted to have a greater insight into the Sacred Heart Devotion, but for some reason just …
The Evening Prayer for today (Monday, First Week of Lent) has one of my favorite passages from Scripture and the first one I ever attempted to memorize. To me, it is at the heart of being a person in recovery: Romans 12:2 “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of …
Today marks the 16th Bloggaversary of Sober Catholic. In honor of that, I’ve edited and cleaned up a messy note I wrote who-knows-when on “The Sober Catholic Way.” It is a summary of everything I’ve been doing since I became sober on May 22, 2002. Some I do better than others. This was originally a …
Continue reading ‘16th Bloggaversary of Sober Catholic: How I stayed sober for almost 21 years’ »
The Bishops of the United States are launching us on a three-year long Eucharistic Revival. I first heard about it in a recent issue of the Militia of the Immaculata-USA monthly magazine Knight of the Immaculata. (This may initiate a PDF download in some browsers.) Why is this being done? From the he US Bishops site …
Continue reading ‘National Eucharistic Revival: A Grassroots Response to God’s Invitation’ »
Last year I began a new devotion, the “Work of Reparation,” also known as the Devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus. I initially wrote about it here, but to quote from that post for a refresher: “During the late 1840’s. Our Lord Jesus Christ appeared to a Carmelite nun in Tours, France, and revealed …
June 19th also happens to be the feast day of Matt Talbot, the Irish hard laborer and ex-drunkard who if he ever gets around to interceding miraculously, will get beatified and then canonized, and become a patron saint of alcoholics and addicts. If you are a reader of this blog, then you probably know of …
Merry Christmas to all my Sober Catholic readers; I hope your Advent season bore much spiritual fruit in your lives as you prepared for this day, the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. If any of you paid attention to the Mass readings during Advent or even to the Office of Readings in the Liturgy …