HOLINESS

JMJ+OBT

Pax et Bonum!

HOLINESS is to love God just for Himself and to do His Holy Will. In fact, the strength to do the Holy Will of God comes from the love of the Most Holy Trinity Himself. God gifts us with Himself in the Most Holy Eucharist, where Jesus Christ is really, truly and substantially present, so that we can serve the Holy Will of God . God gives us His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Most Holy Eucharist and in this Communion we find the strength to do the Holy Will of God. We see Jesus humble Himself, taking the form of a slave even though He is God Himself, and obediently goes to the Cross to save mankind for those that accept this gift of God's Love. Responding to this gift of God's Love we love God and serve His Holy Will.

God, the Holy Spirit also gives us Himself so that we may do the Holy Will of God. The Holy Spirit is Person-Gift, Person-Love. The Holy Spirit is the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity. The Divine Person of the Holy Spirit enlightens us and strengthens us with His seven-fold gifts of Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety and Fear of the Lord to do the Holy Will of God. We carry out God's will in the charity (or love), joy, peace, patience, benignity (or kindness), goodness, longanimity (or long suffering), mildness, faith, modesty, continency, and chastity that are the fruits of the Holy Spirit.

Our Blessed Mother, Mary, perfectly related and relates the God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Our Lady teaches us how to love God just for Himself and to do His Holy Will. Ask Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity to help you receive God's Love in the gifts of the Most Holy Eucharist and the Divine Person of the Holy Spirit. In this Love, you will serve God's Holy Will and be happy, holy and, God willing, reach Heaven.

-- Through the intercession of Our Lady, St. Joseph, St. Michael, St. Peter, St. Paul, St. John, St. James, St. Therese, St. Rita, St. Philomena, St. Jude, St. Nicholas, St. Alphonsus, St. Peter Chrysologus, St. Zachary, St. Elizabeth, St. John the Baptist, St. Perpetua, St. Felicity, St. Francis, St. Veronica Guiliani, St. Joan of Arc, St. Louis, St. Joseph Calasanz and all the Holy Angels and Saints may you be abundantly blessed in the Covenant of Communion of the Most Holy Trinity, with my Priestly blessing,

Father Zachary of the Mother of God, SOLT

Liturgy is Life!

We find in this week's liturgy that God will be forming us, His beloved children, to think the way that He thinks and love the way that He loves. We are told that His ways are above our ways and His thoughts are above our thoughts. In fact, His thoughts and His ways are higher than the heavens are above the earth compared to our thoughts and our ways. Yet, we are His children and, thus, are called and chosen to think and act in heavenly ways. We are to rise in Christ above all earthly ways and conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the Gospels.

We have a teaching by Our Lord in the Gospel according to St. Matthew (Chapter 20:1-16a) about the ways of God in the parable of the landowner who hires many throughout the hours of the day, even to the last hour, to work in Our Father's vineyard. In this parable we find that God is always seeking us out to live and serve in the Kingdom of God, even those who have been standing by idle most of their lives. We should rejoice that God never gives up on anyone. The way of God, the way God thinks and acts, is to call everyone to the happiness of living and serving in the Kingdom of God. God desires that all find and fulfill the Purpose and Meaning of Life that is found in God alone (see Teaching One of the Lay Formation Program).

We must ask ourselves: Do we desire everyone to come into the Kingdom of God? Are we rejoiced when others find the Purpose and Meaning of Life, even if they have been standing around idle most of their lives? Are we giving witness that draws others to the Kingdom of God? Are we actively inviting others into the Kingdom of God?

We also find that, at the end of the day, God is generous with ALL of the workers who have responded to the call. Yet, we see those that worked all day grumbling because others received the same wage. What we find is that God is generous, but man can be narrow and ungrateful. We are not to project our ideas of what is just and how things "should be" upon God. Rather we are to be open to embrace the ways of God. God is good, compassionate, generous, kind, merciful, loving and just. Are we?

Remember that God's ways and thoughts are above our ways and thoughts. We are God's children and are called and chosen to conduct ourselves as faithful members and witnesses of the Kingdom of God. If we embrace this way of life then the whole world will become Catholic. We are to honestly examine whether we have embraced the ways and thoughts of God.

Turn to Our Lady, Our Blessed Mother, and ask her to lead you to embrace the ways and thoughts of God. Ask for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit to transform you into faithful members of the Father's family. Learn from Jesus how to please God in your thoughts, words and actions. This week, and always, embrace the opportunities of formation to come to live and proclaim the dignity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Father Zachary of the Mother of God, SOLT

St. Paul

JMJ+OBT

In this Jubilee Year of SOLT, and the Year of St. Paul, the Holy Father teaches regarding the conversion of the Apostle of the Gentiles: The Holy Father recalled how "the decisive moment of Paul's life came on the road to Damascus in the early 30s of the first century, following a period in which he persecuted the Church".

In order to understand what happened to the Apostle as he travelled to Damascus "we have two sources" the Pope explained. "The first and most popular are the accounts written by Luke, who narrates the event three times in the Acts of the Apostles". The details the Evangelist chooses to highlight - the light from the sky, Paul's fall to the earth, his blindness - "relate to the core of what happened", said the Holy Father, "the Risen Christ appears as a splendid light that speaks to Saul, transforming his mind and his life. ... This meeting with Christ, which is the focus of St. Luke's account, profoundly changed Paul's life, and in this sense we can and must speak of a true conversion".

Benedict XVI then went on to explain that "the second source are the Letters of St. Paul himself". The Apostle "never spoke of the particulars of the event, perhaps because he believed that everyone knew its essential details: everyone knew that from being a persecutor he had been transformed into a fervent apostle of Christ, the result not of his own reflections but of a tremendous event, a meeting with the Risen One".

In certain of his writings the Apostle of the Gentiles "highlights how the apparition of the Risen Christ - of which he himself was a true witness - is the foundation of his apostolate, ... the foundation of his new life", said the Pope. Yet, Pope Benedict went on, "St. Paul did not consider the event as a conversion. And the reason", he explained, "is very clear: this transformation of his life was not the result of a psychological process, of an intellectual or moral evolution, ... but the fruit of his meeting with Christ Jesus. ... St. Paul's renewal cannot be explained in any other way. Psychological analyses cannot clarify and resolve the problem; only an event, the forceful encounter with Christ, is the key to understanding what happened". For us, the Holy Father concluded, Christianity "is not a new philosophy or a new form of morality. We are only Christians if we encounter Christ, even if He does not reveal Himself to us as clearly and irresistibly as he did to Paul in making him the Apostle of the Gentiles. We can also encounter Christ in reading Holy Scripture, in prayer, and in the liturgical life of the Church - touch Christ's heart and feel that Christ touches ours. And it is only in this personal relationship with Christ, in this meeting with the Risen One, that we are truly Christian".

-Pope Benedict XVI