Near the Cross with Mary - Bishop Scott McCaig

Bishop Scott's inspiration comes from Saint Teresa of Calcutta who found herself next to the Cross and by Our Lady's side, in an apparition in 1947. As a result of this event, she often exhorted "With great love and trust, stand with Our Lady near the Cross. What a gift of God!" Saint Teresa's promise that 

"if we stand with Our Lady, she will give us her spirit of loving trust, total surrender, and cheerfulness."

From a letter written on the day of her death –

1. “Loving trust and total surrender made Our Lady say ‘yes’ to the message of the angel. And cheerfulness made her run in haste to serve her cousin Elizabeth. That is so much our life: saying ‘yes’ to Jesus and running in haste to serve him in the poorest of the poor. Let us keep very close to Our Lady and she will make that same spirit grow in each of us.”

2. “Pray especially to Our Blessed Mother Mary, placing all your intentions into her hands. For she loves you as she loves her Son. She will guide you in all your relationships so that peace may fill your life.”

3. “Let us ask Our Lady, in a very special way: Mary, mother of Jesus, be a mother to each of us, that we, like you, may be pure in heart, that we, like you, love Jesus; that we, like you, serve the poorest for we are all poor. First, let us love our neighbors and so fulfill God’s desire that we become carriers of his love and compassion.”

4. “Mary is our mother, the cause of our joy. Being a mother, I have never had difficulty in talking with Mary and feeling close to her.”

 A few other Words from Mother Teresa on Mary

5... She never feared to proclaim Jesus her son. At Calvary we see her standing upright – the mother of God, standing next to the cross. What a deep faith she must have had because of her love for her son! To see him dishonored, unloved, an object of hatred. Yet, she stayed upright.”

6 “How much we need Mary to teach us what it means to satiate God’s Thirsting Love for us, which Jesus came to reveal to us. She did it so beautifully. Yes, Mary allowed God to take possession of her life by her purity, her humility, and her faithful love…Let us seek to grow, under the guidance of our Heavenly Mother…”

7 “If we stand with Our Lady, she will give us her spirit of loving trust, total surrender, and

 cheerfulness.

My brother Jimmy painted this beautiful image of Mother Teresa years ago

when he was living in Toronto. He met Mother Teresa as she was getting out of a taxi I believe and their eyes locked. I can't remember the exact circumstances... She might have dropped something and he picked it up: not sure but I believe their encounter was the inspiration for the painting which he gave to me. I was so excited!!!

Prayer Walter - Father Walter Ciszek S.J.from "He Leadeth Me"

“And I learned soon enough that prayer does not take away bodily pain or mental anguish. Nevertheless, it does provide a certain moral strength to bear the burden patiently. Certainly, it was prayer that helped me through every crisis.

Gradually, too, I learned to purify my prayer and remove from it the elements of self-seeking. I learned to pray for my interrogators, not so they would see things my way or come to the truth so that my ordeal would end, but because they, too, were children of God and human beings in need of his blessing and his daily grace. I learned to stop asking for more bread for myself, and instead to offer up my sufferings, the pains of hunger that I felt, for the many others in the world and in Russia at that time who were enduring similar agony and even greater suffering. I tried very hard not to worry about what tomorrow would bring, what I should eat, or what I should wear, but rather to seek the kingdom of God and his justice, his will for me and for all mankind.

"Thy will be done." That was the key, but only slowly did I come to experience how perfect a prayer is the Our Father, the Lord's Prayer. "Lord, teach us how to pray", the disciples had said, and in his answer, the Lord had explained the whole theology of prayer in the most simple terms, exhaustive in its content, and yet intended for the use of all men without distinction. The human mind could not elaborate a better pattern in prayer than the one the Lord himself gave us.

He begins by placing us in the presence of God. God the almighty, who has created all things out of nothingness and keeps them in existence lest they return to nothingness, who rules all things and governs all things in the heavens and on earth according to the designs of his own providence. And yet this same all-powerful God is our Father, who cherishes us and looks after us as his sons, who provides for us in his own loving kindness, guides us in his wisdom, who watches over us daily to shelter us from harm, to provide us food, to receive us back with open arms when we, like the prodigal, have wasted our inheritance. Even as a father guards his children, he guards us from evil--because evil does exist in the world..."

From Walter J. Ciszek's book,  He Leadeth me

When masking is harmful to your health

Very often wearing a mask can be harmful to your health. The lack of oxygen, visibility, feelings of panic, and disorientation…..

This morning I dutifully wore a mask when I attended mass at the Annunciation at 9 am. I’ve had some kind of unpleasant, respiratory condition for over a week, which includes a cough.

When Mike and I arrived at mass he noticed a strong smell of perfume. I didn’t at first, however, after a short while I started to have trouble breathing and felt panicky and the coughing followed which was way worse than usual.

Still wearing my mask, I made my way to the washroom coughing all the while. Thankfully I was alone in the lady’s room on the verge of throwing up. Then I had the sensibility to remove the mask and that is when I noticed the smell of some kind of perfume. Of course, I threw it away, tried not to panic, took some deep breaths, put on a new mask, and went out to the lobby, where I stayed until communion No more coughing or shortness of breath.

I have allergies, as most of us do. When Debbie was born the tape they used in the hospital to hold the epidural needle in place caused my entire back to turn red and itchy. It turns out I was allergic to the glue on the tape. Sometimes I will have an allergic reaction to a leather watch strap. Spring and Fall were very difficult when we lived on Loyola avenue but since we moved to Blue Jay Crescent no problem, I remember one time my lower eyelid puffed up like a balloon. It turned out to probably be the dish soap I was using  

Allergies can be dangerous. And masking too.

Thankfully I can eat peanut butter yeah!!!!!!!!

Crown and Crozier As the family goes, so goes the nation ~ Andrea Mrozek

https://www.crownandcrozier.com/1539979/11675596

Crown and Crozier podcasts

Crown and Crozier Podcasts

from their website

Patrick Brown

In Crown and Crozier, we invite leading thinkers to explore how the human experience is shaped by the interplay between Church and State, and what this means for tackling the great challenges of today. Join us as we examine what’s at stake for us as citizens and as a society in the dynamic engagement between civil and religious authority. The common good, basic freedoms, dignity of the person, administration of justice, self-government, the preservation of truth, goodness, and beauty - all this and more hangs in the balance.

What Hell Must be Like, Father Walter Siszek S.J.

What Hell Must be Like

“ The world of solitary confinement is a universe of its own...the isolation...the silence...the interrogations that would go on for 24 or 48 hours with no rest no sleep no food...the psychological...the minutes of silence and solitary routine stretched out without end...

There was no such sort of human companionship to sustain you at Lubianka. When you came back from an interrogation session here, you were on your own. You could only torture yourself by going over and over the session in your own mind, wondering whether what you had said was right, or what you might have done better, agonizing again and again over every question and every answer. Here there was no relief to be sought by talking it over with somebody else, by asking advice (poor as it might prove to be), by sharing experiences, and by sympathizing with one another.

Solitary confinement, in short, must be very much like what some theologians paint as the principal torment of hell: the soul, at last, recognizing its mistakes for what they were and condemned forever to the loss of heaven, constantly tormenting itself with reproaches and tearing itself apart because it still sees and understands and wants the things it has lost forever, but knows it is condemned to lose forever because of its own choices, its own failings, its own mistakes..."

From Walter J. Ciszek's book He Leadeth me

They wonder why we have a shortage of doctors in Canada

Well, this is probably why. As you know, doctors have lost their conscience rights! It's despicable how our Federal Government treats our doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals 

 https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/medically-assisted-death-canada-losing-maid-providers

Canada's expanding MAID program leading to a crisis in the supply of 'willing' doctors

The number of MAID deaths has grown from just over 1,000 in 2016, when assisted dying in Canada was formally legalized, to 31,644 in 2021

Sharon Kirkey