SAINT OF THE MONTH
Saint Rita of Cascia
(1381-1457)
Born in Roccaporena, near Spoleto, Italy,
Margarita (Rita) wanted to become a nun but her
elderly parents insisted that she be married, at the
age of twelve, to a man who was a good provider but
who was cruel and harsh. Rita endured his abuses
patiently and prayerfully and bore him two sons.
After eighteen years, her prayers and patience won
her husband's conversion, but shortly thereafter he
was killed in a brawl with his enemies. Rita begged
God to prevent her two sons from exacting the
vengeance which they swore to take, and God's answer
was to strike both young men with a sudden
illness that brought about their repentance but that
also took their lives.
Still anxious to become a nun, Rita tried
several times to enter the local Augustinian convent
but was refused because she was not a virgin.
Finally, one night in 1413, the convent gate opened
mysteriously for Rita who entered the chapel and was
found deep in prayer in the morning. Seeing this as
a sign that Rita should be admitted, the nuns gave
her entry. Rita's austerity, devotion to prayer, and
charity soon became evident. However, she developed
chronic illnesses while God visited her with visions
and gave her wounds on her head that resembled a
crown of thorns. The wound in the middle of her
forehead emitted an odor so foul that the nuns made
her keep her distance. After much patient suffering,
Rita died at Cascia on May 22, 1457. Many miracles
were immediately reported due to her intercession.
Rita is the patron saint of housewives and honored
as saint of the impossible, along with Saint Jude.
QUOTE FROM SCRIPTURE
Wives, be subject
to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the
husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is
the head of the Church, the body of which he is the
Saviour. Just as the Church is subject to Christ, so
also wives ought to be, in everything, to their
husbands.
Husbands, love
your wives, just as Christ loved the Church and gave
himself up for her, in order to make her holy by
cleansing her with the washing of water by the word,
so as to present the Church to himself in splendour,
without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the
kind—yes, so that she may be holy and without
blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their
wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his
wife loves himself.
(Ephesians 5: 22-28)
Saint Paul admonishes
husbands and wives to be mutually loving toward one
another. If husbands treated their wives as Christ
treated the Church, then wives would have no
difficulty in obeying their husbands. Penitents who
are in less than desirable marital situations might
consider asking Saint Rita to intercede for them.
May God grant His discernment and guidance.
QUOTE FROM A SAINT
"Bring me a rose from the garden. . . Bring me
two figs from the garden."
-- Saint Rita of Cascia's requests on her
death bed
While a saint's dying requests for roses and
figs may seem of little inspirational value, Rita's
words reveal why people are devoted to her as
"Saint of the Impossible." Rita requested roses and
figs in May, a season when neither are available.
On her death bed, Rita asked a visitor from
her home town of Roccaporena to go to her old garden
and bring her a rose. The visitor thought the
request an impossible fancy of a dying woman, but,
to humor Rita, went to the family garden and there
found a rose bush in full bloom. When she handed a
rose to Rita, the visitor asked if Rita wanted
anything more, and Rita requested, "Yes. Bring me
two figs from the garden." This was an even more
impossible request because figs do not ripen
until July or August at the earliest, and many
varieties are not ripe until September. Yet the
visitor returned to the garden and found two ripe
figs on a tree that had not yet leafed out.
When one is faced with an impossible
situation, it may do well to remember Rita's
request, "Bring me two figs," and to recall that
"nothing is impossible with God" (Luke 1:37).
BIRTHDAYS
A Happy Birthday
to:
Cindy Laird 1/1
Karen Szczerowski, SFO 1/02
Jim Mearns 1/6
Mary Ann Bernard 1/10
Michael Anderson 1/12
Linda McGuire Rook 1/15
Van Voorhis
Gignilliat 1/16
Roland Dalagan 1/21
Victoria Doyle 1/24
Judith Tanner 1/25
Antoinette Padua 1/25
Patricia Murray 1/25
FUNDS
The Confraternity
of Penitents requires no dues from its membership.
However, there are expenses to be met (about $200
monthly) and we appreciate your donations toward
them. We also have an Alms Fund for needy members.
If you wish your contribution to go toward the Alms
Fund, please so specify.
Donations may be
sent to CFP Treasurer, Robert Boczek, 303 Town Green
Way, Reisterstown MD 21136. Please make checks
out to Confraternity of Penitents.
OR
Make a secure,
online donation through PayPal by using the PayPal
logo on our
Donations Link.
Your donation is
tax-deductible.
May God reward you
for your support!
Visitor: Father
Michael Sisco
Spiritual
Advisors: Father John of the Trinity, Erem. TOCarm;
Fr. Martin Mary Fonte, FI; Dom Julian Stead, OSB;
Sister Eugenia Brady, SJC; Father Dominic Mary
Garner; MFVA, Father Paul Guthrie, OFM
Convert Contacts:
Deacon
Joseph Pasquella and Karen Sadock
Please contact us
if you have a question which you feel a priest needs
to answer and we will put you in touch with one of
our spiritual advisors or with another person who
can assist you.
May God bless you
and let us pray for one another!
The Lord's Prayer
by J. J. Tissot
1899
"Repent and believe the Good News!"
Penance means conversion. The Confraternity of
Penitents is a world wide private Catholic
association of the faithful, completely loyal to our
Pope and the Magisterium.
Our Rule of Life has been reviewed by our bishop and
recognized in these words: "this Rule does not
contain anything contrary to our faith; therefore it
may be safely practiced privately by you or by
anyone inclined to do so. . . . His Excellency
is appreciative of your efforts to live and promote
Franciscan spirituality and especially promote the
neglected practice of penance and he wishes you
success"
(January 30,
1998).
Members of the Confraternity of Penitents live this
Rule in their own homes, devoted to prayer, penance,
fasting, conversion, and works of mercy modeled on
Jesus Christ and inspired by the lives and teachings
of
St. Francis,
St. Dominic,
St. Therese,
St. Benedict,
St. Augustine,
St. Ignatius,
and all the saints, most especially Mary, the Mother
of God, who lived a life of true penance
(conversion) in perfect union with our Lord.
May Our Lady and all the saints intercede for all
who wish to embrace a life of penance, anywhere in
the world, so that the grace of God will assist them
to obtain every virtue necessary for a life of
holiness and surrender to the Will of God! Amen.
PRAYER OF PENITENTS
"Most High, Glorious God, enlighten the darkness
of my mind, give me right faith, a firm hope and
perfect charity, so that I may always and in all
things act according to Your Holy Will. Amen."
(Saint Francis's prayer before the San Damiano
Crucifix)
MISSION OF PENITENTS
"Go and repair My House which,
as you can see, is falling into ruin." (The message
given to St. Francis in a voice from the San Damiano
Crucifix.)
ACTION OF PENITENTS
To pray for God's specific
direction in one's life so that, through humbly
living our Rule of Life, each penitent may help to
rebuild the house of God by bringing love of God and
neighbor to his or her own corner of the world.
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NO GREATER LOVE
"There is no greater love than this: to lay
down one's life for one's friends." (John 15:13)
Monthly
Newsletter for
All Who Wish to
Do Penance (Experience Conversion) in the
CONFRATERNITY
OF PENITENTS Newsletter Archives January, 2009
Have you read our other on
line, monthly publications (Monthly Letter to
All Penitents; Following Francis, Following
Christ; and Repair God's House)? Find them
by following this
link.
LETTER FROM
ONE WHO SERVES THE CFP
Spiritually Dark Times
We live in such spiritually dark
times. The Devil had blinded the hearts and
spiritual senses of even many of the saints.
This last presidential election was an eye
opener. It seems that some have put their trust
in government rather than in God. "Put not your
trust in princes nor in men,” Patriarch-Saint
David, King of Israel, once said in the Psalms.
”What you sow, you shall reap,”
says the Lord. I pray that God will not be harsh
in His judgments upon our country. I pray
that He shall be merciful for the sake of His
faithful servants. Reading the Book of Judges in
the Bible is a real eye opener. Nothing really
changes with people. God wanted Israel to be
governed by Prophets and Judges. But they wanted
to be like other nations and wanted a King.
God gave them a King, Saul, who at first did
God's will, but then forsook the Lord and became
possessed with evil spirits. After all God did
for Israel, His people went whoring after false
gods, to use the metaphor of the Bible. God
would send them a prophet and they world repent
and burn their idols to the false gods, and
peace and blessings would become theirs in
Israel. But the cycle never seemed to last more
than one generation. Then the next generation
would forget the Lord again and the cycle
repeated itself, again and again.
As the new Israel, we are sons
and daughters of God by adoption through our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We have been
grafted into the vine of Abraham, our Father in
faith. But we are not much different than the
Israel of old. How this must sadden Our Lord and
the Blessed Mother. How Jesus must have suffered
on the Cross with this weight of sins; when upon
the Cross, Jesus bore the sins of the past,
present and future. He knew of the holocaust of
abortion in our time, and He died for these sins
too. He knew of the lukewarm people, those that
are only Christian in name. He knew about the
deception of the people of God.
What kind of Great Savior do we
have? Justice might have been to wipe everyone
off the face of the earth. However, Jesus took
the payment required by the justice of God upon
Himself, and that was a much heaver cross then
the one of wood that He carried. He who knew no
sin became sin for us, in our stead, He the
propitiation and expiation for our sins. Glory
be to Jesus Christ forever. I pray that the Lord
will raise up fearless apostles and prophets to
preach without ambiguity the truth of Jesus
Christ who is Lord forever.
Deacon Joseph Pasquella, CFP
Affiliate
NO GREATER LOVE
Standing in
the Breach
One of the most precious things a person strives
to maintain with meticulous care is a good name.
Once our good names or reputations are
tarnished, it would be very difficult to restore
them to their original place. Again, even among
the best of friends, one would rarely or never
risk his/her good reputation for the sake of a
friend. However, there is one friend who not
only despoiled His good name but even went to
the extent of paying the heavy penalty for our
sins and ultimately gave up the only precious
possession He owned: His own life. The feast of
the
Baptism of the Lord celebrated on
January 11, tells us that this friend is none
other than Jesus Christ, our Saviour.
Long before all this took place, after the sin
of the first man Adam, God had been searching
for a good man to bring the world back to
righteousness, and from the Bible we know just
how successful God had been. God’s futile search
for a just man could be echoed in Ezekiel’s
words, “Thus I have searched among them for
someone who could stand in the breach before me
to keep me from destroying the land; but I found
no one” (Ez 22:30). Therefore a heartbroken
God’s plaintive cry must have surely rent the
Heavens and the earth, “Whom shall I send? Who
will go for us? `Here I am,’ I said, `send me”
(Is 6:8) must have been the prompt answer of our
Lord Jesus Christ.
In fact, the
love of God for a sinful world is
so great that John translates this love into
words that carry a deep and resounding message:
“For God so loved the world that He gave His
only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him
might not perish but might have eternal life” (Jn
3:16).
In Mathew’s account of Jesus’ baptism, the
Heavens open and Jesus sees the
Spirit of God descending like a
dove upon Him. And a voice says, either to John
or Jesus (we cannot be completely sure who heard
the voice from Heaven), “This is my Son, the
Beloved, with whom I am well pleased”. This is
the one.
What does it mean to celebrate baptism, the
journey from death to life, the dying and rising
with Christ, in a world that has experienced
both the tsunami that came without warning
through India, Indonesia, Somali, Sri Lanka and
Thailand in 2004 and the 2005 hurricane season –
Katrina, Rita, Wilma whose devastation U. S.
communities are still working to address? Some
people see a river as a source of life,
cleanliness and nourishment. Others know it as a
place full of crocodiles. Might we assume that
Baptism carries different connotations for both
groups of people? Jesus’ baptism presents a
paradox. On the one hand, it is the way that He
“fulfills all righteousness” or shows Himself to
be who He ought to be, a man of integrity,
virtue and one in right
relationship with God.
On the other hand, it is a precursor to His
dying and rising. But Jesus is not given long to
bask in the descent of the Spirit of God; after
His baptism He is led into the desert to fast
for forty days and nights, become famished
and then be tempted.
On the feast of the Baptism of Jesus, we need to
reflect upon our own baptism. The sacrament has
not merely made us
children of God and members of the
Church but has anointed us for a special
mission: to give Jesus Christ to the world
through our words, actions and especially
through our lives. How serious are we in
implementing this mission in our lives? With God
there can be no half measures. We cannot afford
to sit on the fence but should place ourselves
on either side of it. Let us then once again
resolve to throw ourselves fully, completely and
selflessly into our mission – to give all or
nothing! It is only then that we may deem to
consider ourselves worthy
followers of Christ
and the words of the prayer Jesus taught us, the
Our Father come true: Your Kingdom come, Your
will be done, on
earth as in Heaven.
By Patrick John Ashing
Oblate, OSB Cam, CFP Affiliate
REFLECTION ON OUR RULE OF LIFE
RULE
33. Married women are not to be
received except with the consent and leave of
their husbands.
CONSTITUTIONS
33. In keeping with section 33 of
the Rule:
33a. Those married are not to be
received except with the consent of their
spouses, provided they are living with said
spouse. If separation, annulment, or divorce has
occurred, spousal consent is not required.
33b. A divorced penitent should
seek either to reconcile with the spouse or to
apply for an annulment of the marriage following
regulations of the Roman Catholic Church.
REFLECTION
For some
inquirers, this section of the CFP Rule presents
a problem. If a spouse does not approve of entry
into the CFP, then an inquirer must be an
Associate of the CFP only. Sometimes spouses do
not approve of formation in which case the
interested spouse must remain an Affiliate who
does not do formation. Those who are interested
in the CFP but who do not have spousal consent
have a heavy cross to bear. Often their
religious views were compatible with those of
the spouse when the marriage took place. Since
then, the spouses have diverged in their faith.
A spouse who is living in a marriage with
another who does not have a strong faith has the
obligation to pray for and do penances for the
conversion of the partner. Perhaps God granted
the spouse just such a partner to insure that
the lax spouse would have a good role model and
a strong spiritual support so that the
unbelieving spouse might be brought to
belief.
Provision 33b of
our Constitutions was added by the Diocese of
Providence. Neither reconciliation nor annulment
are requirements for CFP membership or
profession (the Diocese has used the word
"should" rather than "must), but the Diocese
wants penitents to seriously consider both of
these options and to choose and implement one if
at all possible. If a marriage can be
reconciled, then a marriage is saved. If not and
a penitent receives an annulment, the penitent
would then be free to remarry in the Church
should he or she so wish.
AFFILIATE
ACTION
While
Affiliates do not need spousal permission to
become Affiliates of the CFP, they can implement
the spirit of this part of the CFP Rule by
considering their spouses' desires and trying to
meet them. This is something we all should do,
as much as possible, as long as the desires are,
of course, licit. Like CFP members, Affiliates
who are divorced should try to reconcile with
their spouse or else apply for an annulment.
This is something every good Catholic should do.
POETRY
Markings
Markings on the
dove are indistinct no matter
How the streaming
sun touches them, it seems.
Opalescent, he
alights from one branchlet to another,
Eager to chant
his sorrowful aubade of mourning.
The skeletal
trees heed him not nor do the scudding
Roseate clouds
listen to his solemn song.
He dirges to the
wind, the breeze of Autumn,
Caught on a sigh
of unrequited love.
Disconsolate the
dove is endowed with child-like
Tenderness of
spirit, a sheer trust that his music
Will resound in
the mind of a careful listener.
He plumbs his
head into a gold-gray feathered
Shoulder and
awaits with untold patience the
Resolution of the
clarion morn.
--Br. Raymond
Joseph Colombaro, O. de M., CFP Affiliate
REFLECTIONS ON THE SAN DAMIANO CRUCIFIX
Mother, Son, and
God
Triad
The San Damiano
Crucifix portrays a tender triad between Mother,
Son, and God. Jesus is, of course, both God and
Son. Beneath the left arm of the cross stands
His Mother Mary and the beloved disciple John.
From the cross, Jesus said to Mary, "Behold your
son," referring to John, and to John, "Behold
your mother," referring to Mary. Jesus was, in
effect, saying, "Mother and John, do not
consider Me as son any longer--rather
consider John as son," and, through John, all
the rest of us. In this way, we, a multitude of
poor and ungrateful sinners, replaced Mary's
single, sinless son as Jesus asked her to give
us the same loving care that she always gave to
Him. And she, obedient and preserved from sin by
Our Lord's grace, does as Jesus asks.
Jesus' giving of
John as son to Mary was another way of Jesus
saying to Mary, "No longer will you be able to
mother Me as your son. I am going to My Father
where human mothering is no longer necessary.
Instead, from now on, you will mother humanity
as you once mothered Me. Now you will relate to
me not primarily as Mother to Son but as woman
to God."
Did Mary's
maternity toward Christ cease with His death?
Not at all. But her response to Him is no longer
one of nurture or encouragement but rather one
of support and petition. Mary intercedes for us
with Christ, her son, as her God and she
dispenses graces from Him back to us. Thus the
first person we see on the San Damiano Crucifix,
other than Christ, is His Mother who is His gift
to us and our helpmate before Him. May God be
praised for His goodness to us in giving His
Mother to be our own.
CONFRATERNITY PHOTO ALBUM
Pictured are Nancy Myer,
SFO, and Ella Maher, SFO.
Nancy is seventy-six years old, and Ella is
ninety-four. Both Secular Franciscans are CFP
Associates who have completed formation. Both
are members of the same Secular Franciscan
Fraternity and Associates of the same CFP
Chapter in Holly, Michigan.
Nancy writes, "Ella is house
bound and uses a wheelchair. She receives the
Eucharist daily by rotating Eucharistic
ministers. Her daughter Bernadette cares for her
around the clock, and she has another sister and
seven brothers who assist her. Bernie also
invites long time friends in for lunch once a
week because Ella misses socializing with her
friends. She watches EWTN and listens to tapes
of the Rosary as well as Christian music and
talks by priests so that she experiences many
'mini retreats' each month. Her grandchildren
and great grandchildren visit often.
As for me, if I were able to
vow to live the CFP Rule for life, I would pick
the name 'sr. Mary Magdalene,' the one who
washed Jesus' feet with her tears and dried them
with her hair. My hair would have to grow long
to do that! I prefer it short! :) I read a book
about Saint Mary Magdalene and shared it with
Father Bill, my spiritual director. He suggested
that I pray to her. He agreed with my choice of
her as my patron and he, too, has read the book.
God bless all of you and all
Confraternity members. Charity, agape, love in
the fullness of Christ. Nancy"
CATHOLIC HUMOUR
Hymns
Dentist's Hymn.........Crown Him with Many
Crowns
Weatherman's Hymn…..There Shall Be Showers of
Blessings
Contractor's Hymn....The Church's One Foundation
The Tailor's Hymn......Holy, Holy, Holy
The Golfer's Hymn.....There's a Green Hill Far
Away
The Politician's Hymn…..Standing on the Promises
Optometrist's Hymn...Open My Eyes That I Might
See
The IRS Agent's Hymn........I Surrender All
The Gossip's Hymn.....Pass It On
The Electrician's Hymn......Send The Light
The Shopper's Hymn…..Sweet Bye and Bye
The Realtor's Hymn....I've Got a Mansion, Just
Over the
Hilltop
The Massage Therapists Hymn.........He Touched
Me
The Doctor's Hymn....The Great Physician
CFP HOLY ANGELS GIFT SHOP
To see all the offerings in the CFP Holy Angels
Gift Shop, click on this
link.
"You shall
love the Lord your God with your whole heart,
with your whole soul, and with all your mind,
(and) you shall love your neighbor as yourself."
(Matthew 22:37-38)
Confraternity of Penitents
520 Oliphant Lane
Middletown RI USA
02842-4600
401/849-5421
bspenance@hotmail.com
copenitents@yahoo.com
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