ETERNAL WISDOM | APPARITIONS OF OUR LADY, 2nd EDITION
IN MEMORY OF THE APPARITIONS AT LOURDES IN 1858 & THOSE WHO HAVE DIED AT SEA IN VARIOUS TRAGEDIES WORLDWIDE. FOR THE HOLY SOULS. AVE MARIA.
On Thursday 25th February 1858: The Spring
According to the Shrine at Our Lady of Lourdes website, three hundred people were present during this apparition which we celebrated yesterday. In that historical event, Bernadette relates the following notes:
“She told me to go, drink of the spring (….) I only found a little muddy water. At the fourth attempt I was able to drink. She also made me eat the bitter herbs that were found near the spring, and then the vision left and went away.”
In front of the crowd that was asking, “Do you think that she is mad doing things like that?”
She replied, “It is for sinners.”
SEE: https://www.lourdes-france.com/en/25th-february-ninth-apparition/
Saturday 27th February 1858: Silence
Eight hundred people were present in the Grotto at Lourdes.
The Apparition was silent.
Bernadette drank the water from the spring and carried out her usual acts of penance.
THE ROSARY HOUR PODCAST | FEBRUARY 26, 2025, 2nd EDITION
What virtue should children ask for when they pray “The Sorrowful Mysteries” of the Holy Rosary? In pondering the virtues of Our Lady with Amelia, Fr. Anthony suggests praying for the Theological virtue of Love.1
Using the prayer card below, you can meditate upon these Rosary mysteries using this sample “Digital Toolkit for Rosary Leaders” card (beta), which we are developing with insights from St. Louis Marie de Montfort’s “The Secret of the Rosary” (which Fr. Anthony explains in this book talk) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqbSQzPHFa4 and notes from our upcoming conversation “On the Christian Meaning of Suffering”:
VIDEO PART I: NOTES ON SUFFERING FROM ROUNDTABLE
In today’s Preview of our first 2025 ENCONTRO, Fr. Nuno Rocha (Portugal) invites our listeners to be part of this conversation on prayer of the 5th Sorrowful Mystery of the Rosary.
Returning to The Rosary Hour Podcast Live Record Studio is Marian of the Immaculate Conception, Fr. Anthony Gramlich who talks today with Amelia about Our Lady’s virtues that we can reflect upon while she is present at the foot of the cross.2
In anticipation of the March 1 Conference on the Christian Meaning of Suffering, Part 1 preview is now available via our Rosary Channel here:
In the next episode, Fr. Anthony speaks with Dr. Blythe Kaufman, our first guests to Season 1, and who have been helping Amelia to develop her knowledge of the Rosary as mentors. In the next segment, Fr. Elias guides the group into a conversation on the mysterious sanctifying role of suffering in our lives.
VIDEO PART II: INSIGHTS ON PLENARY INDULGENCES
Did you know that “A partial indulgence is granted to the faithful who, using any duly approved pious formula, make
1° an act of spiritual communion;
2° an act of thanksgiving after Communion (e.g., Anima Christi; En ego, O bone et dulcissime Iesu)? Apply this formula for Holy Souls as you watch today’s video guided by the Spiritual Direction of Fr. Thad Lancton, MIC.
PRAYER AFTER HOLY COMMUNION FOR ONESELF — PLENARY INDULGENCE is ATTACHED TO RECITATION w/ SACRAMENTAL CONFESSION:
PRAYER of the ANIMA CHRISTI AFTER HOLY COMMUNION AS A PROXY FOR A HOLY SOUL — PLENARY INDULGENCE is ATTACHED TO RECITATION w/ SACRAMENTAL CONFESSION and PRAYER FOR THE POPE’S INTENTIONS (3 AVE MARIAS)
LIST OF PLENARY INDULGENCES: Apart from the Latin, the Rosary Hour Podcast shares the link to the following helpful resource that will advance our listeners in becoming familiar with the wealth of Plenary Indulgences (FULL AND PARTIAL):
JUBILEE DECREE ON THE GRANTING OF THE INDULGENCE
DURING THE ORDINARY JUBILEE YEAR 2025
CALLED BY HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
In today’s presentation, Marian of the Immaculate Conception, Fr. Thaddaeus Lancton provides Spiritual Direction to our listeners on gaining plenary indulgences for Holy Souls in Purgatory by inviting us to attend the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass twice in one day.
See Pope Francis’ original decree in this regard here:3
HOW TO HELP HOLY SOULS:
Fr. Thad explains how each of us are able to obtain for Holy Souls a plenary indulgence, allowed in this Jubilee 2025 Ordinary by the Vatican so we can help alleviate their suffering in Purgatory and more quickly advance them in their journey toward Heaven.
He references the above May 13, 2024 Decree published on the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima last year, which is providential -- as the Holy Father calls all of us to investigate the eschatological message of the Gospel as “Pilgrims of Hope by challenging us to re-discover why we pray the Holy Mass on Sundays and other days of the week.4
In knowing the power of the Real Presence, Pope Francis teaches us to ask why we pilgrimage to the Holy Mass in the first place.
As a beautiful Lenten challenge and Easter Gift of a Spiritual Bouquet to all those we know who have passed away, why not find ways to sacrifice 1 extra hour of time by approaching the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, not just once, but twice in one day?
POUR FORTH GRACE INTO OUR HEARTS | THE 2025 GOAL OF HOLINESS
The grace that we ask God “pour fourth into our hearts” when we pray the Angelus each day at 6 AM, 12 PM, and 6PM equally can be asked when we approach the Holy Communion in a state of grace.
In many ways, the great challenge for all “Pilgrims of Hope” begins with the basic rediscovery of our goal of and commitment to becoming Holy in 2025.
In many ways, this amazing Jubilee 2025 Decree for obtaining Plenary Indulgences during the Jubilee Ordinary is a miracle for the Church at this historical time and it demonstrates an evolution in the Vatican’s belief that there are enough people who will take seriously this Spiritual Journey, and the act of pilgrimage itself to the next level by offering Supernatural Charity to Holy Souls who they cannot see.
LIFT THEM TO HEAVEN: THE BEAUTIFUL GIFT WE CAN GIVE TO HOLY SOULS DURING THE JUBILEE ORDINARY
If you knew you could save somebody who was drowning and you had the means to assist them, wouldn’t you jump in the water to bring them to shore?
This is the beautiful path toward sanctity which Pope Francis invites us through the Decree on Jubilee Indulgences might inspire pastors to make themselves even more available this year for more regular opportunities for Sacramental confession and even Spiritual Direction, or leading the Rosary before the Mass, especially during Lent.
For, if we are to approach this Sacrament of Holy Communion as a Proxy for the Holy Souls, we have to think about how we receive the Holy Communion and the state of our own souls in that moment.
STEP 1: FIND TIME TO GO TO TWO MASSES
First, and foremost, to take advantage of this Plenary Indulgence, one needs to find time to attend TWO full Holy Masses throughout the Jubilee Ordinary.
Why not take a moment right now to look at your schedule for this week - Sunday, or even Ash Wednesday, or First Saturday. Which two Masses might line up so you can attend them in the coming days?
STEP 2: FIND PEOPLE TO PRAY FOR
Start with the obvious, your grandparents, your family members, friends who have died, and make a list in a book as a goal for your pilgrimages to two Holy Masses.
If you cannot think of anyone, simply tell everyone you know who might really appreciate your going to offer this extra sacrifice — and ask them kindly to give you the first and last name of the people you will pray for in this way, receiving a Holy Communion for them as a proxy.
If you are a pastor and pray two Masses in one day, maybe you can do the same.
If you know people who cannot go to Church because they have left their Faith or are struggling to reconcile with God or maybe they are incapacitated, you could still help them and pray for them by praying for their family members who have died.
Whomever you decide to pray for, remember that the Church in her wisdom — offers to us double-edged sword in combatting the overwhelming evils of our times by being part of the means by which more Holy Souls can get to Heaven.
ON GROWING IN HOLINESS IN 2025: FOR THE SAKE OF THE HOLY SOULS!
Thus, when Fr. Lancton explains the importance of recognizing the “profundity with which we participate in the Holy Mass”, we can also gather that we need to participate in that Holy Mass fully attire — meaning that we show up to the Holy Mass in that baptismal clothing we were given when we were freed from original sin and in a total state of grace. If we hadn’t thought about attending the Mass in baptismal garments for ourselves, perhaps we can do this more easily at first for Holy Souls!
St. Louis Marie de Montfort postulates in his book, “True Devotion” that all the problems in the world exist as they do because we faithful have forgotten our mission to keep the promises of our baptism, and in so doing, we can sometimes forget to wear the baptismal gowns of holiness when we approach the Holy Communion.
If this is the case, we can use ‘spiritual physics’ to realize quickly that it is the Faithful who are coming to Holy Communion in Mortal Sin and who are thus blocking the priests from giving to us Holy Communion in a state of grace:
"We call this young man a dumb ox, but his bellowing in doctrine will one day resound throughout the world." (Aquinas)
If as the source of grace in the world, the Eucharist is to work through the hearts of the Faith and enkindle in them “the fire of God’s love”, we can agree with Aquinas who wrote that God bestows a supernatural quality on some human beings—a quality called ‘grace’, and those qualities are necessary for God to accept all souls into Heaven to spend Eternal Life in His presence.
The media has become accustomed to blaming the state of the Church on its pastors, something that has caused great suffering to the Church, and which perhaps extended from the Victorian authors like Jane Austen and Curer Bell, and the Romantics who caricatured the worldliness of pastors in their fiction, and by the same spirit, the teachers of their age. It is as if through their “fictional” defects that the world has come to forget the greatness of the priest — with the rise of popular culture that stereotypes figures of authority in satirical and often disturbing ways. This has caused a rupture in the Mystical Body which has lost its sense of identity — and in embracing sin, as it were, St. John Henry Newman would go on to argue in his parochial and plain sermons that the modernists began to forget the realities of sin. In this forgetting, the means by which sanctifying grace could be blocked from the world began to arise from the Faithful themselves, unbeknownst to them in the age of “reason”, “deconstruction” and “post-modern relativism” that has led to a catastrophic crisis of conscience, truth, and authenticity.
PRIEST, PROPHET & KING: THE RISE OF THE LAITY IN THE CHURCH
Perhaps this is why Pope John Paul II wrote, his “POST-SYNODAL APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION CHRISTIFIDELES LAICI — ON THE VOCATION AND THE MISSION OF THE LAY FAITHFUL IN THE CHURCH AND IN THE WORLD.
In this document, he argues:
In our times, the Church after Vatican II in a renewed outpouring of the Spirit of Pentecost has come to a more lively awareness of her missionary nature and has listened again to the voice of her Lord who sends her forth into the world as "the universal sacrament of salvation"[1].
You go too. The call is a concern not only of Pastors, clergy, and men and women religious. The call is addressed to everyone: lay people as well are personally called by the Lord, from whom they receive a mission on behalf of the Church and the world. In preaching to the people Saint Gregory the Great recalls this fact and comments on the parable of the labourers in the vineyard: "Keep watch over your manner of life, dear people, and make sure that you are indeed the Lord's labourers. Each person should take into account what he does and consider if he is labouring in the vineyard of the Lord"[2].
The Council, in particular, with its rich doctrinal, spiritual and pastoral patrimony, has written as never before on the nature, dignity, spirituality, mission and responsibility of the lay faithful. And the Council Fathers, re-echoing the call of Christ, have summoned all the lay faithful, both women and men, to labour in the vineyard: "The Council, then, makes an earnest plea in the Lord's name that all lay people give a glad, generous, and prompt response to the impulse of the Holy Spirit and to the voice of Christ, who is giving them an especially urgent invitation at this moment. Young people should feel that this call is directed to them in particular, and they should respond to it eagerly and magnanimously. The Lord himself renews his invitation to all the lay faithful to come closer to him every day, and with the recognition that what is his is also their own (Phil 2:5) they ought to associate themselves with him in his saving mission. Once again he sends them into every town and place where he himself is to come (cf. Lk 10:1)"[3].
You go into my vineyard too.
St. John Paul II’s argument that the laity have, even now, a critically important vocation and mission in the Church links, of course, to our presence when we attend the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
DRESS FOR SUCCESS?
FASHION LESSONS FROM THE PARABLE OF THE WEDDING FEAST
When we recall the parable at the Wedding Feast, we hear Jesus’s provocative response to those who show up to the Wedding Banquet without proper clothing:
11 And the king went in to see the guests: and he saw there a man who had not on a wedding garment.
12 And he saith to him: Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? But he was silent.
c.f. Matthew 22:11-12 (Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition)
By this same logic, the Church insists that in order for us to obtain any plenary indulgence, or partial indulgence, including when we attend the Holy Mass, either for ourselves or a Holy Soul, we must strive first to get dressed for the occasion by literally “dry cleaning” our souls at the the Holy Sacrament of Reconciliation.
THE MASS: THE MYSTICAL BODY OF CHRIST WITH THE PRIEST
In short, and to summarize, we might draw on Fr. Nuno Rocha’s reminder that our attendance at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is not a passive one -- that is, not like being mere spectators at a football game, or a movie showing, or a musical concert featuring some entertainer of the day.
In 2025, as we enter into this Jubilee Year of Grace, we all now have access to all the tools at our disposal to help one another discern the basic responsibilities we have for approaching the Holy Throne of God: not out of fear of “going to Hell” or out of a “surety that we are going to Heaven”, but out of a realistic knowledge that He who wishes to enthrone Himself is seeking, not an empire, but a throne of our hearts which must be prepared to meet that King. And this ruler wants to us to enter into this intimate union with Him. Hence, our “hospitality” and a desire to prepare our hearts for He who will come to transform that heart as Pope Francis writes so eloquently in his “Dilexit Nos” will be the greater challenge that we can and must overcome with confidence and Trust in His Divine Mercy, and all this with the help of the Blessed Mother who teaches us with the Rosary how to transform our hearts so as to conform our lives so they might emulate Christ’s life, one decade at a time.
THE ANIMA CHRISTI | THE HOLY COMMUNION | CHANGE YOUR SOUL
Watch the video to learn how to pray the Anima Christi and think about ways to attend the Holy Mass through Lent as a sacrifice for the sake of the Holy Souls.
Sister Emmanuel more recently noted that if we wish to change our experience of the Mass that we take 10 minutes afterward to pray on our knees. Let us make time for prayer after the Eucharist and pray as Pope Leo XIII suggested we pray after the Mass ends:
Pray 3 Ave Marias
Pray the Hail Holy Queen
Pray the Prayer to St. Michael
Say, “Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Have Mercy on Us” three times.
If possible, pray decades of the Rosary before a statue of the Blessed Mother, and make this trip mandatory for your family to give her honour and visit with her for moments to ask her intercession and teach you to become Holy in this 2025 Jubilee Year.
EXTRAS: LEARN to CHANT the “AVE MARIS STELLA”
PLAINSONG SCORE BELOW | TREBLE CLEF SCORE ABOVE
Let us learn to sing today as a chanted prayer in the Gregorian style the ‘Ave Maris Stella’ for all who have died, and for all seafarers lost at sea, especially calling upon Our Lady, Star of the Sea, for her protection over them.
Below is a lesson that anyone can explore to learn to sing the “Ave Maris Stella” with Chant School, which breaks down the segments of this chant so you can to learn the entire piece of music in Latin by ear. [To be continued]5
POST REVIEWED BY IZZY; w/ podcast reviewed by KAREN & GODRIC; CAMERA BY AMELIA. LIVE RECORD SESSION CO-HOSTED BY FR. ELIAS MARY MILLS. EPISODE CONTENT DIRECTION BY FR. NUNO ROCHA.
FOOTNOTES
II. The Theological Virtues
1812 The human virtues are rooted in the theological virtues, which adapt man's faculties for participation in the divine nature:76 for the theological virtues relate directly to God. They dispose Christians to live in a relationship with the Holy Trinity. They have the One and Triune God for their origin, motive, and object.
1813 The theological virtues are the foundation of Christian moral activity; they animate it and give it its special character. They inform and give life to all the moral virtues. They are infused by God into the souls of the faithful to make them capable of acting as his children and of meriting eternal life. They are the pledge of the presence and action of the Holy Spirit in the faculties of the human being. There are three theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity.77
Faith
1814 Faith is the theological virtue by which we believe in God and believe all that he has said and revealed to us, and that Holy Church proposes for our belief, because he is truth itself. By faith "man freely commits his entire self to God."78 For this reason the believer seeks to know and do God's will. "The righteous shall live by faith." Living faith "work(s) through charity."79
1815 The gift of faith remains in one who has not sinned against it.80 But "faith apart from works is dead":81 when it is deprived of hope and love, faith does not fully unite the believer to Christ and does not make him a living member of his Body.
1816 The disciple of Christ must not only keep the faith and live on it, but also profess it, confidently bear witness to it, and spread it: "All however must be prepared to confess Christ before men and to follow him along the way of the Cross, amidst the persecutions which the Church never lacks."82 Service of and witness to the faith are necessary for salvation: "So every one who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven."83
Hope
1817 Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit. "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful."84 "The Holy Spirit . . . he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life."85
1818 The virtue of hope responds to the aspiration to happiness which God has placed in the heart of every man; it takes up the hopes that inspire men's activities and purifies them so as to order them to the Kingdom of heaven; it keeps man from discouragement; it sustains him during times of abandonment; it opens up his heart in expectation of eternal beatitude. Buoyed up by hope, he is preserved from selfishness and led to the happiness that flows from charity.
1819 Christian hope takes up and fulfills the hope of the chosen people which has its origin and model in the hope of Abraham, who was blessed abundantly by the promises of God fulfilled in Isaac, and who was purified by the test of the sacrifice.86 "Hoping against hope, he believed, and thus became the father of many nations."87
1820 Christian hope unfolds from the beginning of Jesus' preaching in the proclamation of the beatitudes. the beatitudes raise our hope toward heaven as the new Promised Land; they trace the path that leads through the trials that await the disciples of Jesus. But through the merits of Jesus Christ and of his Passion, God keeps us in the "hope that does not disappoint."88 Hope is the "sure and steadfast anchor of the soul . . . that enters . . . where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf."89 Hope is also a weapon that protects us in the struggle of salvation: "Let us . . . put on the breastplate of faith and charity, and for a helmet the hope of salvation."90 It affords us joy even under trial: "Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation."91 Hope is expressed and nourished in prayer, especially in the Our Father, the summary of everything that hope leads us to desire.
1821 We can therefore hope in the glory of heaven promised by God to those who love him and do his will.92 In every circumstance, each one of us should hope, with the grace of God, to persevere "to the end"93 and to obtain the joy of heaven, as God's eternal reward for the good works accomplished with the grace of Christ. In hope, the Church prays for "all men to be saved."94 She longs to be united with Christ, her Bridegroom, in the glory of heaven:
Hope, O my soul, hope. You know neither the day nor the hour. Watch carefully, for everything passes quickly, even though your impatience makes doubtful what is certain, and turns a very short time into a long one. Dream that the more you struggle, the more you prove the love that you bear your God, and the more you will rejoice one day with your Beloved, in a happiness and rapture that can never end.95
Charity
1822 Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God.
1823 Jesus makes charity the new commandment.96 By loving his own "to the end,"97 he makes manifest the Father's love which he receives. By loving one another, the disciples imitate the love of Jesus which they themselves receive. Whence Jesus says: "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love." and again: "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you."98
1824 Fruit of the Spirit and fullness of the Law, charity keeps the commandments of God and his Christ: "Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love."99
1825 Christ died out of love for us, while we were still "enemies."100 The Lord asks us to love as he does, even our enemies, to make ourselves the neighbor of those farthest away, and to love children and the poor as Christ himself.101
The Apostle Paul has given an incomparable depiction of charity: "charity is patient and kind, charity is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Charity does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Charity bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."102
1826 "If I . . . have not charity," says the Apostle, "I am nothing." Whatever my privilege, service, or even virtue, "if I . . . have not charity, I gain nothing."103 Charity is superior to all the virtues. It is the first of the theological virtues: "So faith, hope, charity abide, these three. But the greatest of these is charity."104
1827 The practice of all the virtues is animated and inspired by charity, which "binds everything together in perfect harmony";105 it is the form of the virtues; it articulates and orders them among themselves; it is the source and the goal of their Christian practice. Charity upholds and purifies our human ability to love, and raises it to the supernatural perfection of divine love.
1828 The practice of the moral life animated by charity gives to the Christian the spiritual freedom of the children of God. He no longer stands before God as a slave, in servile fear, or as a mercenary looking for wages, but as a son responding to the love of him who "first loved us":106
If we turn away from evil out of fear of punishment, we are in the position of slaves. If we pursue the enticement of wages, . . . we resemble mercenaries. Finally if we obey for the sake of the good itself and out of love for him who commands . . . we are in the position of children.107
1829 The fruits of charity are joy, peace, and mercy; charity demands beneficence and fraternal correction; it is benevolence; it fosters reciprocity and remains disinterested and generous; it is friendship and communion: Love is itself the fulfillment of all our works. There is the goal; that is why we run: we run toward it, and once we reach it, in it we shall find rest.108
DECREE ON THE GRANTING OF THE INDULGENCE
DURING THE ORDINARY JUBILEE YEAR 2025
CALLED BY HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
MORE MUSINGS: [1st Edition]
READ: St. John Paul II who reflects here in this Apostolic Letter on sea faring ministry:
https://www.stellamariscanada.org — is the seafaring apostolate which inspired this segment of this post and who ask for our prayers. Let us sing the AVE MARIS STELLA TODAY for those who sail for long periods with limited access to the Sacraments as reported by Deacon Dileep, the National Director for Maritime Ministry in Canada and the Port Chaplain at Vancouver, British Columbia and who “has been providing pastoral care to seafarers since his ordination to the Permanent Diaconate in the Archdiocese of Vancouver in December 2015.”
Also, we invite you to unite in prayer with those participating in Padre Nuno’s community who will pray at the Church of Our Lady of Lapa in Portugal tomorrow — conducting their annual memorial for those souls lost at sea in the Maritime Tragedy.
Our Lady, Star of the Sea, pray us and intercede for all the souls lost at sea, especially those who are unknown, forgotten and who have no one to pray for them.
Take a moment now to pray a decade of the Sorrowful Mysteries if possible for the Holy Souls lost at sea and for their families.
OR…
If you have just a few moments, pray 1 Our Father, 1 Hail Mary, 1 Glory Be for this intention.
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