Mary, Mother of God

October 1st, St. Therese of the Child Jesus; October 2nd, The Guardian Angels; October 4th, The Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi; October 5th, First Friday of the month; October 6th, The feast days of St. Bruno-Blessed Marie Rose Durocher and BVM. Also, First Saturday of the month.

Govern by all Thy Wisdom, O Lord, so that my soul may always be serving Thee as Thou dost Will, and not as I may choose. Do not punish me, I beseech Thee, by granting that which I wish or ask if it offended Thy Love, which would always live in me. Let me die to myself, so that I may love Thee. Let me live to Thee, Who art in Thyself, the True Life. St. Therese DE LISIEUX

Origin of the Novena

Father Putigan, a Jesuit, began the Novena to Saint Therese of the Child Jesus on December 3, 1925, asking the glorious Saint for one great favor. For nine days he recited the “Glory be to the Father” twenty-four times thanking the Holy Trinity for the favors and Graces showered on Saint Therese during the twenty-four years of her life on earth. The priest asked Saint Therese, that as a sign that his novena was heard he would receive from someone a freshly plucked rose. On the third day of the novena, an unknown person sought out Father Putigan and presented him with a beautiful rose.
Father Putigan began the second novena on December 24 of the same year, and as a sign, asked for a white rose. On the fourth day of this novena one of the Sister-nurses brought him a white rose saying:
“Saint Therese sent you this.”
Amazed, the priest asked “Where did you get this?”
“I was in the chapel,” said the Sister, “and as I was leaving I passed the altar above which hangs the beautiful picture of Saint Therese. This rose fell at my feet. I wanted to put it back into the bouquet, but a thought came to me that I should bring it to you.”
Father Putigan received the favors he had petitioned of the Little Flower of Jesus, and promised to spread the novena to increase devotion to, and bring her more honor.
In this fashion, from the ninth to the seventeenth of each month, those who want to participate in the Twenty four “Glory, be to the Father’s” novena, should add to those of their own, the intentions of all who are at that time making the novena, thus forming one great prayer in common.
________________________________________

THE NOVENAS

The First Novena

The Twenty-four “Glory be to the Father’s” novena can be said at any time. However, the ninth to the seventeenth of the month is particularly recommended for on those days the petitioner joins in prayer with all those making the novena.
Between the Glory Be’s, say “Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, pray for us”

The Second Novena

ST. THERESE, THE LITTLE FLOWER, PLEASE PICK ME A ROSE FROM THE HEAVENLY GARDEN AND SEND IT TO ME WITH A MESSAGE OF LOVE ASK GOD TO GRANT ME THE FA VOR I THEE IMPLORE AND TELL HIM I WILL LOVE HIM EACH DAY MORE AND MORE
(the above prayer, plus 5 Our Father’s, 5 Hail Mary’s, 5 Glory Be’s, must be said on 5 successive days, before 11 a.m. On the 5th day, the 5th set of prayers having been completed, offer one more set - 5 Our Father’s 5 Hail Mary’s, 5 Glory Be’s.)
From: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/8878/Novena.htm

Marie-Francoise-Therese Martin, known as “The Little Flower of Jesus,” was born at Alencon, France, on January 2nd, 1873. Reared in a home of comfort and surrounded by refinements that would have spoiled an ordinary child, Teresa’s intelligence had an early dawning; which enabled her to comprehend the Divine Goodness far in advance of her tender years. Our Lord visited upon the child a severe trial–a strange malady from which there seemed no recovery. Her implicit confidence in God, however, overcame her infirmity and she progressed rapidly toward sanctity.

Teresa adopted flowers as the symbol of her love for her Divine Saviour and offered her practices in virtue, sacrifice, and mortification as flowers at the feet of Jesus. At fifteen she entered the Carmelite Convent at Lisieux, France, where she distinguished herself by punctual observance of the rule, burning love for God and wonderful trust in Him. Before she died, this “lily of delicious perfume”–as Pope Pius X. called her–revealed to the superiors her life story in pages of rarest beauty.

She died in the odor of sanctity on September 30th, 1897, at the age of 24. Since her death countless graces have been attributed to her intercession. Pope Benedict XV, in 1921 opened the way for the process of her beatification and she was declared Blessed by Pope Pius XI. on April 29, 1923, and was canonized on May 17, 1925.”

Taken from Lives of the Saints Compiled by Rev. Alban Butler (Copyright 1894 - apparently the copyright did not apply to the updates.)

St. Therese was named a Doctor of the Church in 1997.

St. Francis and the Christmas Creche FR. WILLIAM SAUNDERS

What is the origin of the Nativity Scene (creche)?
________________________________________

The story of the origin of the Christmas creche rests with the very holy man, St. Francis of Assisi.

In the year 1223, St. Francis, a deacon, was visiting the town of Grecio to celebrate Christmas. Greccio was a small town built on a mountainside overlooking a beautiful valley. The people had cultivated the fertile area with vineyards. St. Francis realized that the chapel of the Franciscan hermitage would be too small to hold the congregation for Midnight Mass. So he found a niche in the rock near the town square and set up the altar. However, this Midnight Mass would be very special, unlike any other Midnight Mass.

St. Bonaventure (d. 1274) in his Life of St. Francis of Assisi tells the story the best:

It happened in the third year before his death, that in order to excite the inhabitants of Grecio to commemorate the nativity of the Infant Jesus with great devotion, [St. Francis] determined to keep it with all possible solemnity; and lest he should be accused of lightness or novelty, he asked and obtained the permission of the sovereign Pontiff. Then he prepared a manger, and brought hay, and an ox and an ass to the place appointed. The brethren were summoned, the people ran together, the forest resounded with their voices, and that venerable night was made glorious by many and brilliant lights and sonorous psalms of praise. The man of God [St. Francis] stood before the manger, full of devotion and piety, bathed in tears and radiant with joy; the Holy Gospel was chanted by Francis, the Levite of Christ. Then he preached to the people around the nativity of the poor King; and being unable to utter His name for the tenderness of His love, He called Him the Babe of Bethlehem. A certain valiant and veracious soldier, Master John of Grecio, who, for the love of Christ, had left the warfare of this world, and become a dear friend of this holy man, affirmed that he beheld an Infant marvellously beautiful, sleeping in the manger, Whom the blessed Father Francis embraced with both his arms, as if he would awake Him from sleep. This vision of the devout soldier is credible, not only by reason of the sanctity of him that saw it, but by reason of the miracles which afterwards confirmed its truth. For example of Francis, if it be considered by the world, is doubtless sufficient to excite all hearts which are negligent in the faith of Christ; and the hay of that manger, being preserved by the people, miraculously cured all diseases of cattle, and many other pestilences; God thus in all things glorifying his servant, and witnessing to the great efficacy of his holy prayers by manifest prodigies and miracles.

Although the story is long old, the message is clear for us. Our own Nativity scenes which rest under our Christmas trees are a visible reminder of that night when our Savior was born. May we never forget to see in our hearts the little Babe of Bethlehem, who came to save us from sin. We must never forget that the wood of the manger that held Him so securely would one day give way to the wood of the cross. May we too embrace Him with all of our love as did St. Francis. To all of the readers of “Straight Answers,” I wish you a very holy Christmas.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Saunders, Rev. William. “St. Francis and the Christmas Creche.” Arlington Catholic Herald.
This article is reprinted with permission from Arlington Catholic Herald.
________________________________________

FROM BETHLEHEM TO GRECCIO

The creche before St. Francis

St. Francis’ inspired embrace of the Nativity actually marked not so much the initiation of a tradition as the preservation of one.

The Roman Emperor Hadrian, who ruled early in what we now call the second century A.D., is said to have deliberately established a pagan temple upon the reputed site of Christ’s birth, in an attempt to quash Christianity. Origen, who wrote as an outlaw Christian in Roman North Africa during the third century, spoke of having visited the grotto site of Christ’s birth and having seen the actual manger in which the newborn Savior had been laid.

In the fourth century, with Christianity’s legalization and, ultimately, its establishment as the official religion of the Roman Empire, attention to the Nativity waxed. St. Jerome and St. Augustine said that Christ’s birthplace was drawing pilgrims from the entire Roman world.

Within Rome itself, an early Christian church, first known as Sancta Maria ad Praesepe, subsequently rebuilt as the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, became closely associated with the presepio. Tradition holds that at one time, the church included a separate chapel built with stones from the Nativity grotto in Bethlehem. The chapel came to be known as the Praesepe, the Latin word for a manger or stall. It was thought also that relics of the Bethlehem manger found their way to the church.

Through the Early Middle Ages, images of the Nativity were frequently rendered by artists, many of them Byzantine, or Eastern Roman. In church services in the West, the Nativity was the subject of elaborate homilies, including singing and recitations. Since drama was still associated with the pagan theater, these presentations stopped just short of enactment of the Nativity; however, by the twelfth century, they had grown to be part of the Mystery Plays, elaborate public dramatizations of Biblical events. By that time, the elements of the Nativity scene as we know it today had been established.

Much of the buffoonery of the ancient pagan theater eventually re-emerged in the Mystery Plays, drawing denunciation by Pope Innocent III in the year 1207. It was within that context that St. Francis offered his seminal Nativity memorial on an Advent evening in Greccio in the year 1223. Visually, he distilled the presentation to a single element: a manger. And in so doing, re-established an air of reverence about the Nativity, an enduring triumph.
From: http://www.op.net/~bocassoc/Issue2/article1.htm

A PRAYER [From the Raccolta]

O glorious Saint Francis, who, even in thy youth, with a generous heart didst renounce the comfort and ease of thy father’s house in order to follow Jesus more closely in His humility and poverty, in His mortification and passionate love of the Cross, and didst thereby merit to behold the miraculous Stigmata impressed upon thy flesh and to bear them about with thee, obtain for us also, we pray, the grace of passing through our life here below, as though insensible to the ephemeral splendor of all earthly possessions, with our hearts constantly beating with love of Jesus Crucified even in the darkest and saddest hours of life and with our eyes serenely raised toward Heaven, as though already enjoying a foretaste of the eternal possession of the infinite Good with his divine and everlasting joys.

PRAYER 2 [From the Raccolta]

Lord Jesus Christ, Who, when the world was growing cold, didst renew in the flesh of blessed Francis, the sacred marks of Thy Passion in order to inflame our hearts with the fire of Thy love; mercifully grant that, by his merits and prayers, we may always carry the cross and bring forth fruits worthy of repentance: Who livest and reignest for ever and ever. Amen.
See below a beautiful painting of St. Francis that may be printed and framed

St. Francis of Assisi Venerating the Crucifix
GUIDO RENI
1631