We have been bought at a great price

Let us rejoice that we have been bought at a great price, the price
of the Lord's own blood, and that because of this we are no longer
worthless slaves. For there is a freedom that is baser than slavery,
namely, freedom from justice. Whoever has that kind of freedom is a
slave of sin and a prisoner of death. So let us give back to the Lord
the gifts he has given us; let us give to him who receives in the
person of every poor man or woman. Let us give gladly, I say, and
great joy will be ours when we receive his promised reward.
—Paulinus of Nola

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August 15th - The Assumption of Our Lady

One often hears meditations on the sorrows of Our Lady, but people
from times past, unlike contemporary men, also used to speak often
about the joys of Our Lady. For this reason, one of the most famous
sanctuaries in Brazil is the Church of Our Lady of the Pleasures, on
Guararapes Mount, erected in honor of her joys.

Today, the feast of the Assumption of Our Lady, let us consider her
pleasures. There is a good reason to do this. St. Thomas Aquinas
sustains that no one can subsist on earth in complete unhappiness. To
support the suffering of life, a person needs to have some pleasure,
even if small; otherwise a constant and intense sorrow is
insupportable. He was not speaking of pleasures as the world imagines
them, but about the good Catholic pleasures and joy.

Our Lady had many joys. The Magnificat is the expression of the
supreme one, the Incarnation, but there are others, such as those
celebrated in the joyful mysteries of the Rosary. None was greater, in
a certain sense, than that of the Assumption. . .

Now, let us consider the Assumption of Our Lady. After her most serene
death and resurrection, Our Lady knew that she would be taken to
Heaven. She knew because she had reached the summit of her sanctity
and wisdom, which communicated to her that the hour of her
glorification had come. Also her love of God had never been so intense
and she felt that the moment of the Beatific Vision was near. So,
Angels from the highest Choirs came down to bring her solemnly to
Heaven.

I imagine that her angelic carriage, to use a metaphor, was preceded
and followed by a cortege of selected Angels, perhaps warrior Angels
with many victories against the Devil, like the military cortege of
the Queen of England. Then she arrived at that most solemn place in
Heaven where the inhabitants were gathered to pay her homage. She was
received by her chaste spouse St. Joseph and together, as in a
cathedral, they processed down an aisle among the ordered ensemble of
Saints.

As she passed and moved toward the throne of the Holy Trinity, Who
awaited her, she received the reverence of all the Saints and Angels.
In this cortege of honor, she not only received the homage of each
one, but she had a perfect understanding and discernment of what each
homage represented. To each Saint or Angel, whom she personally
recognized, she gave the proportionate retribution of affection and
admiration. She took great joy in this hyperdulia of the inhabitants
of Heaven honoring her because she was the Mother of Our Lord Jesus
Christ and the creature most faithful to Him.

As the procession came to an end, the feast of the Assumption reached
its apex. For the first time Our Lady experienced the Beatific Vision;
at that same moment she was received by the Divine Word, the Holy
Ghost, and God the Father. They solemnly welcomed her, greeting her as
the most beloved Daughter of the Father, the most admirable Mother of
the Son, and the most faithful Spouse of the Holy Ghost. Then they
proclaimed her Queen of Heaven and Earth. After this proclamation, the
Three crowned her as such.

All the preceding steps of her Assumption led up to that stupendous
end. She ardently desired that end and it enormously pleased her. This hypothetical description gives you a faint idea of the ensemble of
joys Our Lady experienced that day.

I want to stress that this is not a hyperbole, an exaggeration. I
think that a feast like this actually took place in Heaven as part of
the Assumption of Our Lady. Her assumption, her glorification, and her coronation were three things that came together in a grand ceremony in
Heaven.

A similar glorification will take place at the end of History after
the Last Judgment. Following the supreme glorification of Our Lord as
King of History and the solemn recognition of His victory over Satan
and his cohorts and armies, it is probable that Our Lord will pay a
final homage to Our Lady, and again the Holy Trinity will confirm her sovereignty over Heaven and Earth--the glorified Earth at the end of
the world.

It is my opinion that this glorification of Our Lady at her
resurrection and assumption had an effect on earth and nature. As at
Fatima when the sun changed its colors and danced, twirling toward the
earth to confirm the words she spoke to the children, on the day of
her Assumption, I imagine the sun was shining with a special glorified
light, the air was exceptionally pure, and all nature was immensely
joyful.

The face of Our Lady before the Assumption would have shined with
increasing brilliance expressing the great love of God she was
feeling, her eagerness to be with Him, and a presentiment of the joys
she would shortly have. I think that the last day of Our Lady on earth
in a certain sense represents the transfiguration of Our Lady; it was
her Tabor. The persons who were with her and saw her would never
forget that day for the rest of their lives.

I think that she will communicate to us and to the entire earth some
of the joy she had on the day of her Assumption and that she now has
in Heaven when the Reign of Mary predicted in Fatima will be solemnly established.

There is an invocation in a Litany to Our Lord in which we ask: ut ad
celestia desideria erigas, te rogamus, audi nos--That our souls be
raised to the desire for celestial things, we pray Thee, hear us. This invocation should be the conclusion of our meditation on the
Assumption of Our Lady. We should ask that we may love the celestial
happiness of Our Lady in order to give her glory and that we may one
day be with her in Paradise. We should also love and meditate on her
joys as a way to accept with peace and resignation the sorrows and
sufferings God sends us so we might prove our love for Him.

By the late Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira: (died 1995)

http://www.traditioninaction.org/SOD/j086sdAssumption8-15.htm


Saint Quote:
God overthrows the thrones of those who are disobedient to His law. My political views are those of the Our Father.
--St. Avitus of Vienna


Bible Quote:
For whatever was written in former days was written for our
instruction, that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the
scriptures we might have hope. 5 May the God of steadfastness and
encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in
accord with Christ Jesus, 6 that together you may with one voice
glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. [Romans 15:4-6]
RSVCE

“Chastity, or cleanness of heart, holds a glorious and distinguished
place among the virtues, because she, alone, enables man to see God;
hence Truth itself said, ‘Blessed are the clean of heart, for they
shall see God.’”
-- Saint Augustine


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("A Year with the Saints" August: Diligence)

17. Even little actions are great when they are done well; so that a
little action done with desire to please God is more acceptable to
Him, and gives Him more glory, than a great work done with less
fervor. We must, then, give particular attention to perform well the
little works, which are easiest, and are constantly within our reach,
if we wish to advance in friendship with God.
--St. Francis de Sales

St. Ignatius said of a lay-brother who was a mason that he wrought for
himself in Heaven as many crowns as he laid bricks or gave strokes of
the hammer, on account of the pure and upright intention with which he
animated these works.

It is told of St. Francis Xavier that he was very careful to do little
things well, and that he used to say: "We must not deceive ourselves,
for he who does not take pains to excel in little things, will never
do so in great."

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We have been bought at a great price

Let us rejoice that we have been bought at a great price, the price
of the Lord's own blood, and that because of this we are no longer
worthless slaves. For there is a freedom that is baser than slavery,
namely, freedom from justice. Whoever has that kind of freedom is a
slave of sin and a prisoner of death. So let us give back to the Lord
the gifts he has given us; let us give to him who receives in the
person of every poor man or woman. Let us give gladly, I say, and
great joy will be ours when we receive his promised reward.
—Paulinus of Nola

<<>><<>><<>>
December 6th - Bl. Peter Pascual, Bishop of Jaén, Martyr
d. 1300

THE Valencian family of Pascual or Pascualez (latinized as Paschasius)
is said to have given the Church six martyrs under the Moors, of whom
Bl. Peter was the last. The child received his schooling from a tutor
at home, which tutor was a priest of Narbonne, a doctor of divinity of
Paris, whom Peter’s parents had ran­somed from the Moors. Peter went
with him to Paris, and having finished his studies there, took the
degree of doctor. He then returned to Valencia, and received holy
orders at the age of twenty-four. He was a professor of theology at
Barcelona until James I of Aragon chose him as tutor to his son,
Sancho, who was soon after made archbishop of Toledo. The prince being
too young to receive holy orders Bl. Peter was appointed administrator
of the diocese; later he was named titular bishop of Granada, which
was at that time in the hands of the Moors, but he did not receive
episcopal consecration until he was appointed bishop of Jaén in 1296,
when it was still under Moorish domination.

In spite of all dangers he not only ransomed captives and
instructed and comforted the Christians, but also preached to the
infidels and reconciled to the Church several apostates, renegades and
others, On this account he was seized while on a visitation, carried
to Granada, and shut up in a dungeon, with orders that no one should
be allowed to speak to him. He received money for his ransom, but with
it bought the freedom of some who, he feared, were in danger of
apostasy. In spite of solitary confine­ment he found means to write a
treatise against Islam and its prophet, which was circulated among the
people and stirred up the authorities to order his death. The night
before he suffered he was afflicted with great fear, and was comforted
by a vision of our Lord. The next morning whilst he was at prayer he
was murdered, receiving stabs in his body, after which his head was
struck off. He was 73 years old. This is the common tradition, but it
appears that he died from the hardships of his captivity.

In 1673 Pope Clement X confirmed the cultus of Bl. Peter Pascual, and
his name was also inserted in the Roman Martyrology, where he is
referred to as Beatus, though commonly called Saint.

The older lives, such as that of B. Amento y Peligero in folio (1676),
are by no means reliable. The best materials are those published by Fr
Fidel Fita in the Boletin of the Historical Academy of Madrid, vol.,
xx (1892), pp. 32-61; cf. vol. xli (1902), pp. 345-347. For the
general reader of Spanish the most thorough discussion of the problems
involved is that of R. Rodriguez de Galvez, San Pedro Pascual obispo
de Jaén y martir (1900), and see also the Estudios Criticos (1903) of
the same author. In these it is satisfactorily proved that Bl. Peter
was not a member of the Mercedarian Order, and it is shown that he
most probably died of the hardships of his captivity, not stabbed or decapitated. Bollandist reviewers consider unconvincing a bulky work
published on the Mercedarian side by P. Armengol Valenzuela, Vida de
San Pedro Pascual (1901.


Saint Quote
Grace is nothing else but a certain beginning of glory in us.
--St. Thomas Aquinas

Bible Quote:
"For the Lord Yahweh says this: Look, I myself shall take care of my
flock and look after it. As a shepherd looks after his flock when he
is with his scattered sheep, so shall I look after my sheep." [Isaiah 34:11-12a]


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The Prayer for Courage

Dearest Lord, teach me to be generous,
teach me to serve You as You deserve:
to give and not count the cost,
to fight and not heed the wound,
to toil and not seek rest,
to labor and not seek reward,
save that of feeling that I do Your will. - Amen.
--Saint Ignatius of Loyola

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