BIG C CATHOLICS

In the golden age of Hollywood, movies extolling heroic virtue and Christian values were commonplace. Films were life affirming, their plots derived from saintly figures, or Scripture itself ( Ben-Hur and  The Greatest Story Ever Told ). Today Hollywood has little to offer Christians beyond mockery and derision. Let There Be Light is the movie Hollywood won’t make. In it an atheist goes through a near-death experience in an auto accident before converting to Christianity. Deadline has this summary : "After suffering the traumatic loss of his youngest son to cancer, Dr. Sol Harkens (Kevin Sorbo) loses faith and heads down a path of darkness. Distancing himself from his ex-wife Katy (Sam Sorbo) and their two remaining sons, Sol turns to alcohol to numb his pain. Soon his bad habits catch up to him, and Sol is involved in a serious car accident that leaves him dead for four minutes before he is resuscitated. What Sol experiences during this time changes his outlook on life a

This divine heart is an abyss filled with all blessings, and into the poor should submerge all their needs. It is an abyss of joy in which all of us can immerse our sorrows. It is an abyss of lowliness to counteract our foolishness, an abyss of mercy for the wretched, an abyss of love to meet our every need. — St. Margaret Mary Alacoque _________________________________ Prayer for St. Margaret Mary Alacoque’s Intercession Pour out on us, we pray, almighty God, the spirit with which you so remarkably endowed Saint Margaret Mary, so that we may come to know that love of Christ which surpasses all understanding and by her holy intercession, be utterly filled with your fullness. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son who lives and reigns with you, and in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

October 16th, the Church in Canada observes the optional memorial of Saint Marguerite d'Youville, the first native Canadian to be elevated to sainthood. She was born October 15, 1701 at Varennes, Quebec, the eldest child to Christophe Dufrost de Lajemmerais and Marie-Renée Gaultier. Her father died when she was 7 years old leaving her family in tremendous poverty. She studied for two years at the Ursulines in Quebec. Upon her return home, she became an invaluable support to her mother and undertook the education of her brothers and sisters. She married François d'Youville in 1722, and the young couple made their home with his mother who made life miserable for her daughter-in-law. She soon came to realize that her husband had no interest in making a home life. His frequent absences and illegal liquor trading with the Indians caused her great suffering. She was pregnant with her sixth child when François became seriously ill. She faithfully cared for him until his death in

Optional Memorial - October 16th Saint Hedwig, the aunt of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, was married at an early age and raised seven children. When her husband died in 1238, she took the habit of the Cistercian nuns at Trebnitz (where one of her daughters was the abbess), but retained her property so that she could give relief to the suffering. Hedwig was born in 1174 in Bavaria, the daughter of the Duke of Croatia. She was the maternal aunt of St. Elizabeth of Hungary and married Henry, Duke of Silesia. After their six children were born, they both strove to advance in sanctity and to enrich Silesia and Poland with monasteries, hospitals, and leper asylums.  She outlived all but one of her children, Gertrude. Hedwig persuaded her husband to use her dowry to found a Cisterian monastery for nuns at Trebnitz, that would be a center of prayer. Their daughter Gertrude became abbess of the monastery. Hedwig led a life of piety and solicitude for the sick and poor, includ

Optional Memorial - October 16th Occasionally, we get so caught up in the holiness of saints — sometimes to the point of thinking that we could never be like them — that we forget that they, like us, often suffered misunderstanding, criticism, and ridicule for the things they said and did. This was true with St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, the Visitation nun whose visions of the Sacred Heart were at first largely dismissed as delusions. Margaret Mary’s childhood was far from idyllic. Born in the village of L'Hautecour, France in 1647, she suffered the death of her father at an early age. That event, coupled with the unscrupulous actions of a relative, resulted in the family being left poverty stricken and humiliated. After her First Communion at the age of nine, Margaret Mary herself became ill and was paralyzed for four years. Her health, along with the desperate situation the family found itself enduring, caused her emotional anguish. “The heaviest of my crosses,” she later

By Fr. René J. Butler, M.S. Provincial Superior, La Salette Missionaries of North America (Isaiah 45:1-6; 1 Thessalonians 1:1-5; Matthew 22:15-21) Cyrus is a fascinating historical personage. His was the largest empire the world had yet seen. He governed wisely, repatriating deported peoples, and respecting cultures and religions, including Judaism. In the Bible, he is the only pagan to be called ‘Anointed,’ which in Hebrew is the word ‘Messiah.’ God called him by name, i.e., he had a special purpose for him. He was chosen. St. Paul calls to mind the faith and love of the Thessalonians, and knows how they were chosen, to become disciples of Jesus Christ, whose name means ‘Lord-Savior Anointed.’ The Pharisees had a clear sense of their mission. Among the chosen people of Israel, they were to be faithful to the Law of God, to promote fidelity to it, and to defend it. In the Gospels they were often scandalized by Jesus’ seeming indifference to the Law, and more than once

A Carmelite nun who left her cloister at Avila and set up a reformed Carmelite Order, Saint Teresa of Ávila endured much suffering with a joyful heart. She experienced spiritual insights and interior manifestations of her mystical union with God, including this glimpse of hell intended as a divine correction. [ Source ] I was at prayer one day when suddenly, without knowing how, I found myself, as I thought, plunged right into hell. I realized that it was the Lord's will that I should see the place which the devils had prepared for me there and which I had merited for my sins. These words are found in the autobiography of one of the greatest saints in the history of the Church, St. Teresa of Jesus. Elsewhere she says that the place prepared for her in hell was actually less horrible than she had really deserved. _________________________________ Prayer for St. Teresa of Ávila’s Intercession Father, by your Spirit you raised up Saint Teresa of Jesus to show your Churc