From Friar Anthony’s talk. He says that some of the greatest saints in Heaven will be people whom we have never heard of. They lived to their state in life and “burned with the love of God.” How beautiful is that?

“It doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from, you can be a saint, even one of the greatest saints. You must “Burn with the love of God.”

“We will glory in her glory. The lady who we don’t know, but on earth burned with the love of God and is a saint in Heaven. We will glory in her glory. We will rejoice before God because of the glory that she has attained too. That’s why they always talk about the saints that we know of, which are so great, like Saint Anthony, Saint Francis, just all the great saints, there’s going to be saints there (in Heaven) that shine beyond comparison, and nobody’s ever known them, because they were the ones which burned with the love of God and nobody ever saw them, nobody ever heard of them, they weren’t canonized.”

Another excerpt from one of Friar Anthony’s talks (found here). I find myself getting distracted when I’m praying, thinking of earthly things – what I have to do during the day, sorting out other issues. It happens to probably everyone. What to do? Refocus.

“Prayer, more than anything else, withdraws the mind from earthly business and raises it Heavenward. So when you’re praying and you’re sorting out worldly things – that’s not prayer, you’re doing something easier than praying to God. So you start with God and the next thing you know you’re sorting out the ditch. Then you go back to the prayer, and then you’re in the ditch again, then go back to the prayer.”

“But typically when we pray, especially during the contemplative prayer, there should be a release from all the things of the world and a focus just on God – we’re basically spending time with Him, away from the earth.”

Other duties, like Martha, are apt to be busy about much serving, whereas prayer, clinging with Mary to our Lord’s feet, is bent solely on winning from God His loving mercies.

“God condemns people to hell out of mercy because the people don’t want to be with God.”

This talk by Friar Anthony (found here) is one of the most terrifying and yet beautiful things I have ever heard. It is terrifying because it is separation from God, and it is beautiful because God is beautiful – He isn’t doing it because He is mean, He is doing it out of mercy. He is perfect justice, perfect truth, perfect good. Here are a small excerpt from the talk:

“God doesn’t force us to be good and holy. He wants you to do it out of love. Cause you get a reward. You either get a reward of goodness or you get to live in the hell that you’ve always longed for. That is, you to be at the center of everything. That’s what hell is. You’re at the center of everything there. It’s just that you crush your own self there and are tormented by demons during the whole thing…because people who live for themselves here are kind of tormented by demons too – they don’t find peace, they’re jealous of everybody, they’re fearful of everything, they’re worried that they’re gonna die.”

“You can look at it in two ways, one, the sinner chooses hell and they are damned there forever. If they were face to face with God they would jump in hell. A sinner who dies in sin, that means, someone who dies unrepentant without the grace of God, if they die, they are fixed in that. It’s not like they can repent after death, you can’t repent after death, you’re fixed right there. What you’ve done is what you’ve done. Now you’re going to face goodness itself. Spotless goodness as I said. And as you stand before spotless goodness all truth is revealed to you because you’re looking at truth, God is truth, and Christ is our judge and He’s the truth of God. So you stand before the truth of God and you are illuminated completely in His truth, you see. All you see is all the filthiness, all the wretchedness, how vile you are and how you hate Him. You hate the one you stand in front of. So what if He tries to give you a hug? You hate Him. You won’t accept it.

“This is how horrible it is. This is what has to be meditated on. To die in a state of sin means that you hate God. Whether you feel like you hate God or you don’t it doesn’t matter. Not having the grace of God means that you hate Him. And you would never let Him embrace you. You would never step in the same room with Him, and to be with Him would be a greater torment (than) to be in hell and so in His mercy, says St. Alphonsus, out of His mercy He condemns you to hell. Do you see that? Absolutely. It is a magnificent thing. Magnificent in the sense that God’s goodness – it isn’t so much of this wicked God, casts people into hell and laughs at the fact that they are burning down there when they are so simple, they just want to love Him and He won’t let Him. That’s what we try to picture today. It isn’t that. Goodness itself is there to judge, and wickedness stands before it. Wickedness jumps into hell. And goodness waits for the next one. Unfortunately the great majority jump into hell and there’s only a couple He can actually embrace. People don’t like hearing that one either, they get really mad. You know it from the fewness of the saved and that’s why we’ll always read that quote from our Lord, and people still, that way if they get mad at you you can be like ‘Listen, I’m not making it up our Lord is the one that said, He didn’t say, ‘Yet, not many…’ but He said, you know, strive. Strive, because very few, many will seek…many will go to Mass…many will go to Confession, many will pray, many will do the things they are supposed to do, but few will be chosen. People don’t think of it that way. But that’s the way it is. The great majority of the saved will be Catholics, but the great majority of Catholics will not be saved. That’s a hard one for people – they hear that and they get really upset. But it does make sense because the great majority, even of Catholics, will not cooperate with God. You see it when you go out and talk to people. If you don’t believe in hell, you don’t just accidentally arrive at Heaven. You usually do it by striving. Our Lord said to strive to enter. By the narrow gate. Strive to enter. But many will seek and few will actually make it. That’s going to apply across the board. Again, the great majority of the saved will be Catholic, obviously, because they have the salvation of the Church, they can receive the Sacraments, they can even get a prayer at the end of their life, an Apostolic Blessing, let alone the great Sacrament of Final Unction which is so powerful, can heal you right there, that’s how powerful it is.”

“If someone is in hell, they are an enemy of God. And God hates them. And they hate God.”

“That’s because we’re in God, we’re in the truth of God. Because in that peace and in that joy, everything that is perverted and distorted and hateful and wretched all of that stuff has no part in what you want to do…that’s why, all you need is this – die in the state of grace. You might be in purgatory for a while, but die in a state of grace and you will not be damned.”

Friar Anthony, in a recent video, spoke about jealousy, and how there is no jealousy in Heaven. In fact it is the opposite. He says, “Each will find his neighbor’s happiness as much a source of joy as his own, rejoicing at the glory of which he sees other’s possess.” That is our mark to live up to here on earth.

How to do it? I would say, pray continually for it. Ask God to give you the grace to be joyful to and for all those around you. Ask Him to show you how to love others as He loves us. Grow in holiness. Practice it. When you see someone, think, “I love this person as my brother or sister in Christ.” Or, “I love this person as God loves me.”

Friar Anthony: “We sometimes get upset because people get more benefits than we do, cause we’re jealous of God’s work in someone else – you’re actually jealous of God. Its a terrible thing to think about. We get upset when people receive good and we don’t receive good. But in Heaven you rejoice all the more because someone vbgfis better than you. Each will find his neighbor’s happiness as much a source of joy as his own, rejoicing at the glory of which he sees others possess, as keenly as he would greive to increase his own at the cost of diminishing theirs. It is however in the glory of God, far more than in their own, or in the united glory of all that the blessed will rejoice and this because they love God.”

I found this overview of Lectio Divina on Fr. Heilman’s site romancatholicman.com:
Lectio (reading): “looking on Holy Scripture with all one’s will and wit”
Meditatio (meditation): “a studious insearching with the mind to know what was before concealed through desiring proper skill”
Oratio (prayer): “a devout desiring of the heart to get what is good and avoid what is evil”
Contemplatio (contemplation): “the lifting up of the heart to God tasting somewhat of the heavenly sweetness and savour”


Embedded on Fr. Heilman’s site is the video Lectio Divina: A Step-by-Step Guide – from Fr. Dennis Mancuso’s Youtube, which I copied in full:

I. Making Sacred Space and Time
First, we arrange a place so it is quiet, restful, warm, and non-distracting. At Church or home.

II. Quieting Ourselves
We sit comfortably. Breath slowly, focusing on the Holy Name of Jesus and nothing else, until we are relaxed. If our minds wander, we gently bring our attention back to the Holy Name of Our Lord, breathing in and our rhythmically.

III. Prayer for the Guidance of the Holy Spirit
Pray the Come, Holy Spirit:
Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.
Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth.
Let us pray.
O God, who have taught the hearts of the faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit, grant that in the same Spirit we may be truly wise and ever rejoice in his consolation. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.


Step 1 – Lectio (Reading)
When we are relaxed and in a peaceful mode, we reverently open the Sacred Scriptures and read.
Read Scripture from that day’s Mass. Read the Bible straight through, or focus on the New Testament or the Psalms. Read whatever you want.
Whichever selection we choose, we read it with our minds, slowly, gently, coming to an understanding of the words themselves.
When a phrase or verse strikes a cord STOP and reflect upon it. You may wish to underline it. What does it mean to you? What does it say about God’s love and the mystery of salvation? What disturbs you about it? Sometimes Scriptures are hard to understand.

Step 2 – Meditatio (Meditation)
Now we meditate on what we have read, perhaps even reading it again, visualizing it and listening for the aspect of it that reveals the Divine Mysteries. We want the deeper, spiritual meanings of the words now, looking for how it sheds light on our eternal destiny and on the Last Things: death, judgment, Heaven, purgatory, and hell.
We consider how the Old Testament foreshadows the New Testament and how the Old Testament is fulfilled in the New Testament in order to understand the deeper reality the Holy Spirit intends to convey by arranging nature and history as He did, thereby inspiring the writer of the text to write as He did.

Step 3. Oratio (Prayer)
We ask God for the grace to be changed by what we have read, to come more fully into being what He wants us to be, and to help us apply this meaning of the Scripture to our lives.

Step 4 – Contemplatio (Contemplation)
We rest in gratitude for God and His Word.

The call to pray the rosary daily comes from just about all those I listen to. Below are the 15 Promises of Mary to Christians Who Recite the Rosary:

Whoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the rosary, shall receive signal graces.

I promise my special protection and the greatest graces to all those who shall recite the rosary.

The rosary shall be a powerful armor against hell, it will destroy vice, decrease sin, and defeat heresies.

It will cause virtue and good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; it will withdraw the heart of men from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things. Oh, that souls would sanctify themselves by this means.

The soul which recommend itself to me by the recitation of the rosary, shall not perish.

Whoever shall recite the rosary devoutly, applying himself to the consideration of its sacred mysteries shall never be conquered by misfortune. God will not chastise him in His justice, he shall not by an unprovided death; if he be just he shall remain in the grace of God, and become worthy of eternal life.

Whoever shall have a true devotion for the rosary shall not die without the sacraments of the Church.

Those who are faithful to recite the rosary shall have during their life and at their death the light of God and the plenitude of His graces; at the moment of death they shall participate in the merits of the saints in paradise.

I shall deliver from purgatory those who have been devoted to the rosary.

The faithful children of the rosary shall merit a high degree of glory in heaven.

You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the rosary.

All those who propagate the holy rosary shall be aided by me in their necessities.

I have obtained from my Divine Son that all the advocates of the rosary shall have for intercessors the entire celestial court during their life and at the hour of death.

All who recite the rosary are my son, and brothers of my only son Jesus Christ.

Devotion of my rosary is a great sign of predestination.

I went to the local lumber store to pick up some building materials for a small project. Got to the checkout desk and there were a few older men and women working there. Taped flat to the counter were 2 signs, one in English and the other in Spanish, they both say something about being closed on memorial day.

So I start reading off the sign in spanish. I say, “I can’t believe you are ….” then proceed to read out the spanish sign. The guys at the counter kind of get the joke – in a way I’m making fun of them. Here we are in rural-ish america with multiple language signs. It’s a corporate outfit. So anyway I buy the wood and my co-worker goes to load it up in the yard. Meanwhile I go in the back room to buy other hardware. I get a few calls and end up being in the back room for about 15 minutes. I come out to buy the bolts and notice that on the counter where the two signs were, now there is only one English sign and someone had taped a paper over the spanish sign. It was an advertisement for an upcoming cook-out in town.

Anyway, notes from a trip to the lumber store.

Take a vacation. Don’t work hard. Sit on the beach. They said the goal in life was to do as little as possible…retire early…do what pleases you.

Thus sums up the post World War II mentality. We fought and won the great war, now we can rest…we have reached a pleasant plateau. We can afford to take a few decades off and let slacken our morals. Then came the 60’s. We can free the women from raising children in the home…we can do drugs…we can base our money on fiat…we can date, and have relations without consequence…we can let the sordid become mainstream…we can put children in front of screens. Then came the 70’s and 80’s. Now look around –

But it is through proper and godly work that man is made better. One must always be diligent to maintain their little tiny portion of civilization. You can’t take a month off, much less a decade or multiple generations. Or you get what america got…a nation…gone with the wind.

Copied from the USCCB site. Pray it at 6am, 12pm and 6pm:

V/. The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary,
R/. And she conceived of the Holy Spirit.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you;
blessed are you among women,
and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.

V/. Behold the handmaid of the Lord,
R/. Be it done unto me according to your Word.
Hail Mary…

V/. And the Word was made flesh,
R/. And dwelt among us.
Hail Mary…

V/. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God,
R/. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us pray. Pour forth, we beseech you, O Lord, your grace into our hearts: that we, to whom the Incarnation of Christ your Son was made known by the message of an Angel, may by his Passion and Cross be brought to the glory of his Resurrection. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

Excerpted from Catholic Household Blessings and Prayers, revised edition © 2007 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. All rights reserved.

I try to say this prayer before I do anything in the morning:

Oh Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer You my prayers, works, joys and sufferings, all that this day may bring, be they good or bad: for the love of God, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for all the sins committed against the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.