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On approaching the wedding feast without the proper garment

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Rich

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Jul 9, 2023, 3:57:43 AM7/9/23
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On approaching the wedding feast without the proper garment

[t]hrough this improper reception of the Eucharist, we come to the
wedding feast without the proper garment. In one of Christ’s parables,
a king is hosting a marriage feast for his son, and after many of
those invited rejected the invitation, the king brought in any from
the streets who would come. Among these, however, “He {the king} saw
there a man who had no wedding garment; and he said to him, ‘Friend,
how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was
speechless” (Matthew 22:11-12). This man was thrown “into the outer
darkness” because he did not come properly dressed (Matthew 22:13).
Thus, when we approach the Lord without having gone to the sacrament
of Confession, and receive him unworthily, we are likewise approaching
the wedding feast of the Lamb without the proper garment....

<<>><<>><<>>
July 9th - St. Paulina do Coração Agonizante de Jesus
(Also known as Amabile Lucia Visintainer

Mother Pauline of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus (Amabile Lucia
Visintainer), was born on 16 December 1865 in Vigolo Vattaro in the
Province of Trent in Italy. Like all the other people of the area her
parents were practicing Catholics and very poor. In September 1875 her
family, together with many other people from Trent, emigrated to the
State of Saint Catherine in Brazil, thus creating the town of Vigolo,
which is presently part of the community of Nova Trento. After
receiving her first Communion at about the age of twelve, Amabile
began to participate in parish life: catechism for children, visits to
the sick and cleaning the chapel of Vigolo.

On 12 July 1890 Amabile and her friend Virginia Rosa Nicolodi took
care of a woman suffering from cancer. Thus began the Congregation of
the Little Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, which obtained the
approval of the Most Reverend José de Camargo Barros, Bishop of
Curitiba. In December of the same year, Amabile, together with her
first two companions, Virginia and Teresa Anna Maule, professed her
religious vows and took the name of Sister Pauline of the Agonizing
Heart of Jesus. The holiness of life and apostolic zeal of Mother
Pauline and her Sister companions attracted many vocations despite the
poverty and the difficulties in which they lived. In 1903 Mother
Pauline was elected Superior General “for life” and left Nova Trento
in order to take care of the orphans, the children of former slaves,
and the old and abandoned slaves in the district of Ipiranga of Saõ
Paulo.

In 1909 Mother Pauline was removed as Superior General by the Most
Reverend Duarte Leopoldo e Silva, Archbishop of Saõ Paulo, and sent to
work with the sick at “Santa Casa” and the elderly of the Hospice of
Saint Vincent de Paul at Bragança Paulista, without any longer being
able to assume an active role in her Congregation. These were years
marked by prayer, work and suffering, all of which she accepted and
endured so that the Congregation of the Little Sisters might continue
its journey and “our Lord be known, loved and adored by all souls, in
the whole world”. In 1918, with the permission of Archbishop Duarte,
she was called by the Superior General Mother Vicência Teodora to the
Mother House of Ipiranga, where she would remain until her death.
There she lived a hidden life, interwoven with prayer and loving
assistance to the infirm Sisters.

She was acknowledged as the “Venerable Mother Foundress” when, on 19
May 1933, the “Decree of Praise” was granted by the Holy See to the
Congregation of the Little Sisters, and during the celebration of the
50th anniversary of its foundation on 12 July 1940, when Mother
Pauline wrote her Spiritual Testament: “Be humble. Trust always and a
great deal in divine Providence; never never must you let yourselves
be discouraged, despite contrary winds. I say it again: trust in God
and Mary Immaculate; be faithful and forge ahead!”.

From 1938 onwards, Mother Pauline began to experience serious health
problems due to diabetes. After two operations, first her middle
finger and then her right arm were amputated. She spent the last
months of her life totally blind. On 9 July 1942 she died with the
last words: “God's will be done”....The entire life of Mother Pauline
can be summed up by the title given her by the people of Vigolo in
Nova Trento: “nurse”, that is “being-for-others”; or the one given her
today by those devoted to her and by the Little Sisters: “all for God
and for her brethren”....

When the General Chapter was finished in August of 1909, the sorrowful
and meritorious holocaust of the Mother Foundress began. The
Archbishop had decreed that “she should live and die as an underling”.
Indeed she lived in the shadows right up until her death in 1842, in
union with God as she declared to her spiritual director, Father Luigi
Maria Rossi, SJ: “The presence of God is so intimate to me that it
seems impossible for me to lose it; and such presence gives my soul a
joy which I can not describe”.

The charism which Mother Pauline left to her Congregation consists in
the sensitivity to hear the cry of reality with its needs, and in the
willingness to serve, in the Church, the most needy and those who live
in situations of great injustice, with a spirit of poverty, humility
and interior life. It is a service which feeds upon a
Eucharistic-Marian spirituality. It is because of this spirituality
that every Little Sister makes Jesus, present in the Eucharist, the
center of her own life, nourished by tender devotion to the Immaculate
Virgin and to the good Father Saint Joseph.

The first Saint of Brazil was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 18
October 1991 in Florianopolis in the State of Saint Catherine in
Brazil. [She was canonized 19 May 2002 by Pope John Paul II, Rome,
Italy.]
To Mother Pauline we entrust the Brazilian people, the Church in
Brazil and the Congregation of the Little Sisters of the Immaculate
Conception, and all those who have helped to attain her Canonization.

Source: Vatican News Service


Saint Quote:
"He who purifies himself from his faults in the present life,
satisfies with a penny a debt of a thousand ducats; and he who waits
until the other life to discharge his debts, consents to pay a
thousand ducats for that which he might before have paid with a
penny."
--Saint Catherine, Treatise on purgatory.

Bible Quote:
Likewise, the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity. For, we know not what
we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit himself asketh for us
with unspeakable groanings, And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth
what the Spirit desireth: because he asketh for the saints according
to God. (Romans 8:26-27) DRB

<><><><>
Prayer:
"Lord Jesus, your love surpasses all. Flood my heart with your love
and increase my faith and hope in your promises. Help me to give
myself in generous service to others as you have so generously given
yourself to me."

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