Healing of soul and body

[rich]

Healing of soul and body

"Now in the narrative of the paralytic a number of people are brought
forward for healing. Jesus' words of healing are worthy of reflection.
The paralytic is not told, 'Be healed.' He is not told, 'Rise and
walk.' But he is told, 'Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven
you.' The paralytic is a descendant of the original man, Adam. In one
person, Christ, all the sins of Adam are forgiven. In this case the
person to be healed is brought forward by ministering angels. In this
case, too, he is called a son, because he is God's first work. The
sins of his soul are forgiven him, and pardon of the first
transgression is granted. We do not believe the paralytic committed
any sin [that resulted in his illness], especially since the Lord said
elsewhere that blindness from birth had not been contracted from
someone's sin or that of his parents" [John 9:1-3].
by Hilary of Poitiers (315-367 AD)(excerpt from commentary ON MATTHEW 8.5)

<<>><<>><<>>
July 23rd - St. Bridget of Sweden

St. Bridget (1303-1373) was a noble of royal blood from Sweden. In
obedience to her father, she married Prince Ulfo of Nercia in 1316.
She was the mother of eight children, including St. Catherine of
Sweden. After Ulfo’s death in 1344, she dedicated her life to
religion. In 1345 she founded the Order of the Most Holy Savior (the
Bridgettines) at Vadstena.


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

I remember only one episode from the life of St. Bridget. Therefore,
since we don’t have a biographical selection properly speaking, I will
comment on it.

She was a person with a very bad temperament with a propensity to
irritation and explosions. She married a bad-tempered man who was also
difficult to deal with. In her relations with her husband, she had to
learn to dominate herself. After a great deal of effort, she reached
that point. Then she made pilgrimages, sanctified herself, had
meetings with Popes to report the visions she had received from Our
Lord and Our Lady. She also became a nun and founded a religious
congregation.

Because St. Bridget had learned to control her impulsive temperament,
she thought she had entirely dominated it. But toward the end of her
life, that strong passion in her temperament returned completely, just
as it was when she was very young. This was a great trial for her,
because she thought that the great fight she had made throughout her
life had been lost for some infidelity to God, and that she would have
to restart from the beginning again.

So with this sense that everything before had been in vain, she
restarted the fight, tamed her temperament once again, and died at
peace with God.

Her biographers tell us that this trial was not a punishment for any
spiritual failing, but rather a design of Divine Providence to make
her even more perfect. So, God let her think that the great spiritual
progress she had achieved was futile in order to test her love for
Him, to see if she would become impatient and revolt or humbly
recommence her efforts from the very beginning in obedience to His
will.

This trial was an invitation for her, without her knowledge, to reach
the apex of her spiritual life. We should realize this and be prepared
should something similar happen in our lives.

Divine Providence very often asks us -– either in our spiritual lives
or in our works of apostolate -– to face analogous situations that
seem to make no sense to us. We have to walk toward walls without
doors; we have to dive into oceans without bottoms. But when we walk
with the spirit of true obedience to the will of God, at the last
moment the doors appear and we can touch the bottom of the ocean with
our feet, so that we can continue with the work we are called to do.

Our Lady does this with souls that she is preparing for the highest
ends. She asks the person to walk through what makes no sense as a
proof of love for her. How is this a demonstration of love? It is
blind faith in what Divine Providence has asked from one. After
passing through that trial, Our Lady and Our Lord give great graces to
that person.

Sara, the wife of Abraham, was unable to have children.
Notwithstanding, Abraham trusted God’s promise that a great people
would come from him. Finally, in their old age a son was born - Isaac,
the son of the promise. Then, God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. It
made no sense. But Abraham prepared to carry out the will of God. You
know the rest. God did not want the immolation of Isaac; what He
wanted was to test Abraham’s love for Him. In the Old and New
Covenants we find many other men of God who faced similar spiritual
trials, even though they were men specially chosen by God.

Since our vocation is a great vocation to fight against the
Revolution, especially the Revolution inside the Church, we should be
prepared to face great tribulations in this specific point. All the
efforts we made throughout our lives may at one point seem useless and
futile. Our Lord and Our Lady -- who called us to carry out this
vocation -- will be preparing us for greater things. We should not be
surprised if this will happen.

Let us ask St. Bridget, who suffered this trial at the end of her
life, to prepare us to accept such tests without revolt, protest or
complaint. And may Our Lady find us worthy to receive similar
tribulations.

http://www.traditioninaction.org/SOD/j187sd_BridgetSweden_7-23.shtml


Saint Quote:
This world and the world to come are two enemies. We cannot therefore
be friends to both; but we must decide which we will forsake and which
we will enjoy.
--Pope St. Clement I

Bible Quote:
"And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many
things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and
scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again." [Mark 8:31
] DRB


<<>><<>><<>>
Prayer for St. Padre Pio:

O Jesus, full of grace and charity, victim for sinners, so impelled by love
for us that Thou didst will to die on the cross, I humbly beseech Thee to
glorify in heaven and on earth the servant of God, St. Padre Pio di
Pietrelcina, who generously participated in Thy sufferings, who loved Thee
so much, and laboured so faithfully for the glory of Thy heavenly Father
and for the good of souls.

With confidence I beseech Thee to grant me, through his intercession, the
grace of ...... which I ardently desire.

Glory be... (Thrice)


Saint Quote:
...do you want to outwit the devil? Never let him catch you idle.
Work, study, pray, and you will be surely overcome your spiritual
enemy.
--St. John Bosco



Don’t run away from sloth

Sloth, laziness, boredom—these are problems that can sap our energy for doing what needs to be done. St. John Cassian remembers the wise words of an expe­rienced monk who told him that running away from laziness will never work.

When I was beginning my stay in the desert, I told Abbot Moses, the chief of all the saints, that I had been terribly troubled yesterday by an attack of laziness, and that I could only be freed from it by running at once to Abbot Paul.

“You have not freed yourself from it,” he said, “but rather have given your­self up to it as its slave and subject. From now on the Enemy will attack you more strongly as a deserter and runaway, since he has seen that you fled at once when overcome in the conflict—unless, when you join battle with it the next time, you make up your mind not to dispel its attacks and heats for the moment by desert­ing your cell, or by the inactivity of sleep, but rather learn to triumph over it by endurance and conflict.”

So it is proved by experience that a fit of sloth should not be evaded by run­ning away from it, but overcome by resisting it.

–St. John Cassian, Institutes, 10.25