TUESDAY OF THE SECOND WEEK OF EASTER

SAINTS OF THE DAY ~ FEAST DAY: APRIL 9, 2024

MEMORIAL OF SAINT GAUCHERIUS, ABBOT; SAINT DEMETRIUS, MARTYR AND BLESSED KATARZYNA FARON, POLISH MARTYR

Greetings beloved family and Happy Tuesday of the Second Week of Easter!

We continue to celebrate and rejoice in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. May God’s grace and mercy be with us all during this Easter season and always🙏

Watch “Holy Mass and Holy Rosary on EWTN | April 9, 2024” |

Pray “Holy Mass from the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy” | April 9, 2024 |

Pray “Holy Rosary from Lourdes, France” | April 9, 2024 |

Pray “Holy Rosary from the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy” | April 9, 2024 |

Pray “The Chaplet of Divine Mercy | from the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy” | Divine Mercy Sunday, April 9, 2024 |

Pray “Holy Rosary ALL 20 Mysteriels VIRTUAL🌹JOYFUL🌹LUMINOUS🌹SORROWFUL🌹GLORIOUS” on YouTube |

Today’s Bible Readings: Tuesday, April 9, 2024
Reading 1, Acts 4:32-37
Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 93:1, 1-2, 5
Gospel, John 3:7-15

DEVOTION OF THE MONTH OF APRIL – MONTH OF THE HOLY EUCHARIST: The month of April is traditionally dedicated to devotion to Jesus in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. The Catholic Church teaches that the Blessed Sacrament is the real and living presence of Christ—His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity—received into our souls with every reception of Holy Communion. Our Eucharistic Lord is the source and summit of our Christian life, the ultimate proof of His infinite love for us.

THE POPE’S MONTHLY INTENTIONS FOR 2024: FOR THE MONTH OF APRIL – FOR THE ROLE OF WOMEN: We pray that the dignity and immense value of women be recognized in every culture, and for the end of discrimination that they experience in different parts of the world. 🙏

PRAYER FOR PEACE ~ POPE FRANCIS:

Lord God of peace, hear our prayer!

We have tried so many times and over so many years to resolve our conflicts by our own powers and by the force of our arms. How many moments of hostility and darkness have we experienced; how much blood has been shed; how many lives have been shattered; how many hopes have been buried… But our efforts have been in vain. Now, Lord, come to our aid! Grant us peace, teach us peace; guide our steps in the way of peace. Open our eyes and our hearts, and give us the courage to say: “Never again war!”; “With war everything is lost”. Instill in our hearts the courage to take concrete steps to achieve peace. Lord, God of Abraham, God of the Prophets, God of Love, you created us and you call us to live as brothers and sisters. Give us the strength daily to be instruments of peace; enable us to see everyone who crosses our path as our brother or sister. Make us sensitive to the plea of our citizens who entreat us to turn our weapons of war into implements of peace, our trepidation into confident trust, and our quarreling into forgiveness. Keep alive within us the flame of hope, so that with patience and perseverance we may opt for dialogue and reconciliation. In this way may peace triumph at last, and may the words “division”, “hatred” and “war” be banished from the heart of every man and woman. Lord, defuse the violence of our tongues and our hands. Renew our hearts and minds, so that the word which always brings us together will be “brother”, and our way of life will always be that of: Shalom, Peace, Salaam! Amen🙏

During this Easter season, please let us all continue to pray for peace all over the world, particularly in Africa, the Middle East, for an end to the current war in Israel-Palestine, and the Ukraine-Russia conflicts and for peace in our families and throughout our divided and conflicted World. Amen 🙏

On this special feast day, as we continue to celebrate our risen Lord, with special intention through the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary, and the Saints, we pray for the Clergy and religious as they serve in the Lord’s Vineyard. We also pray for the sick and dying. We especially pray for our loved ones who have recently died and we continue to remember our beloved, we pray for the repose of their gentle souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, may the Lord receive them into the light of Eternal Kingdom. Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord. And let perpetual light shine upon them. May their gentle souls through the mercy of God rest in perfect peace with our Lord Jesus Christ… Amen 🙏 ✝️🕯✝️🕯✝️🕯

PRAYER FOR THE DEAD: In your hands, O Lord, we humbly entrust our brothers and sisters. In this life, you embraced them with your tender love; deliver them now from every evil, and bid them eternal rest. The old order has passed away: welcome them into paradise, where there will be no sorrow, no weeping or pain, but fullness of peace and joy with your Son and the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen🙏

Prayers for Peace | https://mycatholic.life/catholic-prayers/prayers-for-peace/

As we continue to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus, today, we celebrate the Memorial of Saints Gaucherius, Abbot(Patron Saint of Wood Cutters); Saint Demetrius, Martyr (St. Demetrius is revered as the patron saint of Thessaloniki and was also venerated patron  saint of agriculture, peasants and shepherds) and Blessed Katarzyna Celestyna Faron, Polish Martyr. Through the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary and the Saints on this feast day, we humbly pray for persecuted Christians, for the conversion of sinners and for all Christians during this season of Lent. We also pray for all farmers, for their health, safety and well-being, especially during these incredibly challenging times.🙏

SAINT GAUCHERIUS, ABBOT: St. Gaucherius was also known as Walter, abbot-founder and friend of St. Stephen of Grandmont. He founded St. John’s Monastery at Aureilfor and a convent for women. Saint Gaucherius, Abbot, started attracting disciples even though he was only eighteen. St. Gaucherius was born in Meulan-sur-Seine, France to the northwest of Paris, and he received a good classical Christian education and became a priest. However he felt a deep longing for solitude and a life more radically centered on God. At the age of eighteen he gave up the world and retired to Aureil to lead a solitary life. He thereupon devoted his life to God as a hermit and began with his friend, Germond, to reside in the area of Limoges. Alone and forgotten by the world, St. Gaucherius and Germond grew in holiness. Their example attracted others who built hermitages near to theirs.

Finally St. Gaucherius decided to build a monastery at Aureil and to establish two communities, one for men, the other for women, both under the rule of St. Augustine. The passage of an eremitical settlement into the canonical life was one of the principal ways through which the canons regular grew in the 11th and 12th Century. The community of Aureil is typical of these kinds of Ordo Novus canons regular. Thereafter he lived with his companions, being for all a model of sanctity. His companions and disciples who trained in this community include St. Lambert of Angouleme and St. Faucherus as well as the founder of Grandmont monastery, St. Stephen Muret. St. Gaucherius died in 1140 at the age of 80 years and was canonized in 1194 by Pope Celestine III. He’s the Patron Saint of Wood Cutters.

PRAYER: Lord, amid the things of this world, let us be wholeheartedly committed to heavenly things in imitation of the example of evangelical perfection You have given us in St. Gaucherius the Abbot. Amen🙏

SAINT DEMETRIUS, MARTYR: St. Demetrius was martyred during the persecution of Diocletian (3rd/4th century) at Sirmium in Dalmatia. Saint Demetrius, Martyr, remained fervent in faith and works for Christ, encouraging many Christians to endure persecution and even bringing many pagans to the faith. Afterward a prefect of Illyria named Leontius introduced his cult to Salonika, transferred some of his relic there, and built a temple in his honor in both cities. From the 5th century on, Salonika was the great center of the cult of St. Demetrius, and his imposing church was destroyed only in 1917.

According to a legendary history, St. Demetrius was a citizen of Salonika who was arrested for proclaiming the Faith. He was then slain without a trial as he was being detained in a room of the public baths. Other accounts make him a proconsul and a warrior-Saint, and this latter capacity he almost equaled the popularity of the great legendary figure St. George. Both of these Saints were adopted as patrons by the crusaders and a story says that they were seen in their ranks at the Battle of Antioch in 1098. St. Demetrius is still very popular in the East, and his feast is celebrated with solemnity in the Eastern Liturgy. St. Demetrius is revered as the Patron Saint of Thessaloniki and was also venerated Patron  Saint of agriculture, peasants and shepherds.

PRAYER: Almighty and ever-living God, you enabled St. Demetrius to fight for justice even unto death. Through his help, grant that we may tolerate all adversity and hasten with all our might to You Who alone are life. Amen🙏

BLESSED KATARZYNA FARON, POLISH MARTYR: Bl. Katarzyna Celestyna (Catherine Celestine) Faron (1913-1944) was born in Zabrzez, Poland on April 24, 1913. At the age of five she was orphaned and raised by pious, childless relatives. From childhood she was distinguished by her love of Our Lord Jesus and devotion to the Blessed Mother and Saint Thérèse, the Little Flower. Desiring the religious life, she entered the Congregation of the Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate in 1930 at the age of Seventeen. She adopted the name Celestyna. On September 15, 1938, she took perpetual vows. She served in the community as a kindergarten teacher and catechist. After the breakout of World War II she became the leader of her religious house, ran an orphanage, and helped the poor. She was eventually arrested by the Gestapo on February 19, 1942 and charged with conspiracy against the Nazis. Sister Celestyna was imprisoned in Jaslo and Tarnów, Poland, before being sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp on the feast of Epiphany in 1943, where she was assigned to manual labor digging ditches. She praised God in all her suffering and resigned herself to following His will.

Due to the poor conditions she suffered from typhoid fever, pulmonary tuberculosis, and recurrent hemorrhages. Because she completed the nine First Fridays devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, she trusted that she wouldn’t die without Holy Communion, as Our Lord promised. On December 8, 1943, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, she received Holy Communion as viaticum which was secretly brought to the camp by a prisoner priest. While on her deathbed she prayed intensely for others and for various intentions on a rosary made out of bread crumbs. According to witnesses she  offered up her suffering for the conversion of a Catholic bishop, Władysław Faron, who had fallen away from the Church. The bishop eventually returned to the true Faith, Catholic Church. Bl. Katarzyn finally died from her illness on Easter Sunday morning on April 9, 1944. Her body was burned in the camps crematorium. On June 13, 1999, Sister Celestyna was beatified by Saint John Paul II in Warsaw, Poland as one of the group of 108 Polish Catholic Martyrs killed during World War II by Nazi Germany. Blessed Celestyna calls us particularly to renew the ecclesial consciousness resulting from personal union with Christ. Her feast day is April 9th.

PRAYER: O God, who willed your Son to submit for our sake to the yoke of the Cross, so that you might drive from us the power of the enemy, grant us, your servants, to attain the grace of the resurrection. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.  Blessed Katarzyna Faron, Polish Martyr ~ Pray for us🙏

PRAYER INTENTIONS: We thank God for blessing us all with the gift of His precious son, may we be saved by the name of our Savior Jesus Christ! May the Lord grant us His grace as we continue to serve Him in spirit and in truth during this Easter Season. Through the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary, and the Saints on this feast day, we humbly pray for the sick and dying. We particularly pray for sick children, those who are sick with convulsive disorder, mental illness, strokes, heart diseases, and those suffering from cancers and other terminal diseases. May God restore them to good health and grant them His Divine healing and intervention. May our Mother Mary comfort them, may the Angels and Saints watch over them and may the Holy Spirit guide them in peace and comfort during this challenging time. We pray for the safety and well-being of us all and our families, for peace, love and unity in our families, our marriages and our divided and conflicted world. Every life is a gift. We pray for God’s deliverance from impossible causes or situations. We pray for the souls in Purgatory and the repose of the gentle souls of all the faithful departed, may the Lord receive them into the light of Eternal Kingdom. Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord. And let perpetual light shine upon them. May their gentle souls through the mercy of God rest in peace with our Lord Jesus Christ Amen. For all widows and widowers. And we continue to pray for our Holy Father, Pope Francis, the Bishops, the Clergy and all those who preach the Gospel. For vocations to the priesthood and religious life, for the Church, for persecuted Christians, for all the innocent who suffer violence due to political or religious unrest, for the conversion of sinners and Christians all over the world. Amen🙏

SCRIPTURE REFLECTIONS

Bible Readings for today, Tuesday of the Second Week of Easter | USCCB | https://bible.usccb.org/daily-bible-reading

Gospel Reading ~ John 3:7b-15

“No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man”

“Jesus said to Nicodemus: “‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus answered and said to Him, ‘How can this happen?” Jesus answered and said to him, “You are the teacher of Israel and you do not understand this? Amen, amen, I say to you, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony. If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.”

In today’s Gospel reading, Nicodemus the Pharisee came to meet Jesus at night time to discussed about many things, including the identity of the Lord and what He has come into this world for. Jesus speaks about the mysterious reality of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, with reference to the everyday reality of the wind. There is a mysterious quality to the wind. As Jesus says, ‘it blows where it pleases’. Nowadays we can harness the wind to generate electricity, but there is so much about the wind which is beyond our control and understanding. In the words of the Gospel reading, we certainly cannot control where it comes from or where it goes to. We also cannot control the strength of the wind. If the wind is beyond our control and understanding, this is true to an even greater extent of the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. We cannot manage the Holy Spirit. If we are not masters of the wind, we are even less masters of the Spirit. Yet, whereas the wind is an impersonal force, the Spirit is a personal force. We speak of the Spirit as the third person of the Trinity. The Spirit is the Spirit of God’s personal love for the world. Whereas the wind can be destructive, the Spirit is always life-giving. In our Gospel reading, we find Nicodemus struggling to understand when Jesus tells him that he must be born from above, born of the Spirit. In response, Nicodemus asks ‘How can that be possible?’ Nicodemus is an example of someone who struggled to come to faith; he struggle to become a disciple of Jesus. He was drawn to Jesus but he could not quite grasp what Jesus was asking of him, not initially at least. Yet, Nicodemus did not give up on Jesus and the last we see of him in John’s Gospel is at Golgotha where, after the death of Jesus, he and Joseph of Arimathea ensure that Jesus has a dignified burial. It appears that in the course of Jesus’ public ministry Nicodemus gradually grew in his relationship with Jesus; he allowed himself to be drawn to Jesus more fully. The journey of faith is not always straightforward. Like Nicodemus we can find ourselves at an impasse. His question, ‘How can that be possible?’ becomes our question. Yet, all we can do is stay with our questions and be faithful to our search. The Lord will do the rest. If we are open and honest, the Lord will draw us to Himself in time, in His time and in ours. Our calling is to surrender to the Lord, to the movement of the Spirit in our lives, to allow the Spirit to shape and mould us. When that happens, our lives will give expression to God’s personal love for the world.

Our first reading today from the Acts of the Apostles details the life of the early Christian community, which members were filled with love and compassion for one another, as they shared their goods and properties, their blessings with those who have less with them so that none among them lived in want or in misery. In their way of life, those early Christians highlighted what it truly means to be followers and disciples of Christ, in their obedience to God’s will and adherence to His commandments and Law. They loved the Lord and placed Him at the centre of their community and their lives, and they also loved one another and cared for the needs of those around them, instead of selfishly seeking only to satisfy themselves. They are our role models and examples in how we should live our own lives in this world, and all of us should indeed make good use of the time and opportunities presented to us so that we may also live our lives worthily of the Lord.

As we reflect on the words of the Sacred Scriptures today, all of us are reminded of what it means for us to be Christians, that is as faithful disciples and followers of Our Lord and Saviour, living our lives in the path and ways that He has shown and revealed to us. The Lord Himself has revealed His teachings and truth, through His Church and His disciples and their successors, our bishops and priests, who have handed down to us what the Lord Himself has given to His Apostles and disciples. That is why each and every one of us are called to turn once again towards Him and His truth, distancing ourselves from sin and wickedness, and from all the things which have often separated us from the love of God, all the temptations and forces which have kept us from embracing God’s most generous love and compassion, all these while. Let us all therefore do our part as Christians, as we continue to carry on living our lives in this world, and let us be good role models and examples in all things so that through our works, actions and deeds, we may inspire many more people to come to believe in the Lord. Let us all strive to be the good disciples and followers of our Lord, doing our best to proclaim the truth of God, the glory of Our Lord and Saviour in our every actions and words. Let all of our lives, in in the smallest and simplest things, be the shining beacons of Christ’s Light and Hope, illuminating all those who are still living in the darkness, and are still lacking hope and strength. Let our actions and interactions with our fellow brothers and sisters in need help us to show them the path to the true hope and eternal joy in the Lord. May the Risen Lord continue to guide us and strengthen us in our journey of life, that we may resist the many temptations and pressures all around us. May the Lord be with us and may He empower each one of us to be prepared and ever ready to do His will, and may continue to inflame us with His Holy Spirit, to allow us to walk with faith in the Lord. May God in His infinite grace and mercy, grant us His grace and may the joy, love, courage, strength and the guidance of Our Risen Lord be with us all, and may He bless us in our every good works, actions and deeds, now and always, forevermore. Amen🙏

Let us pray:

My Lord of all strength, You are unwavering in Your determination to challenge me in the area that I need it the most. Help me to receive Your gentle rebukes of love when I am weak so that I will have the courage and strength I need to be a faithful follower of You. Give me clarity and understanding, dear Lord, and help me to overcome the misleading pressures of the world. Jesus, I trust in You ~ Amen 🙏

Save Us, Savior of the World. Our Blessed Mother Mary and Saint Gaucherius; Saint Demetrius and Blessed Katarzyna Celestyna Faron ~ Pray for us🙏 

Thanking God for the gift of His Son our Lord Jesus Christ and praying for us all as we celebrate the resurrection of our loving Savior, Jesus Christ. Have a blessed, safe and joyous second week of Easter!🙏
   
Blessings and Love always, Philomena💖