Showing results by author "Bob Lord" in All Categories

One of the most powerful Sacramentals is the Brown Scapular. On July 16, 1251, Our Lady appeared to St. Simon Stock, accompanied by her Heavenly Army of Angels and made the following promise: "Whoever dies wearing this Scapular shall not suffer eternal fire." Now, it was not our Lady's intention that the Scapular should replace the living out of a holy and virtuous Christian life. Instead, she meant it to remind us of the life she led, one of obedience to the Will of the Father, of humility, of fidelity, a willing vessel bringing the Savior to us.

When we wrote on the life of St. Teresa in our book Saints and other Powerful Women in the Church, little did we think that we would, some day, be using her visions of heaven, hell, and purgatory to affirm these important truths of our Catholic faith.

According to tradition, Our Lady of Perpetual Help is considered the oldest icon in the Church. It is believed that the first icon of the Virgin of the Passion (or Our Lady of Perpetual Help) was in fact painted by St. Luke. And who better than he to paint this sorrowful image of Mother and Son? For, St. Luke, of all the Gospel writers, wrote most personally of the Lord in his infancy up to his death on the Cross.

We sometimes believe that the only reason she is not weeping all the time is because she has the Beatific Vision of her Magnificent Son to comfort her. There’s an expression, “You can’t get hurt if you don’t stick your chin out”. She always sticks her chin out. She is always being hurt. If we study the history of the world, in particular the 16th through the 19th centuries, we become alarmingly aware that we’ve hurt Mary very deeply. However, very seldom do we ever hear her complain about the outrages committed against her.

March 25 is the Feast of the Annunciation. On this particular year 1945, it fell on Palm Sunday. This is such an important season in our church. But in those times, during the final days of the war, thoughts were not focused on Palm Sunday, or the Feast of the Annunciation, or even Easter, for that matter. Ida Peerdeman, the woman to whom the virgin Mary chose to come, called it a "hunger winter". Priests would visit private homes, rather than take a chance on Nazi retaliation for trying to perform religious ceremonies, like Mass, especially not in public places, like churches.

A rainbow is a promise. God our father reaffirmed the promise he made about our redemption in the Garden of Eden when Noah landed on the rock after having spent 40 days and 40 nights in the ark during the flood. The Lord stopped the rain, and gave us a double rainbow. We believe that when we die, when we shake off this mortal coil, we go to the next step in our eternal existence, from a physical, bodily life, to a new life, a new beginning.

The battle is on for souls! Families are waking up, taking notice of the world’s influences on their children’s lives and they are horrified! And rightly so! They’ve lost control. We get call after call commending us on our television programs on the Super Saints. And they are from Catholics and non-Catholics, lay people - like parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles; religious, Nuns and Pastors - thanking us for bringing heroes their young people can use as role models. The cry is always the same!

This is an account of recorded miracles connected with the practice of the Eucharist over the centuries with a view to showing that miracles still happen today.

Saint Edith Stein was born in Poland on October 12, 1891. Her parent were Jewish. She was a brilliant student. When she turned seventeen, she entered a Girl's High School in Breslau. At the same time, in another part of Germany, another teenager - Adolph Hitler was failing an entrance exam to the Academy of Arts and already blaming it all on the Jews. Two teenagers, one a Saint and the other damned to hell for all eternity.

Through the divine fire which burned inside Saint Catherine of Genoa, while she was still on earth, she was able to understand the state of souls in Purgatory. The Lord had purified her soul, in the furnace of his love, as gold is refined of all its impurities, by fire! Cleansing her of every stain of sin while she was still in the flesh, he was perfecting her on earth, so that when Catherine passed to the next world, she would be ready to appear before him.

The Life of Sainit Gabriel Possenti, Co-Patron of Italian Catholic Youth: One of our powerful saints for the youth. Born in Assisi, he moved to Spoleto before a great Cholera epidemic broke out. Come to Morrovalle near the Adriatic Sea, where he spent most of his life as a brother, and then to Isola di Gran Sasso high on a mountain, where he died. Special scenes of his life and miracles from his Shrine in Teramo.

Santo Nino de Atocha: He kept them out of harm's way as they traveled the dangerous roads. He saved them from snake bites, dehydration, starvation, and always brought them back to Mother Church. There is a tremendous devotion to the Santo Niño de Atocha to this day in many Hispanic countries.

This is an account of four recorded miracles connected with the practice of the Eucharist.

This very special saint was mystically married to Jesus and possessed a special ring from him. She had the gift of the Stigmata and went to Rome to have meetings with St.Philip Neri. Come to Prato, Italy, to the Convent of St.Vincent where the saint lived and is buried. Her body is incorrupt. Discover the miraculous statue of Our Lady which saved the nuns from barbarians.

The fifth century brings us not one, but two future saints. It is AD 480, and a little voice cries out, "Here I am, world!" But no sooner heard, than another tiny cry fills the air. Not one, but two babies will be born to the parents of the future Saint Benedict and his twin sister Saint Scholastica. Now, Norcia is not easy to get to, as we well know.

When we talk of saints who have been maligned, misunderstood, and mistreated, no one deserves more a place in this book than venerable Pope Pius XII. We have learned late in life that the history passed down depends on the authors, not necessarily on the facts. We can remember in our lifetime, the escalator of our emotions and intellect, as a country ascended from enemy to friend and then descended, back again, from friend to enemy.

Saint Margaret of Cortona began her life on earth in the 13th century. Let us go back to that time, to a little farmhouse in Laviano, in the province of Tuscany. There was a flurry in the quiet kitchen. Dusk had no sooner settled into night, when dawn was desperately trying to break through. Water was boiling; the midwife was there to assist the bringing into the world of a new life. It was a girl! The pain of childbirth soon disappeared, as the mother held her new baby in her arms.

Whenever we are under attack from the slimy one, it is difficult to remember that God is in charge and that he is allowing this to strengthen us for even greater battles. The honeymoon over, God stood by and permitted Satan to tempt our little Catherine. But Sister Catherine was not so little that she could not tell the devil off when he tried to tempt her.

We go to Careggi, Italy, where the incorrupt body of Saint Mary Magdalene de Pazzi is. We visit the Carmelite convent where she lived, the bell tower where she rang the bells while in ecstasy, the chapel and the garden where she had ecstasies and visions from souls in Purgatory.

St. Paschal Baylon is one of the most multi-faceted diamonds the Church has ever contained in its treasury of faith. He is a lay person, never having been ordained a priest. Yet, he is the patron of Eucharistic congresses and Confraternities of the Blessed Sacrament. His whole life centered around the Eucharist, for which he is most known, yet he would not become a priest. He felt only called to be a brother.