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Thursday, July 16 2011 13: 04

Intention of the month of August 2011

Offer prayer

Divine Heart of Jesus,
I offer you by means
of the Immaculate Heart
of Mary, Mother
of the Church, in union
to the Eucharistic Sacrifice,
prayers and actions,
the joys and sufferings
of this day:
under repair
of sins,
for the salvation of all
men, in grace
of the Holy Spirit,
to the glory of the divine Father.

 

Pope's intention

The day
World of
Youth encourage
young people to found
their life
in Christ.

Missionary intention

Christians
of the West find themselves
the freshness and enthusiasm
of their faith.

Intention of the Bishops

The Holy Spirit
grant to young people
to courageously accept the invitation of Jesus who
calls them.

 

Intention of the Pious Union

Prayer for young people

Jesus, for two thousand years, you have been in the hearts of many young people who feel the profound desire to look into your eyes and scrutinize the panoramas of history made up of people who lived in the warmth of your "good news" that God loves us.
Jesus, there are many young people who, in the light of your truth, express the aspiration to build authentic relationships, to know true love, to dream of founding a united family that guarantees a peaceful and happy future.
Jesus, who worked alongside Saint Joseph in the laboratory of Nazareth, ensure that young people can find a job that gives them dignity, joy of living and being useful; he ensures that no one loses their enthusiasm in search of a greater life.
Jesus, you are the answer to our desire for the infinite. Maintain in all of us the generosity of a youthful heart that knows how to repeat with conviction: "Our heart is restless until it rests in You".
Jesus, let us follow "the imprint of the God of life" on the paths of our human adventure, convinced that eliminating God to make man live is blindness! God is the source of life and eliminating him is equivalent to "the creature vanishing".

Friday, June 03, 2011

Radio broadcast - June 2011

Today we begin the month of June which will have at its center the solemnity of the birth of the Church, Pentecost and will bring us to the very end of the month, 30 June, on the eve of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the hearth of divine charity which attracts as a calamity the positive qualities of our Christian existence.
I am pleased that the great itinerary in preparation for the 7th international meeting of families in 2012, the first stage of the route will stop in Nazareth, because «The mystery of Nazareth is the set of all the bonds that pass through the fabric of family relationships : the family with spouses, parents and children, educational relationships, religiosity, dreams of tomorrow and today's problems.
Ideally, like every month, this evening we want to be before you, precisely in your home in Nazareth, this palette of colors of human and Christian virtues, to admire the beauty of your relationships with Mary, your bride, and with Jesus, that child that God from eternity had thought of entrusting to your robust and generous arms, but above all entrusting him to your father's heart, mirror of human virtues in order to teach this God who becomes a child to learn to live our human condition: the joy of living and the hard work of living. In life as in day there is the darkness of the night and the fascinatingly joyful splendor of daylight.
Our eyes in this stop in Nazareth are curious, eager for light to grasp in your feelings, yours, those of Mary and Jesus, those seeds of hope to make our family life leaven with the same sap that fueled yours existence.

Listen!

by Carlo Lapucci

In the cycle of the liturgical year, Corpus Domini is the culmination of the human story of the Redeemer: after the birth, the passion and death, the resurrection, the ascension to heaven, the Church contemplates his real presence in the world redeemed from sin and from death, the triumph of the mystery of salvation and the mysterious divine presence in the sacrament of the Eucharist.
The festival is celebrated 61 days after Easter, on the Thursday after the feast of the Holy Trinity (now moved to Sunday): following the mobile date of the Easter cycle it can fall between 21 May and 24 June, a period in which nature is at the height of its activity and expresses the maximum of strength, luxuriance and beauty. The flowers and leaves that have filled the lands are letting their first fruits appear and in particular the wheat, symbolically and materially linked to the mystery of the Eucharist, is raising its ears and starting to brown and be harvested.

 

by Giosy Cento

“Without the Eucharist, without Sunday, we cannot live”. This is what the early Christian saints said. Perhaps they wanted to say that without the Eucharist one cannot learn and live true life and above all the life of a couple, of a family. The Holy Mass, looking at its structure, is a great school of family life. Of course it wasn't made like this for this reason, but, going into it with marital and family attention, we realize that in the Celebration, every moment speaks and communicates high teachings of family life in every sense. Because, after all, the Eucharist is the Sacrament of Love and in the Holy Mass, not by chance, marriage is celebrated and fidelity is promised forever, according to God's will. Let's try to walk in it together.

 

Friday, May 27 2011 15: 04

We buy a travel ticket

With your offering accompanies a young pilgrim on the road to Rome

We all say that young people are the hope of humanity, of the church, of every family. Young people, therefore, are at the center of our attention with the desire in our soul to offer them fruitful seeds of hope.
Even the canonization of Don Guanella is a season of sowing of vital values ​​fertilized by divine grace and by the example and testimony of Don Guanella.
We launch a solidarity proposal. In a season of economic hardship like ours, of a precarious future and hardship, we want to collaborate and help cover the expenses for the trip to Rome on the occasion of the canonization of Don Guanella. We think of young Italians, but also of those from poor countries, where the Don Guanella Opera is present. Each offer will be like a drop that covers the costs of a few kilometers of the journey to Rome.
it is a singular experience that will leave an indelible mark in the souls of these young people and will offer them a heritage of hope that will flood their community with reflected light. We offer the organizing committee a contribution to satisfy the desire to be present.

Friday, May 27 2011 15: 01

Saints yes, but how?

Let's prepare an event for Don Guanella

by Angelo Forti

The Holy Spirit has been defined as the "great iconographer", the one who paints the faces of male and female saints with the features of the Saint par excellence Christ Jesus; the saints, therefore, according to the definition of the Carmelite Father Jesús Castellano, are a masterpiece of the "holy and sanctifying" Spirit.
The action of the Spirit is not the fruit of magic or the consequence of a miracle, but requires that a collaboration be established between the energy of the Holy Spirit and man in his concrete, daily history. Holiness is a story written by both hands, a living and life-giving page of the gospel of Jesus.  
So, when the Church proclaims the sanctity of a person, announces that God is still in action on behalf of our poor humanity, God renews his trust in man and that "Father who is in heaven" is still embracing the earth and it makes fertile ground for holiness.

 

Friday, May 27 2011 14: 51

The landing at the monastery

Itinerary towards the monastic vocation

of Mother Anna Maria Cánopi osb

Vocation is a mystery of grace: it is not easy to describe its origin and development. I recognize that my monastic vocation has its roots already in childhood, since I have always felt God's gaze on me and I have always felt a strong attraction towards the Lord, towards prayer and the sacred in general.
The nuns who then ran the orphanage in my town welcomed me to pray in their little chapel and perhaps hoped that one day I would join their religious family. The same applies to the nuns of another Institute who served in the hospitals; but I was a teenager and still busy studying; it wasn't time to think about this yet.
I was about twenty years old when my good former primary school teacher, whom I called "godmother", accompanied me to the visiting room of the diocesan seminary to introduce me to a priest who dedicated himself to the training of seminarians and the youth of Catholic Action.
«Listen, please, this young woman – he said to him – She has something inside…», and he left me alone with him. He, seeing my shyness, began to kindly ask me questions about my family, my living environment and the most intimate desires of my heart. At that time, among the various young people who were around me there was one to whom I had become fond because of his mother, a widow, whom he made suffer a lot by leading a reckless life and neglecting his university studies. I loved him, but my intent was only to make him good. Besides, he himself didn't dare make the proposals he usually made to all the girls. In fact, he kept a notebook in which he wrote the names of those he had "conquered", boasting that he had already listed a hundred! After many years, I learned of a secret he had made to a friend who was then surprised that he didn't try to seduce me: "When I thought of conquering her, a voice shouted to me: Don't touch that!". Strange things, but which certainly happen under divine direction. For this reason we can boast of nothing other than the gratuitousness of the salvation brought about by God.

Saint Joseph and Blessed John Paul II

by Tarcisio Stramare

After Mary, Mother of God, there is no saint who occupies as much space in the pontifical magisterium as Saint Joseph, her most chaste husband. And yet, in the shadow of such a great "Bride", Saint Joseph goes so unnoticed that some will be surprised to discover this marked presence of him, especially in a notoriously "Marian" pope like John Paul II. In fact, every time we think of him, his singular devotion towards the Mother of God comes to mind, expressed unequivocally in his papal coat of arms with the large letter "M" (Mary) and the writing "Totus tuus" (All your).
In his apostolic journeys it was normal for a visit to a Marian sanctuary to be included, an expression of his filial feelings, but also of the recognition of Mary's "maternal role" towards the Church. But we also know how much John Paul II, always interested in man, in his values ​​and tasks, held the "male role" in the Gospel and in the Church in high regard, and this starting precisely from the consideration of the figure of Saint Joseph, as he himself states, recalling his stops in the churches dedicated to him in both Wadowice and Krakow, in which he often loved to stop in prayer. “The figure of Saint Joseph provides special ideas and abundant material for these reflections”, in particular on the purely male role, the protective, paternal one, which “seems not only primary but also essential compared to any of his other external, social or organized."

Friday, May 27 2011 14: 35

June 2011

 

A hand always ready to help

Reverend Father Carrera,
I am an elderly guest of the Villa Celeste retirement home, I recently turned 89, and this is one of the many graces that our great Saint wanted to give me.
I was so worried about a very dear young friend who was suffering from pancreatic cancer. There was little hope for a recovery but neither I nor his family gave up because everything is possible with God. We entrusted ourselves to the Virgin Mary and her husband Joseph, we prayed a lot with all our hearts and we were heard. .
On the day dedicated to the Madonna of Loreto, I received the happy news from Bologna, where my friend Angela was hospitalized, that the surgery had gone well and that she was on the way to recovery. Thank you Holy Virgin, thank you St. Joseph; you have already cured my son who also had cancer and is now well.
I will never stop thanking you and talking about your wonders with those close to me, the sick and the elderly, who are often discouraged and perhaps curse, but the Lord sees and forgives.
Dear Father Mario, I struggle to write but I had to do this. I thank you for “La Santa Crociata” which has become a friend for me that I have punctually received and consoled me for 35 years. I greet you cordially, very affectionately.
Floriana Paolucci, Rosora (AN)

Eyes and ears attentive to needs

Dear Director,
For some years I have been a member of the Pious Union and I receive the Holy Crusade in honor of Saint Joseph and I pray to him assiduously. However, I must say that in the past I have never been devoted to this great Saint until, by chance, I learned of the pious practice of the Holy Mantle from a prayer booklet of a friend of mine. I began to recite it with devotion for a particular intention of mine. After a few years I began to get answers to my prayers and since then I have chosen St. Joseph as my particular advocate with God.
I also became aware of the novena prayer in honor of the Saint and with this prayer I invoked him on two other occasions: for a health problem of mine and for my daughter to obtain a transfer given that working in Rome caused major problems for her family, also having two small children. Only three days after the beginning of the prayer did the news of the transfer arrive. Now I am praying to St. Joseph to ensure that my son returns to God and rejoins the sacraments.
I am very sure - without presumption - that dear Saint Joseph will grant me this time too, both because the cause is just and because he is a magnificent intercessor with God. Pray for my intentions. Thank you, bless me.
Tufano Maria – Nola, Naples

An applause to God, to Saint Joseph and to the spouses

Dear Director,
I have been your member and subscriber since November 22, 1996. I always read with pleasure the monthly magazine that you send me. I am writing to inform you that on August 26th, God willing, my wife Regina and I will celebrate our 60 years of marriage, here in Decimomannu, where I, a railway worker, was transferred in 1948 from Gorizia due to the loss of the territories of Venice Giulia. I feel comfortable here, here we gave birth to our four children, and now I have ten grandchildren and six great-grandchildren and two more are on the way. Nothing special, we are an elderly couple, I will be 85 next July, while my dear Regina (Gina) will be 79 in August. I ask you to remember us two elderly people by praying that Saint Joseph, Don Guanella, who will be proclaimed a Saint on October 23, and Blessed Chiara assist us from heaven. Unfortunately, we no longer leave home because the various ailments of old age limit our movements. Luckily we have our parish a stone's throw from home.
Giorgio Talmassons – Decimomannu, Cagliari

 

 

A song of praise with an invitation to pray

Dear editorial staff, I would like to bring to the attention of readers my testimony regarding the greatness, goodness and infinite mercy of God through the exalted figure of the great Saint Joseph. In all the difficult trials of my life, as well as moments of suffering, turning to the sure and powerful intercession of Saint Joseph has always given me loving comfort and providential help. Every time everything seemed to be lost and I believed that there was nothing left to do, and when that terrible feeling of helplessness still pervaded me, inexplicably God's help became concrete and profitable through the intercession of Saint Joseph .
Every time I have turned to the Saint, asking for grace and protection, I have always been heard, even though I am a sinner and my faith, at times, gets shaken like a reed in the wind.
The advice I want to give to all readers, especially to those who are in difficult conditions or experience moments of physical, moral or spiritual suffering, is to resort to prayer, as a powerful and effective tool to commune with God and receive peace. and serenity; asking, in this regard, for the help of Saint Joseph.
Turn to him, helping you especially with the prayer of the "Sacred Mantle" and you will be heard in your requests. Saint Joseph shows no preference among men; of great or little faith, righteous or sinners, his holiness and magnificence always surpasses human limits and frailties. Thanking you in advance, I express my warmest wishes for the continuous evolution and diffusion of your magazine.
Vincenzo Franciosa -
Francavilla Fontana, Brindisi

Light and comfort always win

After the death of my father, so devoted to St. Joseph and a subscriber to the magazine, who I think was already in heaven with the Saints, I continued this traditional family devotion, sure of always having Someone to turn to. I have had many tragedies and difficulties, personal and family, but also many joys and many graces from the Lord, always deferring to his divine will. Lately I was worried about my son-in-law, who, although graduated, couldn't find a job, despite his good will. After so many closed doors, discouragement took over his soul. What to do? Who should we turn to anymore? I then thought, with faith and hope, to begin the prayer of the Sacred Mantle. I had not yet finished the thirty days foreseen by this pious devotion when my son-in-law was called for several interviews with good possibilities for a job. I take this opportunity to thank Saint Joseph, the Virgin Mary and Jesus for a grace received a few years ago, for which I had not yet thanked, for a situation that could have upset my life and my entire family. I am sending a modest offering, a small gift that is intended as a sign of my devotion to Saint Joseph. Thank you and pray for us.
SP

Sharing in the worship of Saint Joseph

Dearest Director, I am a young mother, with great gratitude I would like to express my heartfelt thanks and gratitude to my dearest "friend and protector" Saint Joseph who supported me in somewhat difficult moments, also granting me three special graces. Every day I turn to him because I still need his help so much for my young family and many friends. As I continue to pray, I spread devotion to this great Saint and protector with conviction. I would like to publish these few lines of mine so that many people know that St. Joseph is powerful, he makes us wait but he does not abandon us. Thank you!
ZM

Friday, May 27 2011 14: 30

"Leave by any means at any time"

Accustomed to seeing Don Guanella as a man of charity, understanding and patience, those who knew him were often surprised to find themselves, in certain cases, in the face of extraordinary firmness. Evidently, since these were decisions that later turned out to be right and appropriate, he had the ability to decide and operate with the firmness that a surgeon must have when separating what is healthy from what is sick. In these decisions, as in the case reported here, Don Guanella assumed responsibility.
Sister Vismara often remembered a decisive meeting with Don Guanella. He was still living with his family in Ardenno, in the province of Sondrio, when he learned that Don Luigi had gone to visit his brother, Don Lorenzo Guanella. He believed that this was a good opportunity to meet him and take advice on his vocation and the opposition it encountered from his family. The hostility was strong and for seven years afterwards the family did not want to forgive Sister Vismara for choosing him.

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