By Sarah De Coste This prayer is something very beautiful, and it reveals to us so much of not only who God is but how he loves us.
“Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom Gods love entrusts me here, ever this day [night] be at my side to light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen.” This prayer is more than us asking our beloved guardian angel to be close to us, but we encounter the heart of Christ in this prayer. Even though it's called the guardian angel prayer what we encounter is the love of God. Jesus is the way the truth and the life, God guides us, his spirit instills in us which way to go, which path to take by loving us. That love that God has for us goes so deep that we not only get to experience him through the Eucharist, we not only hear his voice through scripture but he appoints a heavenly being to help us in our journey. To pray for us, to protect us and to help us to move. Our guardian angels are so incredible, they inspire us and lead us to God and this prayer not only reminds us of Gods loving protection, but also of his constant pursuit of taking care of us. It reminds us that were loved, that were seen, and that were protected. Invoke your guardian angel in your life because the more we can embrace the blessings of having a guardian angel, were able to be that much more aware of Gods eternal presence, and his steadfast love.
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By Aaron Villegas St. Benedict has many different prayers but I chose this one because I feel that it’s the most relevant ones. If you’re curious on other prayers visit http://saintbenedictprotection.com/saint-benedict-prayers/ Father, in Your goodness
grant me the intellect to comprehend You, the perception to discern You, and the reason to appreciate You. In Your kindness endow me with the diligence to look for You, the wisdom, to discover You, and the spirit to apprehend You. In Your graciousness bestow on me a heart to contemplate You, ears to hear You, eyes to see You, and a tongue to speak of You. In Your mercy to confer on me a conversation pleasing to You, the patience to wait for You, and the perseverance to long for You. Grant me a perfect end, Your holy presence. I ask this in the name of Your Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. This prayer is all about seeking God. I feel like this is such a good prayer to learn during the times we’re in right now. It can be difficult to reach out to God or even feel that connection sometimes and this prayer just might help you get back into that relationship with God. I ask you guys to say this quick prayer from St. Benedict when you feel like you’re lost in your relationship with Him. Maybe it’s just you haven’t talked to Him in a while and you don’t know how to get back into it. Maybe after saying the prayer, say a few words about how you’re doing and thank God for your day. Maybe even ask for St. Benedict’s intercession. By Francis Van Uden The Act of Contrition! It is a beautiful prayer and is usually said at the end of confession. A priest may have asked you to recite one before, and the thing is they aren’t all the same. An Act of Contrition is exactly what it’s called. You say this to show your contrition in the fact that you are truly sorry for your sins, and understand what that means to your relationship to God. Some churches may have other versions of an Act of Contrition, but the one the Catholic Church suggests is the one below.
O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because I dread the loss of heaven, and the pains of hell; but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who are all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life. Amen. I find it very fruitful and helpful to my faith when I pray this at other times in my day. Fr. Kevin once told me that when he was young, he was taught to pray this prayer every time he recognized that he sinned. I thought that was super cool! Right in the moment you can take responsibility for your sin and apologize for it, and remind yourself of what we should be trying to do : confess our sins, do penance and ultimately amend our lives. It is a short and simple prayer, and is such a good way to build up your relationship with Jesus! By Pam Gonzalez So the prayer we’re looking at this week is Hail Holy Queen, or Salve Regina in Latin, which is said at the end of the rosary and in some cases it’s used in night prayers.
Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy! Our life, our sweetness and our hope. Our hope is in the Lord, the Virgin Mary, being with Jesus, takes us deep within the Merciful Heart of Jesus. The Virgin Mary is not in some kind of competition with Jesus. She continues to bring Jesus to us through our prayers of hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve, Since the fall of Adam and Eve, we are all born with original sin. We cry out to the Lord to help us through our fallen nature. We are liberated from the power of sin through God’s grace and through His Church. We have safe refuge from the powers of darkness, but through Jesus, we have the light, like Mother Mary, we become the light when we choose to live for Him. To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. As a loving Mother, she watched over Jesus as a baby all the way through adulthood. As a Mother, she identifies our suffering with his and she intercedes on our behalf through the love Jesus has for us. Turn then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy towards us; and after this our exile show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. This part of the prayer leads to a very important truth, God involves all of us to become partakers to cooperate with His Holy Will. When we ask Mother Mary to have mercy, we are asking her as our loving Mother, we are asking our Mother in heaven to keep her eyes on the world with the grace that God gave her for the love of us. Until we are in heaven, we are in exile, awaiting for the glorious coming of our Lord, who will one day come again! O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary. Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God. Pray that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. God so loved the world, God is love. The woman who bore Him, who would become literally the “Ark of the New Covenant”, always points to Jesus. Her love for Jesus compels her to love all of us, as we should also love others. While praying we ask for Mary’s intercession. I hope this helps you guys understand what we recite at the end of the rosary! By Francis Van Uden This week the prayer we’re gonna look at is the Nicene Creed! This prayer is usually said at mass, although because we are Roman Catholic we can say either the Apostles Creed or the Nicene Creed, which are very similar. Both prayers highlight the beliefs of the Catholic Church and during the “Profession of Faith” at mass, the prayers are said. As people of the Catholic Church, we recite exactly what we believe as a Church and are reminded of it every time we celebrate the mass.
“We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, Maker of all that is visible and invisible.” This highlights that even though we believe in the Trinity, we believe in ONE God, and that he has created EVERYTHING. “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made." This part of the creed explains Jesus and God, and the relationship between them as the same being from one God, just in different forms. "For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man." Jesus became human through the power of God’s Holy Spirit which allowed the Virgin Mary to conceive. "For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried." Jesus chose to give up his life and be brutally crucified so that WE could spend eternity with him in Heaven. "On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end." Jesus rose and conquered death, and is in Heaven with God the Father, as one, but in two forms. Jesus will come again, and this talks about his second coming, and how because we are able to spend eternity in Heaven with Jesus, his kingdom will NEVER end! "We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets." The Holy Spirit is from God and Jesus, and is His presence on Earth and how he is in a relationship with us on Earth. God, Jesus along with the Holy Spirit are all within the Father, and are all worshipped without being separated. This is the Trinity: three persons, one God! "We believe in one holy, catholic and apostolic Church." As Catholics, we believe that the “one” church Jesus started on Earth was the Catholic Church. It is “holy” in the sense that God is completely a part of all we do as Catholics and what we believe. And “catholic” (with a lowercase ‘c’) means ‘all-embracing’ or whole, or diversified, which implies that the Catholic Church is true world-wide and throughout the eternity of time. “Apostolic” means that we follow the Pope’s guidance, and have since the church was started by Jesus, with our first pope, Peter. "We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins." When someone is baptised, they are in union with God and the rest of their lives they hopefully spend growing closer (or possibly further) from him. We also believe that Jesus forgives all of our sins, as long as we repent and are truly sorry from them, and this happens in the sacrament of Reconciliation. "We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come." We believe that when Christ comes again, we will be reunited with our bodies in a glorified way, similar to Christ’s resurrected Body. We do not know exactly what this will look like. And we look forward to the life of the world to come which is eternal blessedness in the company of the angels and the saints in constant praise and love of God. We will want for nothing and all suffering will be no more. "Amen.” We believe all that we have said! Fun fact: The Nicene Creed is actually called the “Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed”, although that would be a mouthful to say, so Nicene works. I hope this gave you a bit better understanding of the prayer that we might recite during mass, and if you notice that you’re praying this one at mass, try to pay attention to what you and others are actually saying you believe in! By Iliana Airey The Apostle’s Creed can seem a bit intimidating because it’s such a long prayer, but it doesn’t have to be! It’s basically a prayer that reminds us, as Christians, who we worship and why.
We say the prayer at mass as a reminder that we are still sinners in need of God’s mercy, but that He forgives each and every sin we make. Our sins are forgiven because the Lord loves us so much that He chose to die for them so that we could go to Heaven and be with Him for eternity. Throughout the prayer, we get to walk through the Passion of Christ. We’re actively participating in remembering His death and why He chose to be crucified for us. I seriously think this prayer is so beautiful! We get to declare our love for Jesus every time we say it! We’re recognizing that we are sinners and we ask Jesus to forgive our sins. I included the prayer below and some explanations for each line. “I believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, Here, we are recognizing that God is with us always and declaring that we whole-heartedly believe in Him. Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, This is when the Angel Gabriel told Mary about God’s plan for her and she agreed to give birth to the Son of God. suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. Here, we remember how Pontius Pilate decided to crucify Jesus, that He died on the cross for our sins, and was placed in a tomb. He descended into hell; on the third day He rose again from the dead, He ascended in heaven, and is seated at the right hand of God, the Father almighty; At this part, we acknowledge the fact that Jesus did indeed go to Hell, was raised after three days, and went to Heaven and sits beside God, His Father. from there He shall come to judge the living and the dead. Here, we declare that we believe that Jesus is coming again to judge us all, though we don’t know when. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen.” Finally, we declare that the Holy Spirit, the Catholic Church, how Jesus forgives all sins, and life in Heaven is all real and that we believe in it all. I hope this helped you at least a little bit to help understand why this prayer is so important (and cool)! You guys are all in my prayers :). The Prayer to St Michael was first composed in 1886. This was written in response to a vision Pope Leo XIII had. It is said that he immediate went to his study and did not leave until the prayer was written.
I bet you're wondering, "What did he see?" While the pope never actually declared what he saw before drafting this, there are some sources who were close to him that have said that his vision was a conversation between Jesus and Satan. In it, Satan said that he could destroy the church in 75-100 years. Jesus said that Satan could fight with everything he had, but that the church would stand despite the trials. Immediately after composing the prayer, Pope Leo XIII declared that the prayer must be recited at the end of masses. The practice was stopped in 1968. Later, Pope John Paul II revised the prayer to what we see today and asked the laity (us) to remember it and recite it often. In recent history, Pope Francis has asked that all parishes recite this prayer again. As we are journeying through this time, I ask that you also take up the practice of at least once a week reciting this prayer. The prayer goes like this: Saint Michael, the archangel, defend us in this day of battle. Be our safeguard (or defence) against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, cast into Hell Satan, and all other evil spirits who prowl throughout the world, seeking the ruin of souls. Amen. By Francis Van Uden Hey everyone!! It’s Francis and I miss you all sooooo much! I hope that you have been finding fun things to do around the house. Something that’s been hard for me during this time of isolation is honouring the fact that it’s currently Lent and that we should be preparing ourselves for Jesus Christ’s ultimate sacrifice of the Crucifixion. Every year except this one, being at Mass every week was the primary way I was preparing for the Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil). After hearing a homily about going to confession and preparing our hearts for the Lord’s resurrection was almost always the theme of the Palm Sunday homily, and with only a week left until Easter, it’s an important one. But here I am, sitting at home experiencing an eternal “Saturday”. And you know what’s great? Right here at home I am able to pray a special prayer that walks me through the steps Jesus took as he agonizingly walked to his death out of love for each and every one of us. Any guesses as to what prayer? .... It’s the Stations of the Cross! The Stations of the Cross are 14 stations that Jesus suffered through on his way to Golgotha (the place where he was crucified). As you pray through these stations, usually there is a type of reflection of what Jesus went through at the particular station and a prayer to go along. Each station is a significant moment, and as we remember what Jesus suffered through, we are able to see the immense love Jesus has for us, and the extent He was willing to suffer so that we would be able to spend eternity with Him in Heaven. The first station, for example, is “Jesus is condemned to death”. The stations go through Jesus’ three falls and the people he meets along the way, all the way up to his crucifixion. Something super cool about the Stations of the Cross was the way that they started. After Jesus’ death, Mary the Mother of Jesus would walk the same path Jesus walked, and she would pray and reflect as she did so, stopping ever so often to remember a certain moment of Jesus’ suffering. People would watch Mary walk this path daily, and began to join her in this prayer. This practice eventually spread, and followers of Christ began to pray similar prayers wherever they were. The Stations of the Cross also became a popular art theme, especially in Catholic Europe. Did you know that along with the red votive candle (or known as the sanctuary lamp) that symbolizes Christ present in the tabernacle, you can tell a Church is Catholic by seeing the Stations of the Cross images (just like at St. Martha’s!) displayed somewhere in the sanctuary? You can pray along with the Stations of the Cross HERE.
By Iliana Airey Hey guys! It’s been so long! I’ve been thinking about all of you and praying for you lots and I hope that this talk may find you all in good health and surrounded by people who love you. I wanted to talk to you about novenas. What are they? Well, they’re a form of prayer that takes 9 consecutive days to “obtain special graces, to implore special favors, or to make petitions.” What this means is it’s a prayer often to receive direction or an answer for something and/or to make specific requests. There are so many different novenas as well! When we pray a novena, we either pray the same prayer for all nine days or follow a list of prayers to be prayed for each day. Every novena is a bit different in the intention, formation of prayers, and practice. I’ve prayed a few before too! One of them was a novena to Saint Dymphna. She’s one of the patron saints of mental health issues and when I was going through a tough time and was struggling quite a bit mentally, I decided to pray this novena for 9 days. My intentions every day were asking God why I was going through all of this and, if it was His will, if He could take them away from me. I noticed shortly after that, I was starting to feel better about life in general and that I wasn’t struggling as much. A couple months after I prayed the novena, I had a friend come to me and tell me that she was going through the same things as I was. Surprisingly, I was able to give her a lot of good advice and let the Lord speak to her through me. I realized after that I can use these struggles to really help other people going through the same things and that God can work through me, if I only allow Him into my life. Soooooo….. That’s one of the cool stories I have about praying novenas! I know lots of other people who have prayed novenas too and they’ve had some pretty cool stories about them and gotten a lot of questions answered! It’s super dope. The origin of the novena prayer comes from the in-between days of the Ascension and Pentecost. Acts of the Apostles recounts, “After that they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet near Jerusalem– a mere Sabbath’s journey away. Together they devoted themselves to constant prayer” (Acts 1:12,14). Nine days later, the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles at Pentecost. Perhaps, this “nine-day period of prayer” of the apostles is the basis for the novena. (https://catholicstraightanswers.com/what-is-a-novena/) You can read more about novenas on this website! Also, if you’re looking to find a certain novena, you can go to this website: https://catholicnovenaapp.com/list-of-all-novenas/ or download the app Laudate (it has a lot of other cool prayers as well as an online Bible and daily prayers and readings!). I hoped this helped you learn a little bit about what novenas are and how you can use them in your own lives! God bless, Iliana :) You can also join us in praying the Corona Virus Novena! Link is on the home page!
This chaplet comes to us from St Faustina. The prayers are derived from the mystical encounters and visions she had during her life and were made widespread by St John Paul the Great (Pope John Paul the Second). In the Divine Mercy Chaplet, each person recognizes the need of God's mercy and acknowledges the never-ending love that God had shown through the cross. The image shown above is the Divine Mercy image. This is an encounter St Faustina had with Christ and had painted from her descriptions. Typically it has the phrase "Jesus I Trust In You" printed below it. Below are the instructions to pray this chaplet. This is highly encouraged to be prayed throughout Lent and especially on Fridays at 3pm. It doesn't take too long to pray, but its message is important. More information about it can be found at: www.thedivinemercy.org/message/history Some people like to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet through song. Here is a version that I like to use. God bless!
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PulsePulse is our Jr High group (Grades 6-9) for those who want to be journeying to learn more about God and how He fits into this crazy thing called life! From Saint of the Day to talks to activities, we work to understand more about our faith and its importance in our everyday lives as we all work to become modern day saints. Categories
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