Faith Blog: My God and My All, Let Thy Name Be Glorified!

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Amen!                                                                                                                                  Prayer   Heavenly Father! I thank you for this day! Thank you for this moment of life! I take refuge in thy shelter I place myself and my fam...

There are many kinds of travels. Among the travels, there is a kind of travel which include visiting and enjoying spiritual destinations, which are churches, shrines, and cathedrals. Besides believers, many archeological travellers and art loving people are also interested in these destinations. Some visit churches as part of their tourist destinations and few visit spiritual destinations as part of their spiritual faith enhancing exercise, which is called pilgrimage. When I think of some of the pilgrimage travels we have made as family, the place comes to my mind is Our Lady of Velankanni, shrine, located in TamilNadu, south India. It is a miraculous place, where people come from all over India and world with various intercessions and their prayers are answered, for this reason, it is called as eastern lourdu. Physical, mental, spiritual, social, and economical healings are every day event at this shrine. Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and all the religion...

Presence of God in this world is an eternal promise. Looking at the world and processing all the happenings in the world often may not help us to believe the promise of God's presence in the world. News papers, televisions, cables, internet medias,and all the news come from the world all over the world almost always highlight the status of the world, which is not always encouraging to the spirit. I call them as mordern day's prophet Nathan, because they reflect and portray the sensational down spiriling of the world, which are the signs of human sins and short commings. We live in a special time of the world's history where there is no differentiation beween right or wrong anymore or where we have become to accept and to accomodate the blurring status of the values. The confusion among the humanity has peacked so high that we are begining to loose the human discerning abilities. Humanity has habituated to conform to the standards and norms of the fallen world. In thi...

" SUGGESTIONS ON EUCHARISTIC ADORATION                         by Fr. Martin Lucia What is parish Perpetual Adoration?      Perpetual Adoration is a Eucharistic devotion whereby members of a given parish (or other entity) unite in taking hours of adoration before the Most Blessed Sacrament (in most cases exposed), both during the day and throughout the night, seven days a week. Is Perpetual Adoration the only type of Eucharistic adoration apart from the Mass?      No, it is not.  There are many types of adoration programs, such as day adoration, First Friday to the First Saturday, weekend retreats, etc. However, the ideal and grace-laden program both for the parish and the individual members is the full- time, permanent adoration of our Lord exposed in a monstrance in which adorers commit themselves t...

Dictionary of Eucharistic Terms " Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament A Eucharistic devotion in the Catholic Church of the Latin Rite. In its traditional form, a priest, vested in surplice, stole, and cope, places on the altar or in the niche above it the consecrated Host in the ostensorium, or monstrance, and then incenses it. O Salutaris Hostia or similar hymn is usually sung at the beginning of exposition, followed by a period of meditation, praise, and adoration by priest and people. At the conclusion of the ceremony the Tantum Ergo hymn is chanted, with another incensation, and followed by blessing the people with the raised monstrance in the form of a cross. During the blessing the priest wears the humeral veil covering his hands. A small bell is rung during the blessing. The Divine Praises are then sung or recited by priest and people, and the Blessed Sacrament is reposed in the tabernacle. Benediction is commonly held on major feasts and Sundays, also ...

  "Chapter IV DEVELOPMENT OF EUCHARISTIC ADORATION As we have seen, there had been reservation and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament since the early days of the Church. But with the Council of Trent began a new era in the devotion of the faithful to Christ's Real Presence in the Eucharist. The Forty-Hours Devotion. Before the end of the sixteenth century, Pope Clement VIII in 1592 issued a historic document on what was called in Italian Quarant' Ore (Forty Hours). The devotion consisted of forty hours of continual prayer before the Blessed Sacrament exposed. Introduced earlier on a local scale in Milan, the Bishop of Rome not only authorized the devotion for Rome, but explained how it should be practiced. We have determined to establish publicly in this Mother City of Rome an uninterrupted course of prayer in such wise that in the different churches [he specifies them] on appointed days, there be observed the pious and sal...