Feast of the Presentation – Candlemas

Hannah and Simeon, first consecrated folks…

Religious are in many ways LIGHTS…

Consecrated people…not about DOING but about BEING….consecrated people are a SIGN pointing, a LIGHT shining

Religious people stand in the “gap” between the here and now…

Vows: Poverty, chastity, obedience … modeling Jesus, pointing to Jesus, deeply abiding in Jesus who was POOR, UNMARRIED, OBEDIENT

Check out this list of pontifical rank

They come and go, they’re at service of Church

Three major types of orders: monastic (desert mvmt, monasteries), mendicant (witness, teach, care for), apostolic (go out as missionaries, convert the world)

One day our children will stand before King Jesus, and He’ll care little about their:
grades,

batting averages,

3-point percentages,

yards per carry,

popularity,

college transcripts, or

class rank.

How are we investing in their eternal souls? The one thing he cares about.

St Thomas Aquinas, 700 years a saint!!

“Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do.” -St Thomas

From a letter to her Sisters by St. Mother Angelica Merici

I also beg you to be concerned about every one of your daughters. Bear them, so to speak, engraved upon your heart – not merely their names, but their conditions and states, whatever they may be. This will not be difficult for you if you embrace them with a living love.

Mothers of children, even if they have a thousand, carry each and every one fixed in their hearts, and because of the strength of their love they do not forget any of them. In fact, it seems that the more children they have the more their love and care for each one is increased. Surely those who are mothers in spirit can and must act all the more in the same way, because spiritual love is more powerful than the love that comes from a blood relationship.

Therefore, mothers most dear to me, if you love these your daughters with a living and unaffected charity, it will be impossible for you not to have each and every one of them engraved upon your memory and in your mind.

“Is a lamp brought in to be placed under a bushel basket
or under a bed,
and not to be placed on a lampstand?
For there is nothing hidden except to be made visible;
nothing is secret except to come to light.
Anyone who has ears to hear ought to hear.”

Great antiphons today at Matins:

Ant. Who are you, Lord? I am Jesus whom you are persecuting; you harm only yourself by kicking against the goad.

Ant. 2 Go, Ananias, and seek out Saul, who is praying to me; he is the one I have chosen to make my name known to the Gentiles and their kings, as well as to the people of Israel.

Ant. 3 Paul went into the synagogues and proclaimed to the Jews that Jesus was indeed the Messiah.

And some great stuff in the second reading by St John Chrysostom:

Thus, amid the traps set for him by his enemies, with exultant heart he turned their every attack into a victory for himself; constantly beaten, abused and cursed, he boasted of it as though he were celebrating a triumphal procession and taking trophies home, and offered thanks to God for it all: Thanks be to God who is always victorious in us! This is why he was far more eager for the shameful abuse that his zeal in preaching brought upon him than we are for the most pleasing honors, more eager for death than we are for life, for poverty than we are for wealth; he yearned for toil far more than others yearn for rest after toil. The one thing he feared, indeed dreaded, was to offend God; nothing else could sway him. Therefore, the only thing he really wanted was always to please God.

The most important thing of all to him, however, was that he knew himself to be loved by Christ. Enjoying this love, he considered himself happier than anyone else; were he without it, it would be no satisfaction to be the friend of principalities and powers. He preferred to be thus loved and be the least of all, or even to be among the damned, than to be without that love and be among the great and honored.

St Francis de Sales

The spiritual life is like climbing a ladder –

Now first we realize: Christ goes down and up, down and up, brings us up

We cooperate – sacraments, bible, rosary, etc – going up the ladder

We come down the ladder to help those in need and bring them up

As James pointed out at school Mass: we must go up the correct side of the ladder!

God has given us THE WAY…the sacraments, etc…and we aren’t supposed to make our own way….God does’t like that (Tower of Babel)..