allaboutchesterton - Tumblr blog

[allaboutchesterton]

[allaboutchesterton]

Some old men came one day to Abba Arsenius and insisted on seeing him. He received them. Then they asked him to say a word to them about those who live in solitude without seeing anyone. ‘As long as a young girl is living in her father’s house, many young men wish to marry her, but when she has taken a husband, she is no longer pleasing to everyone; despised by some, approved by others, she no longer enjoys the favour of former times, when she lived a hidden life. So it is with the soul; from the day when it is shown to everyone, it is no longer able to satisfy everyone.’

+ St. Arsenius +

[allaboutchesterton]

Mary, Queen of the Apostles 

[allaboutchesterton]

U.S. infantrymen stand in front the cemetery of the Our Lady of the Assumption church speaking with local residents Monsieur Gancel, a railway worker Chabriac, and Catholic Abbé Pierre Héberton the day their village was liberated from German occupation. 9 June 1944.

via reddit

[allaboutchesterton]

Statue de Notre Dame de la Trinité à Blois

[allaboutchesterton]

Quindecim mysteria Rosarii B. Mariae Virginis

A 16th century engraving of the 15 mysteries of the Rosary.

[allaboutchesterton]

Catholic priest builds LEGO version of the Vatican, complete with nuns in black robes, Swiss Guards, and a tiny, waving Pope Francis #lego #vaticancity #pope

[allaboutchesterton]

Émile Friant - Tots Sants [detail]

William Bouguereau - The Day of the Dead [detail]

Jakub Schikaneder - All Souls’ Day [detail] 

Emile Friant - La Douleur [detail]

Emile Friant - Angelus [detail]

[allaboutchesterton]

Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat: ab omni malo plemem suam defendat.

Christ conquers, He reigns, He commands; may He defend His people from all evil.

[allaboutchesterton]

[allaboutchesterton]

The Dalits are Hindus who are basically “nobodies” and labeled “untouchables.” The discrimination they face daily have drawn them to embrace Jesus Christ. They are the lowest in India’s caste system and can get severely beaten for petty incidents. The police will seldom intervene and complaints are ignored or never taken into account. Only one percent of individuals who commit crimes against Dalits are convicted. 

[allaboutchesterton]

Studying #SaintBonaventure on his feastday! @shmsdetroit with the help of Our Lady (it is Saturday) #franciscanfriarsoftherenewal (at Sacred Heart Major Seminary)

[allaboutchesterton]

16 April – Blessed Memorial of St Benedict Joseph Labre T.O.S.F. (1748-1783) “Beggar of Perpetual Adoration” – Patron against insanity and mental illness, of tramps, bachelors, beggars, hoboes, homeless people, mentally ill people, people rejected by religious orders, pilgrims – Attributes – beggar in a tri-cornered hat sharing his alms.

St Benedict Joseph Labre was born in 1748 in the village of Amettes, near Arras, in the former Province of Artois in the north of France.    He was the eldest of fifteen children of a prosperous shopkeeper, Jean Baptist Labre and his wife, Anne Grandsire.

Labre had an uncle, a parish priest, living some distance from his family home;   this uncle gladly received him and undertook his early education for the priesthood.    At the age of sixteen, he approached his uncle about becoming a Trappist monk but his parents told him he would have to wait until he grew older.    When Benedict was about eighteen, an epidemic fell upon the city, and uncle and nephew busied themselves in the service of the sick.    While the uncle took care of the souls and bodies of the people, Benedict went to and fro caring for the cattle.    He cleaned their stalls and fed them;   exchanging the life of a farm labourer for that of a student under his uncle’s roof.    Among the last victims of the epidemic was the uncle himself.

Labre set off for La Trappe Abbey to apply to the Order but did not come up to their requirements.   He was under age, he was too delicate, he had no special recommendations.    He later attempted to join the Carthusians and Cistercians but each order rejected him as unsuitable for communal life.    He was, for about six weeks, a postulant with the Carthusians at Neuville.    In November 1769 he obtained admission to the Cistercian Abbey of Sept-Fonts.    After a short stay at Sept-Fonts his health gave way and it was decided that his vocation lay elsewhere.

Labre, according to Catholic tradition, experienced a desire, which he considered was given to him by God and inspired by the example of Saint Alexius of Rome and that of the holy Franciscan tertiary pilgrim, Saint Roch, to “abandon his country, his parents, and whatever is flattering in the world to lead a new sort of life, a life most painful, most penitential, not in a wilderness nor in a cloister but in the midst of the world, devoutly visiting as a pilgrim the famous places of Christian devotion”.

3 paintings of Blessed Bendict above by Antonio Cavallucci (1752-1795)

Labre joined the Third Order of Saint Francis and settled on a life of poverty and pilgrimage.    He first traveled to Rome on foot, subsisting on what he could get by begging.    He then travelled to most of the major shrines of Europe, often several times each.    He visited the various shrines in Loreto, Assisi, Naples, and Bari in Italy, Einsiedeln in Switzerland, Paray-le-Monial in France and Santiago de Compostela in Spain.    During these trips he would always travel on foot, sleeping in the open or in a corner of a room, with his clothes muddy and ragged.    On one occasion he stopped at the farmhouse of Matthieu and Marie Vianney, who would later become the parents of the future saint, the Curé d’Ars.    He lived on what little he was given and often shared the little he did receive with others.    He is reported to have talked rarely, prayed often and accepted quietly the abuse he received.

In so doing, Labre was following in the role of the mendicant, the “Fool-for-Christ” . He would often swoon when contemplating the crown of thorns, in particular, and, during these states, it is said he would levitate or bilocate.    He was also said to have cured some of the other homeless he met and to have multiplied bread for them.    In the last years of his life (his thirties), he lived in Rome, for a time living in the ruins of the Colosseum and would leave only to make a yearly pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Loreto.   He was a familiar figure in the city and known as the “saint of the Forty Hours” (or Quarant’ Ore) for his dedication to Eucharistic adoration.

[allaboutchesterton]

La Pietà - Carved from a single block of white Carrara marble it took the 24-year old Michelangelo less than two years to complete (1498-1499).

It is alleged that just days after its installation in St. Peter’s Basilica, Michelangelo inadvertently overheard some visitors’ stray comments that Michelangelo was too young to accomplish a sculpture of such beauty and that the work had been completed by another artist, Cristoforo Solari; outraged, that night, under the cover of darkness and out of pride, Michelangelo snuck back into the Basilica and etched an inscription by candlelight, in Latin, across the Virgin’s sash: “Michael. Agelus. Bonarotus Florent Faciebat” (Michelangelo Buonarroti the Florentine, made this). It is also alleged that, having regretted the outburst of pride, Michelangelo vowed never to sign another work again; the Pietà remained the only work by the artist to ever bear his signature. (source, photo gallery)

[allaboutchesterton]

Catholics of a number of ethnic groups–namely Han, Miao, Nu, and Tibetan–in China, 1990s. (Credit: Lu-Nan - Magnum Photos)

[allaboutchesterton]

Thought for the Day – Passion or Palm Sunday – 9 April 2017 – The Legend of the Vatican Palms

The obelisk in St. Peter’s Square was originally erected in Heliopolis, Egypt sometime between 2494 and 2345 BC. After 63 BC it was moved to Alexandria, then Caligula moved it to Rome in 37 AD.    It moved to its current location in 1586.    It’s the only obelisk in Rome that hasn’t fallen since antiquity.    It used to be topped with a globe that was rumoured to contain Caesar’s ashes.    That turned out to be wrong and today it’s topped with a reliquary that contains a piece of the True Cross.

That much is true… this a legend I heard in Rome about what allegedly happened when the architect/engineer Domenico Fontana was re-erecting the obelisk for the last time in 1586.    Fontana gathered 900 men and 140 horses (as shown in the engraving above). Pope Sixtus V forbid anyone to speak while the obelisk was raised, so no one would break their concentration.    In silence, the massive team began to lift it.    But one sailor noticed that the ropes were smoking from the friction.    Against the pope’s orders he yelled, “Water on the ropes!”

Fortunately, they heeded his advice.    The water cooled down the ropes and the obelisk went up successfully.    However the sailor was still hauled in front of the pope for breaking his decree.    But instead of punishing him, the pope thanked him and offered him a reward.    The sailor asked that his family’s farm in Bordighera supply the palms for Palm Sunday every year, as long as they owned the land.

To this day, the Vatican sources their Palm Sunday fronds from Bordighera.    That much is true too.

The thought is this – “speak out when you know the truth be not afraid!”

[allaboutchesterton]

“Abandon hopelessness, all ye who enter here.”

— G.K. Chesterton