Deeper Truth

Deepertruth: Stand In The Gap With Us And Saint Didacus

Stand In The Gap With Us And Saint Didacus 11/8/2023
Didacus is the saint to whom the Franciscan mission that bears his name, and which developed into the City of San Diego, California, was dedicated. He is the co-patron of Diocese of San Diego.
He miraculously restored many of them to health by merely making the Sign of the Cross over them.
Didacus is associated with a Miracle of the roses. He often took bread from the monastery's dining table to give to the poor. One day, leaving the convent with a cloak full of food, he was accused and challenged to open his cloak; miraculously, the loaves of bread had changed into roses.
On a hunting trip, Henry IV of Castile fell from his horse and injured his arm. In intense pain and with his doctors unable to relieve his agony, he went to Alcalá and prayed to Didacus for a cure. Didacus's body was removed from his casket and placed beside the king. Henry then kissed the body and placed Didacus's hand on his injured arm. The king felt the pain disappear and his arm immediately regained its former strength.
 
On one occasion it is told he rescued a young boy who was playing in an oven when his mother, inadvertent to his being inside, lit it.On another occasion he cured someone's sight by anointing his eyes with oil.
 
 

Deepertruth: Stand In The Gap With Us And Saint Nicholas Tavelic and Companions

Stand In The Gap With Us And Saint Nicholas Tavelic and Companions 11/6/2023
St. Nicholas Tavelic is a sterling example of a Franciscan Knight whose sword was the Gospel.
Just when you think you’ve got a good handle on the calendar of saints another one comes to prominence exactly at the moment when you need to hear their story.
St. Nicholas moved from the first way of St. Francis to the second.
He volunteered to go the Holy Land to help maintain the Christian places of worship under the Mamluk Sultans of the 14th Century.
After some time and study St. Nicholas decided to take a very direct evangelical approach and set off to preach to the Quadi leader, being martyred near the Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem, 1391 on November 14th
St. Francis Assisi addresses this in the Rule of 1221 where he writes that the friars going to proclaim the Gospel to the Saracens (Muslims) “can conduct themselves among them spiritually in two ways.

Mother Mary Visits Lichen, Poland

Join John Carpenter, Don Hartley, and the Deeper Truth research team as we examine the visits to Lichen, Poland.
Licheń is the second most frequently visited Marian shrine in Poland, after Czestochowa. The shrine, run by the Marian Fathers and opened in 2004, is the largest in Poland, seventh largest in Europe and 11th in the world. Approximately 1.5 million pilgrims visit the Licheń Shrine annually.
On July 2, the Feast of Our Lady of Licheń, the Sorrowful Queen of Poland, we recall the address of Pope St. John Paul II, when he visited the previous Licheń shrine on June 7, 1999:
“Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord” (Lk 1:45).
As a pilgrim I come today to the Shrine of Lichen and I greet Mary with the words of Elizabeth: “Blessed is she who believed”. From the text of the evangelist Luke we learn that the house of Elizabeth was filled with joy. Thanks to the light shining from on high, Elizabeth understands the greatness of Mary who is “full of grace” and who is therefore “blessed among women” (cf. Lk 1:42), since she carries in her womb Jesus, the Saviour of the world.
The scene of the Visitation is particularly near to our hearts here in this place so loved by Mary. Every shrine, in fact, is in some way the house of Elizabeth visited by the Mother of God’s Son, who comes so that she may be close to her beloved people. Brothers and Sisters, I give thanks to Divine Providence that this Shrine figures as part of my pilgrim journey in our homeland. . . .

Deepertruth: Stand In The Gap With Us And Saint Peter Chrysologus

Stand In The Gap With Us And Saint Peter Chrysologus 11/5/2023
aint Peter Chrysologus, a fifth-century Italian bishop known for testifying courageously to Christ's full humanity and divinity during a period of doctrinal confusion in the Church.
We exhort you in every respect, honorable brother, to heed obediently what has been written by the most blessed pope of the city of Rome, for blessed Peter, who lives and presides in his own see, provides the truth of faith to those who seek it. For we, by reason of our pursuit of peace and faith, cannot try cases on the faith without the consent of the bishop of Rome. ~Saint Peter Chrysologus, Letter to Eutyches
A man who vigorously pursues a goal may produce results far beyond his expectations and his intentions. Thus it was with Peter “of the Golden Words,” as he was called, who as a young man became bishop of Ravenna, the capital of the empire in the West.
He was a close friend of Pope St. Leo I the Great and was highly respected by the Western and Eastern churches for his orthodoxy.
Peter developed a close relationship with the local bishop, Cornelius, who is believed to have baptized, educated, and ordained him as an archdeacon for the Diocese of Imola. Peter regarded Bishop Cornelius as his spiritual father and praised his manifest virtue.
St. Peter Chrysologus was a pivotal bishop who preserved the faith in his region of Italy in the fifth century. He was an adult convert to Christianity, then was ordained a deacon and priest before being raised to bishop of Ravenna in 433.]
 

Deepertruth: Stand In The Gap With Us And St. Charles Borromeo

Stand In The Gap With Us And St. Charles Borromeo 11/4/2023
St. Charles Borromeo was a leading figure during the Counter-Reformation period of the Church. In the wake of the Protestant Revolt which lead to the 40,000 plus non-Catholic churches today, Catholic Apologists like St. Charles Borromeo, St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Philip Neri and many others held the line bringing back many to the Catholic Faith through Evangelism. For St. Charles, learning was very important to reach the masses. His call for Evangelization is a cry coming straight from the gospel.
“If we wish to make any progress in the service of God we must begin every day of our life with new eagerness. We must keep ourselves in the presence of God as much as possible and have no other view or end in all our actions but the divine honor.” (St. Charles Borromeo)
Evangelization is the call of all Christians who follow Christ in their daily walk.
This is central to our call to follow Christ. This is done primarily in how we live out our lives. Through our passion to follow Christ, we must live our lives accordingly.
We are known through three basic things.
1. We are known by what we say. Our words have impact.
2. We are known by what we do, does our actions speak our words.
3. We are known by the things we love. What is our passion. If following Christ is our passion, then our lives will reflect what we say and do.

Deepertruth: Stand In The Gap With Us And Saint Martin de Porres

Stand In The Gap With Us And Saint Martin de Porres 11/3/2023
Martin de Porres is famous for his miracles, which include multiplying food to help feed the monks and the poor. Many miracles of healing were attributed to his intercession. St. Martin did extreme penance and spent long hours in prayer.
Martin regularly performed miracles. He could levitate, bilocate (appear in two places at once), and communicate with animals. He died a famed and much-revered figure in 1639. Miraculous cures were claimed at his tomb almost immediately after he was interred, which led to a papal enquiry in 1660.
He is the patron saint of social justice, racial harmony, and mixed-race people.
“Father unknown” is the cold legal phrase sometimes used on baptismal records. “Half-breed” or “war souvenir” is the cruel name inflicted by those of “pure” blood. Like many others, Martin might have grown to be a bitter man, but he did not. It was said that even as a child he gave his heart and his goods to the poor and despised.
He was the son of a freed woman of Panama, probably black but also possibly of indigenous stock, and a Spanish grandee of Lima, Peru. His parents never married each other. Martin inherited the features and dark complexion of his mother. That irked his father, who finally acknowledged his son after eight years. After the birth of a sister, the father abandoned the family. Martin was reared in poverty, locked into a low level of Lima’s society.

Deepertruth: Stand In The Gap With Us As we honor All the Faithful Departed

Stand In The Gap With Us As we honor All the Faithful Departed 11/2/2023
The Church has encouraged prayer for the dead from the earliest times as an act of Christian charity. “If we had no care for the dead,” Augustine noted, “we would not be in the habit of praying for them.” Yet pre-Christian rites for the deceased retained such a strong hold on the superstitious imagination that a liturgical commemoration was not observed until the early Middle Ages, when monastic communities began to mark an annual day of prayer for the departed members.
In the middle of the 11th century, Saint Odilo, abbot of Cluny, France, decreed that all Cluniac monasteries offer special prayers and sing the Office for the Dead on November 2, the day after the feast of All Saints. The custom spread from Cluny and was finally adopted throughout the Roman Church.
The theological underpinning of the feast is the acknowledgment of human frailty. Since few people achieve perfection in this life but, rather, go to the grave still scarred with traces of sinfulness, some period of purification seems necessary before a soul comes face-to-face with God. The Council of Trent affirmed this purgatory state and insisted that the prayers of the living can speed the process of purification.
Superstition easily clung to the observance. Medieval popular belief held that the souls in purgatory could appear on this day in the form of witches, toads or will-o’-the-wisps. Graveside food offerings supposedly eased the rest of the dead.
Observances of a more religious nature have survived. These include public processions or private visits to cemeteries and decorating graves with flowers and lights. This feast is observed with great fervor in Mexico.

Deepertruth: Stand In The Gap With Us and All The Saints and Angels In Heaven

Stand In The Gap With Us and All The Saints and Angels In Heaven 11/1/2023
All Saints' Day in the officially commemorates all those who attain glory with God in heaven. They are the holy women, men, and children given to us as models for every day and age to inspire us on our journey of faith.
All Saints' Day is one of the Holy Days of Obligation in the Catholic Church; Mass attendance is expected on November 1 for all who are able.
All Saints' Day was formally started by Pope Boniface IV, who consecrated the Pantheon at Rome to the Virgin Mary and all the Martyrs on May 13 in 609 AD. Boniface IV also established All Souls' Day, which follows All Saints.
The earliest certain observance of a feast in honor of all the saints is an early fourth-century commemoration of “all the martyrs.” In the early seventh century, after successive waves of invaders plundered the catacombs, Pope Boniface IV gathered up some 28 wagon-loads of bones and reinterred them beneath the Pantheon, a Roman temple dedicated to all the gods. The pope rededicated the shrine as a Christian church. According to Venerable Bede, the pope intended “that the memory of all the saints might in the future be honored in the place which had formerly been dedicated to the worship not of gods but of demons” (On the Calculation of Time).
But the rededication of the Pantheon, like the earlier commemoration of all the martyrs, occurred in May. Many Eastern Churches still honor all the saints in the spring, either during the Easter season or immediately after Pentecost.

Deepertruth: Stand In The Gap With Us And Saint Wolfgang of Regensburg

Stand In The Gap With Us And Saint Wolfgang of Regensburg 10/31/2023
Wolfgang is venerated as a patron saint of carpenters and wood carvers, and the city of Regensburg. He can be invoked against internal bleeding, paralysis, stomach diseases and strokes. In art he is usually depicted holding a cathedral, dressed as a bishop, or forcing Satan to help him construct a church.
Miracles associated with his tomb, including many healings, led to his canonization of 1052. Several of St. Wolfgang's devotees experienced relief from stomach ailments, and he remains a patron saint of such troubles today. His intercession is also sought by victims of strokes and paralysis, and by carpenters.
Wolfgang was born in Swabia, Germany, and was educated at a school located at the abbey of Reichenau. There he encountered Henry, a young noble who went on to become Archbishop of Trier. Meanwhile, Wolfgang remained in close contact with the archbishop, teaching in his cathedral school and supporting his efforts to reform the clergy.
At the death of the archbishop, Wolfgang chose to become a Benedictine monk and moved to an abbey in Einsiedeln, now part of Switzerland. Ordained a priest, he was appointed director of the monastery school there. Later he was sent to Hungary as a missionary, though his zeal and good will yielded limited results.
Emperor Otto II appointed him Bishop of Regensburg, near Munich. Wolfgang immediately initiated reform of the clergy and of religious life, preaching with vigor and effectiveness and always demonstrating special concern for the poor. He wore the habit of a monk and lived an austere life.

Deepertruth: St Agnes and the Eucharistic Miracle

St Agnes and the Eucharistic Miracle
During the life ofSt. Agnes Saint, the Church was emphasized the theology of the Sacraments, thanks to the great masters of theology most in demand during the Saint's lifetime, St. Albert the Great, St. Bonaventure, and Saint Thomas Aquinas.
Blessed Raymond of Capua writes about one Sunday at dawn. Saint Agnes was in the monastery's garden, kneeling before the Crucifix, away from everyone, immersed in prayer. She went into such a deep state of ecstasy, that contined into the night, she was still on her knees in the olive garden.
The sun was setting when Agnes finally came out of the ecstasy and remembered that it was Sunday. Now her soul was devastated! She was profoundly remorseful for not having participated in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. But as she was weeping, there appeared before her an Angel offering her a Consecrated Host.
Jesus, Whom she had kept company all day in prayer did not wish to deprive her of Himself in the Eucharist. This Miracle repeated itself exactly the same for ten consecutive Sundays.
"Agnes, whom God wanted to guide to perfection, deserved to receive the Body of Christ from the hands of an Angel many times." (Blessed Raymond of Capua)
The sisters gave testimony to this miracle, just as it has been related. They also testified they heard Agnes talk about it as if she was talking of the Divine world; and although the Saint spoke about it obscurely, the sisters from her time related the event very clearly.