Passion of the Christ (Mel Gibson)

Passion of the Christ

Have you ever seen the movie directed by Mel Gibson called ‘The Passion of the Christ’?  If you haven’t yet, you should.  Like ‘Schindler’s List’, it’s one you only need to see once, or at least once in a great while.  Say what you want about Mr. Gibson’s private life; he’s a great movie maker.    The movie is rated ‘R’ and with good reason.  The insanity and barbaric gruesomeness of what Jesus went through is without equal.  Mr. Gibson stays true to Scripture and when you see the torture, first-hand, of what Christ endured, it sickens you.  It is VERY hard to watch and I challenge you to watch it without becoming emotional.  This is a truly inspired film.  Why God required this walk of Jesus, I’m not sure I’ll ever understand, but it has helped me to try and not complain so much when life’s trivial headaches come my way.

Here’s a brief synopsis of the movie –> http://www.thepassionofchrist.com/v2/index.html

Watch it.  See what Jesus did for you and for me.  No greater love can man have for his friends than to lay down his life for them.  Jesus claims all people of all walks of life as his friends.  You will leave a changed person.

Blessings,

Deneen

St. Aloysius Gonzaga

 

St. Aloysius Gonzaga – Washington, DC

 Since it’s Holy Week, I thought I’d like to do daily Mass all week.  It’s something that I’ve wanted to do for years but never had the chance.  This is the lucky year! 

In the District of Columbia, there is a high school with the same name as the well-known university, Gonzaga.  It’s an all-boys school; college prep, I believe.  Theirs is a huge, old church there (founded in 1859) that has daily mass at noon.  The parishioners fondly call it St. Al’s.  It’s old, it’s beautiful and it got me wondering, just who was St. Aloysius Gonzaga.

St. Aloysius – Washington, DC

Well, turns out St. Al was the eldest son of a wealthy family in Castiglione near Mantua, Italy.  He was born in 1568.  His father’s name was Ferrante.  How about that, my maiden name!  And they were part of the court of the Medici’s.  My nephew married a Medici.  So maybe I’m related to St. Aloysius!

Anyhow, when Aloysius, then know as Luigi (Aloysius is the Latin form of Luigi), was around 16, he decided he didn’t want to be a Marquis.  He wanted that right to go to his brother so that he could enter the seminary.  Ferrante wasn’t pleased and apparently there was a disagreement.  Now, I come from an Italian home and I can assure you, there is either peace or war but there are no ‘disagreements’.  I’m sure the Gonzaga household was a war zone.  Luigi won out and began to study under a newly founded religious order, The Society of Jesus, also known as the Jesuits.  (The Jesuits have founded both Gonzaga University in Spokane, WA and Georgetown University in Washington, DC.) 

He studied for the priesthood in Rome.  It was there that he would go out into the streets of the city to care for victims of the plague. and where he contracted the disease himself.  He died on June 21, 1591, at the age of twenty-three, six years short of his ordination.  Pope Benedict XIII canonized Aloysius a saint in 1726, and three years later declared him to be the patron of youth in the Catholic Church.  His feast day is June 21.

Now when I attend daily Mass at that beautiful church in downtown DC, the painting behind the altar will mean much more to me! 

You can read more detailed information about St. Aloysius Gonzaga on Wikipedia –> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloysius_Gonzaga

Happy Easter!

Deneen

Distractions

I’ve been very distracted of late.  I haven’t posted here in over 2 weeks.  😦  Things haven’t been getting done on the home front – other than keeping up with payment on those never-ending bills.  Work has been ‘blah’.  The only thing of note is our wet, wet, wet spring and how the rain has made everything outside turn all shades of green.  All the flowering trees are in bloom, bulbs have burst through the wet dirt threatening to open their beautiful blossoms at the mere hint of a warm ray of sunshine.

So why am I so much in the dumps?  And more importantly, how does one shake that heaviness?  Today is Palm Sunday.  We are heading into one of the heaviest and saddest weeks of the year in our Christian faith.  The main focus is the pending crucifixion of our Lord.  I’ve been praying the Sorrowful Mysteries while saying the rosary. Granted, the payoff at the end is the most magnificent miracle known to man; Easter morning and Christ’s Resurrection.  It also happens to be tax weekend.  Taxes are due on Monday to that man-made debacle, the US government.

So I’m reaching out to all you who may be reading this blog.  Can you send me suggestions?  How do I shake these doldrums? 

-Deneen

St. Patrick – a pagan?

Since March is the month noted for the celebration of St. Patrick, before the month was over, I thought it would be nice to find out some trivia about the popular saint.

St. Patrick

Yep, St. Patrick dabbled with paganism while he was a teenager.  I’m sure his parents weren’t thrilled since they were Christians.  Just goes to show you that teenagers drove their parents nuts 2,000 years ago too.  Not sure if that makes anyone feel better, but at least you parents of teenagers can know that your misery has been shared by parents just like you for many, many years.  Of course, he could blame the people to whom he was a slave for introducing the practice to him.  [All said tongue-in-cheek!]

Here’s what I found out:  Patrick was born of fairly high rank in the land now known as Scotland around the year 387.  His parents, were considered Britons because of where they lived, but were also Roman citizens.  His father’s family name was Calphurnius and his mother was called Conchessa.  Some stories say she was niece to St. Martin of Tours. When he was about 14 or 16, he was captured from his home by Irish raiders and taken as a slave to Ireland to herd and tend sheep and cattle.  Ireland at that time was a land of Druids and pagans. He learned the language and practices of the people who held him, probably not voluntarily.  There are a couple of St. Patrick’s original writings that have survivied the centuries.  At some point during his captivity, he turned  back to God.  He wrote,

“The love of God and his fear grew in me more and more, as did the faith, and my soul was rosed, so that, in a single day, I have said as many as a hundred prayers and in the night, nearly the same.” “I prayed in the woods and on the mountain, even before dawn. I felt no hurt from the snow or ice or rain.”

He existed there for six years before gaining his freedom.  He escaped after having a dream in which he was told, he believed by God, to leave Ireland by going to the coast.  There he found some sailors who took him back to Britian, where he reunited with his family.  So, I’m sure, that when his family saw him again, they really didn’t care what he had done while being held in Ireland!  I’m sure they were just ecstatic that he was home.  After six years of hell though, he probably wasn’t the same person inside as the boy that was taken all those years ago.

He studied to become a priest, was ordained a bishop and returned to Ireland to preach to and convert the pagan people there.  Saint Patrick’s day is observed on March 17, the date of Patrick’s death.  He is believed to have died around the year 493, but have would have made him a mighty old man.

I’ll post more later on his life during his preaching days in Ireland.  There are so many interesting facts about Patrick it’s too much to put into one post!

Blessings!

Deneen