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World
Day of Prayer for Vocations (Sun. April 13)
(Radio address of Father Paul on Vocations)
My
Friends:
For
our salvation God the Father gave to us His Only Begotten
Son and the Only Begotten Son not content with giving
Himself has also given to us the Holy Spirit, the Third
Person of the Godhead, the Paraclete or Comforter, as
Christ called Him. What a stupendous gift and with what
joy and gratitude we ought to accept and receive the gift!
To every individual listener I address the question: "In
what way have you received the Holy Spirit and what kind
of treatment have you handed out to this Divine Visitor,
Who has come as a Guest to dwell in our body, in our spirit,
and in our souls?" St. Paul, writing to the Corinthian
Christians said: "Know you not that your bodies are
the temples of the Holy Spirit?" [1 Cor.6:19] Have
you become thoroughly acquainted with the Holy Spirit
since He came to abide with you within the confines of
that house of clay you occupy, namely, your carnal body?
When I was a boy I often heard in a certain home a song,
bearing the title, " Strangers Yet." The "strangers"
were a man and his wife who, although they had lived for
years under the same roof, had really not gotten well
acquainted with each other. Can you apply the words of
that song to yourself in relation to the Holy Spirit,
the Paraclete, Who has lived with you under the same roof
all these years, and still He is a Stranger to you? You
know Him not! For what purpose did the Holy Spirit come
to you? The Holy Spirit has come to form Christ within
you, to make you a vessel of sanctification fit for the
Divine Master's use. Have you yielded yourself to His
influence and direction or have you rejected His dominion,
and, instead of being led of the Spirit are you being
led of the flesh, for the lusts of the flesh are contrary
to the Spirit of God and we cannot be carnally minded
and spiritually minded at the same time.
There enters into the life of almost every man and woman
another personality that dominates and directs and influences
them for good or for evil. Let the Personality that will
dominate, direct and influence you, not for evil, but
for good be the Holy Spirit! He Who came upon the Apostles
on Pentecost Sunday with the force of a mighty, rushing
wind and endowed them with power to conquer the world
for Christ and to triumph over the powers of darkness.
I am asking the Holy Spirit this morning to select certain
choice souls among my listeners to give them a call to
enter the Religious Life, either as Franciscan Friars
or Sisters of the Atonement.
You have heard much about vocations. A religious vocation
is really a call of the Holy Spirit addressed to some
particular individual that God has chosen and then when
the call comes it is up to the individual to respond to
that call as the boy, Samuel, did, when he heard in the
watches of the night a voice calling: "Samuel, Samuel."
First Samuel thought it was Eli, his Priest-Superior,
who was calling and he went to Eli and said: "Did
you call me." And Eli said: "No, my son, go
and lie down again." But the third time Eli perceived
it was God who was calling and he instructed Samuel to
say, when he again heard the voice: "Speak, Lord,
for your servant hears you." [1 Sam. 3:5-9]
So, when the voice of the Holy Spirit sounds in the ear
of your soul, calling you by name, make answer as did
Samuel: "Speak, Lord, for your servant hears you."
(St. Anthony Hour May 16, 1937)
What Graymoor Offers Religious Aspirants (from The
Lamp)
Many are the young men and young women to whom has come
the knowledge of a call to the Religious life, but with
whom the question is still unanswered: Where shall I go
in order to test my vocation; to what one of the many
Orders or Religious Congregations shall I offer myself
as an aspirant? To such the lines which follow are addressed.
In the briefest fashion we propose to set down some of
the attractions which we believe intrinsically constitute
the Society of the Atonement, a powerful magnet to draw
to itself Religious Vocations.
It Is a Branch of the Franciscan Tree
One of the greatest assets of the Society of the Atonement
is that it belongs to the Franciscan Family and that its
Religious inheritance for time and eternity is in the
Seraphic Household of the Assisian Patriarch.
This alone is of inestimable value and almost a certain
guarantee of great fecundity. To magnify the Franciscan
type of the Religious life at the expense of any other
would be an invidious mode of comparison but that the
Franciscan family has surpassed all others in prolific
fruitfulness is a fact conceded by all. The Church herself
has piously recognized it by giving to St. Francis in
the litany which the faithful recite in his honor the
title of " Abraham of the New Law by reason of his
numerous posterity."
Its Mission the Salvation of People
We are often asked: What is the special work of the Society
of the Atonement? What do the Friars and Sisters of the
Atonement propose to do?
In a sentence to spend and be spent to the uttermost to
make the Atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ effectual
for the salvation of all, the Society's motto being, Omnia
pro Christo et Salute hominum--All things for Christ and
the salvation of all people. This means sacrifice and
suffering and self-abnegation, of course, but did not
Our Lord say:
If
any man will come after me let him deny himself, and take
up his cross and follow Me, for he that will save his
life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for
My sake, shall find it. (St. Matt. 16:24)
Its End-- union with God
The Society's end for all its members and those for whose
salvation it ministers is Union with God, the very word
Atonement, etymologically considered, signifies this,
i.e., At-one-ment. The Fall in Eden made a breach between
man and God, the end or purpose of Calvary's Atonement
was to repair this breach and to draw man to God in an
eternal union and fellowship. When the Holy See consented
to accept the Society of the Atonement under Peter's protection
and to preserve its name and corporate existence, it was
the climax of a remarkable series of providential occurrences,
all of which go far to confirm our faith in its supernatural
origin and predestination. Assuming such faith to be well
founded God must have endowed the Society with the necessary
means to sanctify its members, so that they may realize
its end, viz., Union with God. This above and beyond every
other consideration and inducement ought to powerfully,
yes, irresistibly, attract the young Religious aspirant
to our Holy Institute, for what should anyone seek more
ardently than Union with God?
The Home of the Society
Not least among the material evidences of God's favor
towards the Society of the Atonement is the portion of
land which Divine Providence selected and led us to, that
the Society might have a fitting and congenial home for
the reception and nurture of its first members. We have
often said, that if some American Croesus had placed in
our hands a million dollars and sent us out in quest of
an estate suitable for our foundation we could not have
found anywhere a site so admirably adapted to its holy
purpose as Graymoor certainly is. Geographically Graymoor
lies about midway between Garrison (opposite West Point)
and Peekskill, surrounded on every side by the Highlands
of the Hudson, thus it is completely shut in from the
noise and bustle of the busy world though barely fifty
miles from the heart of New York City. The healthfulness
of the locality is proverbial.(The Lamp May 1912
pp.113-116)
For
a printable version of this article click
here.
Passover
(Sat. Apr. 19)
(Article on the Passover and the Sacrifice of the
Mass by Fr. Paul in The Antidote)
The
Sacrifice which Christ made of Himself on Mount Calvary
stands in the center of all time. It looks back on all
the sacrifices of the Old Testament, confirming the value
they had by virtue of Christ's anticipated sacrifice of
Himself on the cross and it also looks forward to all
the sacrifices of the New Testament yet to come until
the end of time. For, on the night in which He was betrayed,
Jesus not only ate the Passover with His Disciples, which
Passover was ordained in the foreknowledge of God as the
type or prophecy of the Sacrifice of Christ Himself upon
the cross as the lamb of God that takes away the sins
of the world, but He joined with that paschal supper the
institution of the memorial sacrifice of the New Testament
which was to look back on Calvary, even as the Passover
or the other sacrifices of the Old Testament looked forward
to the same Calvary. And, when Our Lord commanded His
Disciples to "Do this in remembrance of Me,"
[1 Cor.11:24] he was using Sacrificial language, and commanded
them to perpetuate the Holy Eucharist as a memorial or
re-presentation, of the ONE All-Sufficient Sacrifice of
Calvary until His second coming. (The Antidote
July 1922 pp.150-152)
For
a printable version of this article click
here.
Earth
Day (Tues. Apr.22)
(Radio
Talk of Fr. Paul on the Beauties of Graymoor)
Today
[Oct. 4] is one of our principal festivals at Graymoor,
the Feast of our Father, Saint Francis, the Seraphic Patriarch
of Assisi. It happens also to be the dedication of Saint
Francis House at Graymoor, the convent of our Sisters
and it was forty years ago yesterday, the eve of the Feast
that the Father Founder of the Institute came into the
Graymoor Valley to find his future home. From that day
to this I have known no other home for which I cannot
be too thankful to the Giver of every good and perfect
gift.
Hidden
away amid the highlands of the Hudson, Graymoor, at that
time, was absolutely unknown and unrecognized beyond its
narrow limits. If, at that time, a letter had been addressed
to Graymoor, it would have landed in the dead letter office.
After forty years the story is quite different. There
are people in India and Africa who know about Graymoor,
but are ignorant of the existence of Ossining, Peekskill,
Newburgh, Beacon and Poughkeepsie, its neighboring towns
and cities.
When we renounced everything to walk in the footsteps
of Saint Francis and had not so much as a penny in our
pocket, we had given to us our Beulah-land of the Atonement,
and, after three trips to Europe, visiting many countries
and cities each time and returning to Graymoor, I have
said with profound and increasing conviction, "This
is the most beautiful place I have seen in all my travels."
How often have I heard the same exclamation proceed from
the lips of people who have traveled far and wide after
having conducted them over the summit of the Mount of
the Atonement, taken them to the top of the Holy Spirit
Tower with its magnificent outlook, North, South, East
and West.
It is a joy to us that so many thousands of God's children
making the pilgrimage to Graymoor, particularly on Sundays,
have shared with us not only the beauty of the scene but
the pleasure of sojourning with us in this God-built and
God-given beauty spot, sharing with us in the good God
to Whom we owe it. Witnessing the people walking about
and the children playing under the trees on the mountain,
we have rejoiced in sharing it with them as their inheritance
from our Heavenly Father together with ours.
Although we have traveled far in the rear of St. Francis,
we have at least tried to walk in his footsteps, and we
thank God for whatever of His spirit He has put upon us
in exercising hospitality not alone to the Brothers Christopher,
our Brother pilgrims of the road whom we shelter at Saint
Christopher's Inn, but for all our good friends and our
brothers and sisters in Christ who are constantly coming
in increasing numbers to visit Graymoor as a pilgrim shrine
of devotion. (Miraculous Medal Hour October 4, 1939)
For
a printable version of this article click
here.
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