The Rosary Stops a Serial Killer

Much has been written about the notorious serial killer, Ted Bundy. But here is a story that is only now gaining wide attention. And it gives powerful witness to the miraculous power of the rosary.

On January 15, 1978, after taking the lives of two college students living in the Chi Omega sorority house of Florida State University, Bundy began combing the house for more victims. Carrying a bat, Bundy entered the room of his intended next victim, but suddenly stopped where he stood. Then he suddenly dropped the bat and left.

The police wanted to know why this girl had survived the attack—why had Bundy stopped just inside her room and fled? The girl agreed to speak with the police, but only if there was a priest in the room. So,the officers called a nearby parish. Though he was not the priest on call that night, the phone rang in the room of Fr. William Kerr (later Msgr. Kerr) and he quickly rushed to the scene.

The traumatized girl told the priest of a promise she had made to her grandmother when she had left home to start college. Each night, no matter how late she went to bed, she would pray the Rosary, to invoke the protection of the Blessed Mother. Yes, every night, even if she fell asleep after just a few decades. And in fact, that’s what had happened the night of the killings. Though sound asleep, she still clutched the rosary in her hands when Bundy entered her room. She stirred and saw a bat-wielding man standing over her. Without thinking, she opened her hands, exposing the rosary. Bundy saw the beads and immediately left.

Weeks later, Fr. Kerr received another late-night call, though again he was not the priest on duty. This time, the caller was the warden of the nearby prison. Bundy had just been apprehended and requested to speak with a priest. Fr. Kerr met with Bundy that night and continued to receive regular calls from him up to and including the night before Bundy’s execution, when he thanked Fr. Kerr for the help he had given him.

Bundy confessed to having committed over thirty murders in his lifetime. But one life, the life of a young girl who had made a promise to her grandmother, that life he didn’t take. Was that life spared because rosary beads fell from her hands? Bundy never said. But we can be sure that there is power in the Rosary, that there is safety under the mantle of Mary’s protection, and that there is spiritual growth and sustenance that comes from praying the mysteries of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection.

It is a relentless saga when trying to find the truth but a quick renewal when truth itself finds you

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was once asked what book he would want to have with him if ever he found himself stranded on a desert island. Along with the Bible he chose St Augustine’s Confessions. Some might have found the choice surprising but I think I agree. Having just gone through the book again for the fourth or fifth time I found myself even more engrossed in it than ever before. The first half of the book which recounts his conversion story is especially engaging.

Like The Story of a Soul by St Thérèse this book feels at once more familiar after several readings and yet somehow more filled with new lights. What St Augustine does is to instruct us in how to pursue something which is fundamental to spiritual growth, namely, the attainment of self-knowledge. He traces the thread of the working of God’s grace, as well as his own sinfulness, from his earliest memories right through to the time of his conversion and beyond. He even goes back further than his own memories can take him and writes of what he was told of his babyhood by others. The little detail about him being prone to laughter during his sleep as a baby is particularly endearing.

After this fourth or fifth reading, I have been left pondering something which I would like to share with you in this short article. It has to do with the influence of his youthful friendships. Parents cannot be vigilant enough when it comes to the question of their children’s friends. So many of us have been drawn away from whatever little virtue we had in our youth by the example and enticement of our wayward companions. Augustine was no different. Life in the fourth century sounds surprisingly similar to life in our own day.

Pears and Peers

Augustine’s famous story of the stealing of the pears illustrates the point. He probes his memory for the motivation behind the decision to rob an orchard, even though he had better pears at home and wasn’thungry. Most of the pears ended up being thrown to the hogs. He knew full well at the time that what he was doing was an act of gratuitous injustice. Did he do evil then purely for the sake of doing evil? Yet, this is not the way that our heart is generally disposed. Sin in us is normally the perversion of some good. In this case, it was done out of a kind of rambunctious camaraderie and the mocking delight of a group of friends at the thought of the outrage of the owners of the orchard.

It was friendship gone awry that was its motive. Augustine would never have done such a thing alone, but only because he was spurred on by his peers. He was desperate to impress them and to have his share in their act of mindless mischief. Friendship is one of God’s greatest gifts, but friendship warped by sin can have ruinous effects. The eloquent lament of the saint unmasks its danger, “O friendship all unfriendly! You strange seducer of the soul, who hungers for mischief from impulses of mirth and wantonness, who craves another’s loss without any desire for one’s own profit or revenge—so that, when they say, “Let’s go, let’s do it,” we are ashamed not to be shameless.” (Confessions. Book II, 9).

Captivity

There is a similar pattern in relation to the sin which would become fatal poison for Augustine’s soul and which could have led to his eternal perdition. The sin of lust also took hold of his heart as he journeyed with his friends ever further out upon what he calls the “stormy fellowship” of human life. In the company he kept during his teenage years it became the custom to want to outdo one another in lasciviousness. They would boast of their exploits and even exaggerate the real scale of their immorality to impress one another. The only thing that they were by now ashamed of was innocence and chastity. His holy mother had warned him sternly in his sixteenth year to avoid fornication and to stay away from other men’s wives. He would later write to the Lord about his arrogant dismissal of her admonitions, “These appeared to me but womanish counsels, which I would have blushed to obey. Yet they were from Thee, and I knew it not.” (Confessions.Book II, 3) What began with one or two sins of the flesh became a habit before long, and sadly for Augustine, this evil habit would later begin to feel like a necessity. What started as a boast to his friends finally enchained his will and took on a life of its own within him. The demon of lust had found its doorway into the throne room of his soul through a vain longing to impress.

The Spark of Truth

After reading Cicero at age nineteen, the saving grace of his intellectual quest to discover wisdom was sparked off. This passionate search would lead him through the study of different schools of philosophy, gnosticism, and a prolonged pondering of the problem of evil. All the while, this journey ran parallel to the sexual immorality which had engulfed his life. His mind was groping upwards for light, but his will was still mired in the mud of sin. The climactic point of this journey, when both tendencies within him would at last clash violently, came at around the age of thirty-two. It was then that the struggle which would determine his eternal fate—and whether or not he would become a light for all subsequent generations of Christians or simply disappear into darkness—broke into a raging interior inferno.

After listening to the sermons of the great Saint Ambrose and after reading the letters of Saint Paul, there could be no more doubt in his mind that in the Catholic Church alone would he find the truth he had always sought. It was clear to him now that Jesus Christ was his heart’s true desire and yet he was powerless to break the chains of lust which had shut that same heart up in a prison of vice. He was too sincere in the face of truth to think that he could ever come to life in Christ without a willingness to die to grave sin.

War and Liberation

The final battle which would decide the war for his soul followed upon a discussion with his friends about some illustrious Romans who had left everything behind to follow Christ. (Now the presence of good friends was beginning to right the wrongs of youth.) Seized with a holy desire to follow the example of the saints, and yet unable to do so because of his attachment to lust, an emotional Augustine stormed out of the house into the garden. Seeking out a place of solitude, he allowed the tears of regret and inner frustration to finally flow freely. They were to prove cleansing tears.

The moment had at last come when he was ready to let go. He consented to release his grip on sin for good. No sooner had this holy spiritual desire overcome his inordinate desire for physical pleasure than he heard a child’s voice singing repeatedly, “Take and read.” He interpreted this as a command from Almighty God placed upon the lips of babes. Rushing back to the house to take up the book of Saint Paul’s letters which he had left on the table, he told himself that he would accept whatever words his eyes first fell upon as an expression of the will of God for his life. This was what he read, “Let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” (Romans 13:13-14)

Triumph

Along with these words of Sacred Scripture, supernatural light was infused into his soul. Only moments after truly desiring to be delivered for the first time ever, deliverance was now his. The chains which had fettered his will for so long, subjecting it to the tempestuous rule of the passions, had been smashed to pieces by the grace of Christ the Liberator. His tormented soul was permitted to enter instantly into joy, peace, and the freedom of the children of God. In that momentous hour for the whole Church, the man once enslaved to lust through the unfortunate company kept as a youth had died and one of the most influential saints of all time had suddenly come to life.

Looking back years later, it was hard for the saint to believe that he could have ever allowed such paltry trifles to hold him back from the Lord and the ecstatic joys that would be given him in Christ. He had been like one clinging desperately to worthless trinkets while priceless treasure was held out to him. The Protestant scholar R.C. Sproul sums up the consensus of all Christians about the monumental importance of what happened on that day, “If there is any giant that stands out in the history of the Church as the man upon whose shoulders the whole history of theology stands, it is a man by the name of Aurelius Augustine, Saint Augustine.”

Venerated as one of the fourteen Holy Helpers (intercessors invoked especially against diseases) Saint Catherine of Alexandria is a virgin martyr of the late third century and early fourth centuries. Though there are no primary sources that attest to her life, there are many traditions about her kept alive over the centuries, including the fact that Joan of Arc claimed hers as one of the voices that spoke to her.

Born around 287 in Alexandria, Egypt, a cultural and educational center of the ancient world, she was of the noble class and a very gifted student. She embraced Christianity at age 14 after seeing a vision of Jesus and His blessed mother.

A precocious young woman, she didn’t hesitate at the age of 18 to challenge the emperor Maxentius when he began to cruelly persecute the Christian community. The emperor was so impressed by her wisdom that, rather than execute Catherine, he ordered her to debate his best philosophers, whom she easily bested. In fact, the philosophers were so taken by her wisdom, that they and some 200 soldiers embraced the faith. Sadly, all were immediately martyred.

Frustrated by Catherine’s amazing resilience, the emperor ordered that she be jailed and tortured. But even her brutal scourging did not cause Catherine to give up her faith. So, the emperor tried a novel approach: he offered to marry her and make her an empress. Already wedded to Christ and having dedicated her virginity to him, Catherine refused the emperor.

Enraged, the emperor ordered that she be executed on a spiked wheel, an especially brutal means of torture. But when Catherine touched the wheel, it miraculously shattered. Finally, the emperor commanded she be beheaded.

Especially popular during the medieval period, devotion to Catherine spread during the crusades and she has remained popular in both the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. Celebrated in much renaissance art, Catherine is the patroness of students and teachers, librarians, and lawyers. Her feast is celebrated on November 25.

May her courage and her wisdom in accepting death rather than abandoning her faith in Christ inspire us and give us hope. 

Saint Catherine of Alexandria, pray for us.

At Mass one day, after distributing Holy Communion, Saint Philip Neri saw a man leave the church just moments after he had received the Eucharist. The man seemed to lack awareness of the Real Presence of Jesus in the consecrated host he had just received. The good priest felt he had to do something to help the man understand how disrespectful his action was, so he quickly asked two altar boys to take their lighted candles and follow the man through the streets of Rome. Soon, the man realized the altar boys were following him. Puzzled, he returned to the church to ask Fr. Neri about it.

Saint Philip told the man, “We must pay proper respect to Our Lord, whom you are carrying away with you.

Since you neglected to adore Him, I sent two acolytes to take your place.” The man was deeply touched by these words, and resolved to be more aware of Jesus’ presence in his heart after each Holy Communion.

Our Lord Jesus is truly and substantially present in the Eucharist, and the minutes following Communion are ‘golden moments’ when we can have a heartfelt conversation with Him. He is present in our souls to listen to our every petition, carry our every burden, and bestow every grace we need. Let us be mindful of His loving presence, and spend at least a few minutes in thanksgiving and adoration after each Holy Communion.

Just last week, I had the joy of speaking at Youth Day at the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress. My audience was about four hundred high school students from around the country, and my topic, at the request of the organizers of the congress, was the relationship between religion and science. They knew, as I have been arguing for years, that a major reason that many young people are disaffiliating from our churches is the supposed conflict between science and the faith. I told my young audience that this “war” is in fact a fantasy, an illusion, the fruit of a tragic misunderstanding. And I attempted to show this by looking at four themes, which I will briefly summarize in this article.

First, in a very real sense, the modern physical sciences came from religion. The great founders of science—Kepler, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Descartes, etc.—were, without exception, trained in ecclesially sponsored schools and universities. It was under the aegis of the church that they took in their physics, their astronomy, and their mathematics. More specifically, they learned in those institutions two essentially theological truths necessary for the emergence of the experimental sciences—namely, that the universe is not God and that the universe, in every nook and cranny, is marked by intelligibility. If nature were divine—as indeed it is considered to be in many religions, philosophies, and mysticisms— then it could never be an apt subject for observation, analysis, and experimentation. And if nature were simply chaotic, void of form, it would never yield up the harmonies and patterned intelligibilities that scientists readily seek. When these two truths, which are both a function of the doctrine of creation, obtain, the sciences can get underway.

Second, when science and theology are properly understood, they are not in conflict, since they are not competing for primacy on the same playing field, like opposing football teams. Utilizing the scientific method, the physical sciences deal with events, objects, dynamics, and relationships within the empirically verifiable order. Theology, employing an entirely different method, deals with God and the things of God—and God is not an object in the world, not a reality circumscribed within the context of nature. As Thomas Aquinas put it, God is not ens summum (highest being), but rather ipsum esse (the act of being as such)—which is to say, God is not a being among beings, but instead the reason why there is an empirically observable universe at all. In this way, he is like the author of a richly complex novel. Charles Dickens never appears as a character in any of his sprawling narratives, yet he is the reason why any of those characters exist at all. Accordingly, the sciences, as such, can never adjudicate the question of God’s existence nor speak of his activity or attributes. Another type of rationality—not in competition with scientific rationality—is required for the determination of those matters.

And this brings me to my third point: scientism is not science. Sadly rampant today, especially among the young, scientism is the reduction of all knowledge to the scientific form of knowledge. The undeniable success of the physical sciences and the extraordinary usefulness of the technologies to which they have given rise have produced in the minds of many this conviction, but it represents a tragic impoverishment. A chemist might be able to tell us the chemical makeup of the paints that Michelangelo used on the Sistine Ceiling, but he couldn’t, qua scientist, tell us a thing about what makes that work of art so beautiful. A geologist might be able to tell us the stratification of the earth below the city of Chicago, but he could never, again qua scientist, tell us whether that city is being justly or unjustly governed. There isn’t a trace of the scientific method in Romeo and Juliet, but who would be so stupid as to assert that that play tells us nothing true about the nature of love. In a similar way, the great texts of the Bible and the theological tradition are not “scientific,” but they nevertheless speak the profoundest truths about God, creation, sin, redemption, grace, etc. Both the cause and effect of scientism, sadly, is the attenuation of the liberal arts in our institutions of higher education. Rather than appreciating literature, history, philosophy, and religion as conduits of objective truth, many today relegate these to the arena of subjective feeling or subject them to withering ideological criticism.

My fourth and final point is this: Galileo is one paragraph in one chapter of a very long book. The great astronomer is often invoked as the patron saint of heroic scientists struggling to free themselves from the obscurantism and irrationality of religion. The censorship of his books by the Church, and the great scientist’s virtual imprisonment at the behest of the pope, is taken as the dark paradigm of the Church/ science relationship. Obviously, the Galileo episode was hardly the Church’s finest moment, and in point of fact, John Paul II, expressing real contrition, explicitly apologized for it. But to use it as the lens for viewing the play between faith and science is crucially inadequate.

There have been, from the earliest days of the modern sciences, thousands of deeply religious people involved in scientific research and investigation. To name just a handful: Copernicus, revolutionary cosmologist and a third order Dominican; Nicholas Steno, the father of geology and a bishop of the Church; Louis Pasteur, one of the founders of microbiology and a devout Catholic layman; Gregor Mendel, the father of modern genetics and an Augustinian friar; Georges Lemaître, formulator of the Big Bang theory of cosmic origins and a Catholic priest; Mary Kenneth Keller, the first woman in the United States to receive a doctorate in computer science and a Catholic religious sister. I believe it is fair to say that all of these figures understood the fundamental points that I have laid out in this article and therefore saw that they could be utterly devoted to both their science and their faith.

In conclusion, I might especially urge Catholic scientists today— researchers, physicians, physicists, astronomers, chemists, etc.—to talk to young people about this issue. Tell them why the supposed warfare between religion and science is in fact a delusion, and even more importantly, show them how you have reconciled them in your own life. We simply cannot allow this silly justification for disaffiliation to stand.

What seems to be insignificant in our daily lives can hold immense value from Heaven’s perspective. Hard to believe? Read on to find out more…

“Do Small Things with Great Love” —my T-shirt features this well-known quote from Mother Teresa. Although I often wear the T-shirt at home, I had never considered its message deeply. Who really wants to do small things or even regard them as important? To be honest, most of us dream of doing something big, something extraordinary and remarkable which will bring us applause, admiration, recognition, self-satisfaction, and a sense of greatness.

The world tells us to go big or go home. We are only admired and considered great when we are successful in every area of life. So, somehow, we have subscribed to this notion—Big things = Greatness.

True Greatness

For most of my life, I’d believed the same thing. Perhaps this was why I was never quite content. I begged God to change my circumstances. I cried millions of tears for being given children with special needs. I wanted a different life. Being there for my children’s needs felt like being trapped between four walls at home.

I looked for meaning and purpose outside of God’s plans. Instead of paying close attention to what He wanted me to do, I pursued my own wishes. I refused to do “small things” in order to do big things merely for recognition. I preferred doing different things, and works which I thought would bring value to my life along with a sense of greatness and fulfillment.

I had it all wrong. Instead of being content in the realm where God had placed me, I was creating my own kingdom for my own happiness and glory. It took years for me to understand that greatness doesn’t come from doing my own will, proving my own worth to the world, gaining accolades or even showcasing my talents and skills. Rather it comes from remaining at the center of God’s will. Greatness comes from influencing, impacting, and serving in my own home, among my own community. Sometimes this realm may seem small and insignificant, but serving with love as He did will ultimately reveal the greater picture of His plans.

As Tony Evans says in his book, Destiny, “When you are living your life according to God’s purpose, He will cause all things in your life to blend together for good. When you are committed to Him above all else, He will measure everything in your life—the good, bad, and bitter and blend them into something divine.”

In essence, everything in your life, even the smallest, can yield a significant outcome for His glory when you remain faithful to the little you have been entrusted with (remembering the Parable of the Talents Matthew 25).

The Master’s Example

Jesus redefines greatness by showing us a way which is contrary to the world. Small things = Greatness. Jesus said to His disciples, “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave” (Matthew 20:26 – 27).

He reiterated that over and over again, and demonstrated it on the night before He died when He knelt before His apostles and washed their feet.

We often regard “service” as insignificant and beneath us, but Jesus shows us, in every word and action, what tremendous significance the smallest things can have in building His Kingdom. In His parables, He compares those actions to a tiny mustard seed which grows into the greatest of trees, or a pinch of yeast which makes dough grow and become more palatable. He chose to be born in a common stable instead of a royal palace. He noticed and valued the greater worth of the widow’s two coins amidst the great wealth cast into the treasury from what others had to spare. He transformed the gift of a boy’s lunch into an all-you-can-eat feast for over five thousand. He invited little ones to come to Him even when He was tired. He compared Himself to a good shepherd who notices one sheep missing from the flock and seeks it out in the dark. He compared His death to a kernel of wheat which falls to the ground and dies, but ultimately brings forth a great harvest.

He proclaimed that the very least people are the most precious in the sight of God. Small things are considered great in His kingdom! He demonstrated this to us by becoming one of us. “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28). To truly follow Him, I need to be prepared to put others’ needs ahead of my own, and to give myself in the service of others, treating each person I meet as I would like to be treated.

In his book, In Charge, Dr Myles Munroe writes, “Greatness in our materialistic world is defined as fame, popularity, scholastic or economic achievement and notoriety. Greatness may result from these qualities, but they are not the definition of greatness. Rather greatness comes from your service to the world. When you serve with your gifts, you become significant to humanity and people will describe you as ‘great’. In summary, greatness is significance. It comes from the value you add to others’ lives by serving them. Greatness isn’t about how many people are serving you, rather how many you are serving through your life.”

So What Makes You Great?

You are great when you are serving others. You are great when you are doing that less-appreciated job to fulfill the needs of your family. You are great when you are looking after a loved one who is unwell. You are great when you are making a difference in the lives of the underprivileged with your time and talents. You are great when you are encouraging a friend. You are great when you are letting your life make a dent in the universe with a positive force. You are great when you are cooking meals for your family. You are great when you are raising your kids. And you are great when you do small things with great love!

We know each of us has a guardian angel. But how often do we ask for his help?

The first time I realized my guardian angel was my best hope was when I was scheduled to teach three workshops at a Christian writing conference several hours away by car. I woke up with a horrible migraine and cried as I wondered how I would manage the drive. I did not want to be unprofessional and cancel at the last minute. I cried because there is an element of shame in being chronically ill—I suffer from migraine headaches that can debilitate me for nearly half the days in a month—and I did not want to admit how weak I was. So, I prayed to my angel to bring me safely there and back. I still don’t know how I made the long drive. I put on my Rosary CD, and then listened to the Gospel of John, thinking how beautiful it would be to have Jesus upon my heart if I were to die. Not that I wanted to die. My children were still young. My husband would miss me. And I was loving my writing life even more since we had converted to Catholicism. I wanted everybody to have what I had—Jesus!

And boom! The revelation hit me—my guardian angel isn’t here just to protect me from bodily harm but to make sure I get to Heaven. Heaven! That’s the goal. God loves us so much He appoints an angel from the moment of our conception to guard and protect us from all dangers, and to guide us to our eternal home. This awareness, which I’ve had since I was a small child, still astounds me. As a child, I had complete trust in God’s protection. But the problem of suffering, so present in my life, was difficult to reconcile with belief in an omnipotent God. So, at age twelve I lost my faith, and ended my invocations to my guardian angel. But, without my knowledge, my angel was still guiding me.

I am very thankful to my angel for protecting me from death during my twenties because had I died then, my intellect so clouded by sin, I might have rejected God’s mercy and gone to Hell. It is by the grace of God, and the patience and long-suffering of my guardian angel, that I’ve been able to hear His promptings and return to God, and when my plans derail, to pray “not my will but Thine”. I am also returning to that childhood state of complete trust and surrender. If I am anxious about anything, I ask my angel to take care of the situation. I call upon the guardian angels of my children when I’m at the brink of losing my patience. I also call upon the angels of the people to whom I want to be a faithful witness. What a comfort it is to draw upon heavenly assistance.

Guardian angels carry our prayers and offerings to the throne of God; they come to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass with us, and if we are unable to attend, as it was for many during the pandemic, we can ask our angel to go in our place to praise and adore our blessed Lord. These heavenly creatures are a gift to us. Let us always remember they are watching over us and want us to reach Heaven! Cultivate a relationship with your angel. They are God’s gift to each of us.

Dear angel! Ever at my side. How loving must thou be

To leave thy home in Heaven to guard a guilty wretch like me.

~ Fr. Frederick William Faber (AD 1814-1863)

Question:

Why do Catholics make the Sign of the Cross? What is the symbolism behind it?

Answer:

As Catholics, we pray the Sign of the Cross multiple times each day. Why do we pray it, and what’s it all about?

First, consider how we make the Sign of the Cross. In the Western Church, we use an open hand—which is used in blessing (hence we say that we “bless ourselves”). In the East, they hold three fingers together, as a sign of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), while the other two fingers are united as a sign of Christ’s Divinity and humanity.

The words we say confess the mystery of the Trinity. Notice that we say, “In the Name of the Father…” and not “In the Names of the Father”—God is one, so we say He only has one Name—and then we go on to name the Three Persons of the Trinity. Every time we begin a prayer, we recognize that the very core of our faith is that we believe in a God Who is One-in-Three: both unity and trinity.

As we say that confession of faith in the Trinity, we seal the sign of the Cross on ourselves. You are marking, publicly, who you are and Who you belong to! The Cross is our ransom, our “price-tag” if you will, so we remind ourselves that we have been purchased by the Cross. So when Satan comes to tempt us, we make the sign of the Cross to show him that we are already marked!

There is an amazing story in the book of Ezekiel, where an angel comes to Ezekiel and tells him that God is going to chastise all of Israel for its unfaithfulness—but there are still some good people left in Jerusalem, so the angel goes around and puts a mark on the foreheads of those who are still faithful to God. The mark he makes is the “Tau”—the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and it is drawn like a cross! God has mercy on those marked with the Tau, and strikes down those without it.

In the same way, those of us who are signed with the Cross will be preserved from the justice of God, and will receive His mercy instead. In ancient Egypt, God had the Israelites put the lamb’s blood over their doors at Passover so that they would be saved from the angel of death. Now, by signing the Cross over our bodies, we invoke the Blood of the Lamb upon us, so that we are saved from the power of death!

But where do we put that Sign of the Cross? We put it on our forehead, our heart, and our shoulders. Why? Because we are put here on this earth to know, love, and serve God, so we ask Christ to be the king of our minds, our hearts (our desires and loves), and our actions. Every aspect of our life is put under the Sign of the cross, that we may know, love, and serve Him.

The Sign of the Cross is an incredibly powerful prayer. Often it’s used as the preamble to a prayer, but it has immense power in its own right. During the persecutions of the early Church, some pagans tried to kill Saint John the Apostle because his preaching was turning many people away from pagan gods to embrace Christianity. The pagans invited John over for dinner, and poisoned his cup. But before he began the meal, John prayed grace and made the Sign of the Cross over his cup. Instantly a snake crawled out of the cup, and John was able to escape unharmed.

Listen to the words of Saint John Vianney: “The Sign of the Cross is the most terrible weapon against the devil. Thus, the Church wishes not only that we have it continually in front of our minds, to recall to us just what our souls are worth and what they cost Jesus Christ, but also that we should make it at every juncture ourselves: when we go to bed, when we awaken during the night, when we get up, when we begin any action, and, above all, when we are tempted.”

The Sign of the Cross is one of the most powerful prayers we have—it invokes the Trinity, seals us with the Blood of the Cross, puts to flight the Evil One, and reminds us who we are. Let us make that Sign carefully with devotion, and let us make it frequently throughout the day. It is the outward sign of who we are, and Who we belong to.

All of us have cried countless tears throughout our lives. But did you know that God has collected every one of them?

Why do we cry? We cry because we are sad or fed up. We cry because we are hurt and lonely. We cry because we have been betrayed or disillusioned. We cry because we have regret, we wonder why, how, where, what. We cry because… well, sometimes we don’t even know why we are crying! If you have ever cared for a baby, you know the stress of trying to figure out why the child is crying, especially after you have fed them, changed them, put them down for a nap! Sometimes they just want to be held. Similarly, sometimes we too want to be held in the embrace of God, but are conscious of our sinfulness that seems to distance us from Him.

From Eyes to God’s Heart

The Scriptures tell us even Jesus cried: “And Jesus wept” (John 11:35)—the shortest verse in the Gospel—opens a window into the heart of Jesus. In Luke 19:41-44 we learn that Jesus “shed tears over” Jerusalem because its inhabitants did not “know the time of (their) visitation.” In the Book of Revelation John “wept bitterly” because there was nobody fit to open the scroll and read it (Revelation 5:4). This awareness of the human condition can limit our ability to grasp the fulness of life which God continually offers each of us. Revelation 21:4 reminds us that “God will wipe away every tear”, yet Psalm 80:5 says that the Lord “has fed them with the bread of tears and made them to drink tears in large measure.” So, which is it? Does God want to dry our tears and console us, or does He want to make us cry?

Jesus cried because there is power in tears. There is solidarity in tears. Because He loves each person so much that He can’t bear the blindness that prevents us from accepting the opportunities God gives us to be close to Him, to be loved by Him, and to experience His great mercy. Jesus was overcome with compassion when he saw Martha and Mary suffering the loss of their brother Lazarus. But His tears also may have been a response to the deep wound of sin which causes death. Death has consumed God’s creation since the time of Adam and Eve. Yes, Jesus wept…for Lazarus and for his sisters. Yet during this painful experience Jesus performs one of His greatest miracles: “Come forth!” He says, and His good friend Lazarus walks out of the tomb. Love always has the final word.

Another beautiful Scripture which speaks of tears and offers an image I cherish is found in Psalm 56:9: “My wanderings you have noted; are my tears not stored in Your flask.” It is humbling and consoling to think that the Lord collects our tears. They are precious to the Father; they can be an offering to our merciful God.

Wordless Prayers

Tears can heal the heart and cleanse the soul and bring us closer to God. In her great masterpiece, The Dialogue, Saint Catherine of Siena devoted an entire chapter to the spiritual significance of tears. For her, tears express “an exquisite, profound sensitivity, a capacity for being moved and for tenderness.” In his book, Discerning Hearts, Dr. Anthony Lilles says that Saint Catherine “Presents those holy affections as the only proper response to the great love revealed in Christ crucified. These tears move us away from sin and into the very heart of God.” Recall the woman who anointed Jesus’s feet with the precious nard, washed them with her tears, and dried them with her hair. Her pain is real, but so is her experience of being infinitely loved.

Our tears remind us that we need God and others to walk with us along the pilgrim way. Life situations may cause us to cry, but sometimes those tears can water the seeds of our future happiness. Charles Dickens reminded us that “we should never be ashamed of our tears for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts.” At times, tears are the only bridge for us to reach God, to pass from death to life, from crucifixion to Resurrection. When Jesus encountered Mary Magdalene on that day of Resurrection, He asked, “Woman, why are you weeping?” But He soon transformed her tears into an explosion of Paschal joy as he mandated her to be the first messenger of the Resurrection.

As we continue our pilgrim journey, struggling at times to understand the folly of the Cross, may we weep for those things which make Jesus weep—war, sicknesses, poverty, injustice, terrorism, violence, hatred, anything which makes little of our brothers and sisters. We weep with them; we weep for them. And when tears rush over us at the most unexpected moments, may we rest in the peace of knowing that our God catches each one with gentleness and care. He knows every tear and He knows what caused it. He collects them and mixes them with the divine tears of His Son. One day, united with Christ, our tears will be tears of joy!

Each of us have weaknesses that we struggle with. But the Holy Spirit is our Helper!

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. (Romans 12:12)

Patience was not my strong point before I was renewed in my faith.

I am ashamed when I recall moments when I lost my temper, such as the time I blasted someone at the shop for being “racist” to my mom; the incident at work in the Philippines when I stormed into the general’s office demanding justice for the employees; the many occasions when I’ve stuck up the rude finger to someone who overtook me (maybe this is why the Lord did not allow me to continue driving!); and the many pathetic little episodes of intolerant, rude behaviour, or sullen sulkiness when I did not get my own way.

I was so impatient. If someone didn’t turn up on the dot at the time we had agreed to meet, I would leave immediately, justifying that they were not worthy of my time. When the Lord beckoned me, patience was one of the first fruits that I gained from the Holy Spirit. The Lord impressed upon me that I could not be a good servant if I did not have a compassionate, patient, and understanding heart.

Learning to Wait

Recently, my husband took me to Melbourne’s Eye and Ear Hospital for an emergency check. It brought back memories of the years when I travelled daily to the Central Business District (CBD), joining thousands of city workers who looked so unhappy but comforted themselves with the thought that they had the job of a lifetime. I even worked a lot of overtime, thinking I would get rich by doing so (I didn’t).

Working in the corporate sector, the only joy I got was running over to lunchtime Mass at St. Patrick’s or St. Francis’. If I was really bored, I would wander aimlessly down the Myer Mall, meaninglessly shopping for things that gave me temporary happiness. Every day, I asked the Lord when He would “release” me from the tiresome daily commute and the unfulfilling jobs. I would have said it was a waste of my valuable time if not for the daily Masses, the good friends I met, and the way I used the time on the train—praying, reading good books, and sewing tapestries.

As I look back, it took many years for Him to answer my prayer—to give me meaningful work within my locality, just fifteen minutes’ drive from home. I had persisted in my prayer, never giving up hope and trust that He would have mercy on me and heed my request.

When I finally said goodbye to city work, I felt a weight lift off my shoulders. I was finally free from that daily drudgery. Although I was grateful for the experience, I felt refreshed, looking forward to a more peaceful pace of life. With an ageing body, my mind was slowing down, and my coping mechanisms were becoming more limited.

When I returned to walk down those familiar streets again, it seemed that nothing much had changed—the street beggars were still there; some corners still smelt of urine and vomit; people paced and up down, walking, running or chasing the next train; people queued to order at the restaurants which had proliferated; and retail stores still jostled to display their wares enticingly to loosen wallets. The sound of sirens abounded. Police presence was strong, and I prayed for my daughter, wondering how she was coping with her job protecting city life.

It was all so familiar that it felt like déjà vu, but the only comfortable refuge I found was in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where I had been a lector at lunchtime Mass, and St. Francis’ where I had knelt before Mother Mary to light a candle on my first arrival in Australia. My fervent prayer for a good husband was answered in three weeks. God knows when things are urgent.

Much-Needed Virtue

The IBelieve website shares this wonderful teaching. The popular saying “patience is a virtue” comes from a poem around 1360. However, even before then the Bible often mentions patience as a valuable quality. Patience is commonly defined as the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset. In other words, patience is essentially “waiting with grace.”

Part of being Christian is the ability to accept unfortunate circumstances gracefully while having faith that we will ultimately find resolution in God. In Galatians 5:22, patience is listed as one of the fruits of the Spirit. If patience is a virtue, then waiting is the best (and often most unpleasant) means by which the Holy Spirit grows patience in us. But our culture does not value patience in the same way that God does.

Why be patient? Instant gratification is much more fun! Our increasing ability instantly to satisfy our wants may be taking away the blessing of learning how to wait well. How, then, do we wait “well”? I recommend you read the entire article. Patience is waiting quietly; it is waiting eagerly. Patience is waiting until the end; it is waiting expectantly. Patience is waiting joyfully; it is waiting with grace. But the one thing we shouldn’t wait for and not postpone for another second is acknowledging Jesus as Lord and Savior of our lives. In the twinkle of an eye, we could be called to surrender our life.

Pursuing Patience

Since the Feast of Pentecost 20 years ago, I have been renewed in my faith. I am deeply grateful to the Holy Spirit for giving me the virtue of patience, changing me from a miserable, angry sinner into someone who has the ability to wait for His leading and help. This is the mystery of this gift. You cannot do it alone—you need Divine Grace. I did not turn into a gentle, patient person over night, and every day is a testing ground for me. Patience is said to be the “banana” of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, as it can quickly rot. I continue to be tested, but the Holy Spirit hasn’t let me down. While I was writing this article, I managed to wait on the phone for 4 hours to get an issue resolved!

The world never ceases to beckon me to hurry on. The devil is always trying to lure me into another trap by annoying me until I lose control. My egocentric self is always demanding that I should come first, so I am very much in need of the Holy Spirit to help me to maintain my patience with self-control. However, to truly exercise patience to everyone around us, Saint Francis de Sales tells us that we must first be patient with ourselves. A word of caution though. Patience is not about allowing ourselves to be a victim of abuse or enabling sinful behaviour. But that is a topic for another time, so I ask for your patience.

“The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing it.” – Arnold Glasow

Overwhelmed by life’s burdens? Find out how you can heave a sigh of relief

For many years of my marriage, I carried the burden of being married to a spouse who didn’t share my faith. As parents, many of us carry the burdens of our children and family members. But I would say to you, trust in God’s plan, trust in His perfect timing for His divine providence. Psalm 68:18-20 says, “Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.” What should we do with our burdens?

Firstly, don’t despair. When we are discouraged, it is never of the Lord. We know that the Bible tells us in Mathew 6:34, “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own.” Scripture also says, “Each day has enough trouble of its own.” When we are at peace, it’s of God, but when we are worried, it’s of the devil. There is no worry in Heaven, only love, joy and peace.

My beloved husband, Freddy, developed Alzheimer’s disease in the last eight and a half years of his life. Through this period of living with a husband who had Alzheimer’s, I found that the Lord’s grace was amazing in my life. He gave me the grace not to carry the burden of his illness. This could have destroyed me. I found myself in a position where I had to pray and continually give everything to the Lord, on a moment by moment basis. When you live with someone who has Alzheimer’s life is constantly changing. Every morning when I get up, I go to the Bible. I make it the first fruits of my day. I know that my Jesus already carried every one of our burdens when He died on the Cross for us. He has paid the price for each one of us, and He waits for each of us to appropriate the many blessings that He has purchased for us through His death on the Cross.

Promises That Sustained Me

In that season I learned many lessons. I learned that sometimes God doesn’t want to change our circumstances, but He wants to change your heart through the circumstances that you are going through. That is exactly what happened to me. I learned more in the valleys than I did in the promised land and on the mountain tops. When you face challenging situations, you learn to swim or you flop to the bottom. You learn that God can find a way where there is no way.

I would continually ask the Lord, “Give me the grace like Paul to be content in all circumstances.” In the letter to the Philippians, Paul writes that he has learnt to be content regardless of the circumstances. Then he made this statement, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” We have to know it is the Lord’s strength and not our strength that carries us. We have to trust in the Lord and not depend on our own understanding. We have to cast our burdens onto Him and allow Him to sustain us. When we start to go into worry mode, we just spiral downwards. That’s when we need to come to the Lord and give Him our burdens. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28, 29) is a fantastic scripture verse that has carried me all through the eight and a half years. That’s a promise! So each of us in faith have to be prepared to throw the whole weight of our worry and anxieties for ourselves and our loved ones onto the Lord.

Mission Possible!

Take a moment now to give to the Lord all those people that you carry in your heart. It might be your spouse, your children, or someone else who has gone astray or is rebellious. Take a leap of faith now and give it all to the Lord because He cares for you. Give to the Lord all those areas where the enemy of your soul has robbed you of your peace. It took twenty-eight long years of waiting before my husband came to know Jesus. I would give him to the Lord all the time. I would say that he is a “testimony-in-the-making,” and I never gave up. God converted him and healed his soul through a dream. God’s timing is so different from ours. Luke 15:7 says, “there will be more rejoicing in Heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” I can tell you, there was a full-blown party in Heaven when my Freddy converted! The Lord showed me that he was one of my great missions. Who is your great mission? Is it your husband, your wife, son, or daughter? Ask the Lord to touch them and He will grant these prayers.

It’s Never Too Late

My Freddy went home to glory on May 14th, 2017. I know that he is up there now, and he is looking down on me. In Luke 5:32 Jesus says, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” So, God’s mercy is FOR sinners, and we are all saved by His grace.

The Lord says in Isaiah 65:1, “I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me. To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, ‘Here am I, here am I.’”

In Saint Faustina’s Diary we read about God’s mercy towards the dying: “I often attend upon the dying and through entreaties obtain trust in God’s mercy for them, and implore God for an abundance of divine grace, which is always victorious. God’s mercy sometimes touches the sinner at the last moment in a wondrous and mysterious way. Outwardly, it seems as if everything were lost, but it is not so. The soul, illuminated by a ray of God’s powerful final grace, turns to God in the last moment with such a power of love that, in an instant, it receives from God forgiveness of sin and punishment, while outwardly it shows no sign either of repentance or of contrition, because souls [at that stage] no longer react to external things. Oh, how beyond comprehension is God’s mercy!” (Paragraph 1698)

Let’s pray: Lord we come to the throne room of grace where we will find grace in time of need. We bring before you the ones who are treasured in our hearts. Grant them the grace of repentance and conversion. Amen.