The Women at the Tomb ~ True Charity

My Meditation on the Gospel ~ Confraternity of the Precious Blood

THE WOMEN AT THE TOMB — TRUE CHARITY

Mark 16 : 1-4

1. The women starting for the tomb at the crack of dawn, anxious to anoint Jesus.

2. The grace of true charity — love that is completely selfless.

While Jesus was in the tomb, the women prepared spices and ointments of all kinds. In their sorrow they had to keep themselves busy, and it was good to be busy about something that would be a service to Him.

Very early on the first day they were permitted to go to the tomb (Sabbath rest forbade it on Saturday) they started for the sepulchre. A few of them went to buy whatever spices they were lacking.

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My King, Your Sacred Body didn’t have to be anointed. Nicodemus had brought Friday. Every respect had been paid to You. It was with the greatest care that they wrapped Your Body in clean linens and laid It carefully in the rich tomb of Joseph.

Nor could You appreciate this extra attention since, as far as the women knew, You were still dead. Neither could they count on any favors. Apparently You were defeated. The only thing they could expect would be insults and derision,

But they had to do something! That’s the way love is. They had to find some service for their Beloved; and they had to be near You! Truly love serves; truly love is stronger than death.

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Dear Master, I feel ashamed when I contrast their beautiful, selfless, undying love with my fickle and feeble affection. I say I love You and yet so much of my service is only a service of myself.

I look for praise even in the work I think I am doing for You. I am disappointed when I seem to fail — even though You have such different standards of success and failure, and only judge by the greatness of the effort and the love which prompts it.

All disappointment and worry and fretting means that I am more concerned with myself than with You and Your service.

Give me clear vision, Lord! Give me a great heart! Let my eyes see only You and my heart love only You! And thus let my every moment be spent in Your service.

Take my efforts, my thoughts, my joys, my success, my failures. They can all serve You. I give them all to You. No more fretting or worry! So what if I fail according to worldly standards! It is only You I want to please, and You are pleased even by failure. Love is service; love is total abandonment.

 Take me — all that I am and do and think and say!

The home is the heart of the Christian life. It is there that love is first learned, prayers are first spoken, and God is first known. In a good home, children grow not only in years but in grace, learning by the quiet example of their parents to love what is good, to seek what is holy, and to serve God with joyful hearts. Such a home becomes a little heaven on earth, where peace dwells and God is always near. ~Inspired by the writings of Fr. Lovasik

Penal Rosaries! 

Penal rosaries and crucifixes have a wonderful story behind them. They were used during the times when religious objects were forbidden and it was illegal to be Catholic. Being caught with a rosary could mean imprisonment or worse. A penal rosary is a single decade with the crucifix on one end and, oftentimes, a ring on the other. When praying the penal rosary you would start with the ring on your thumb and the beads and crucifix of the rosary in your sleeve, as you moved on to the next decade you moved the ring to your next finger and so on and so forth. This allowed people to pray the rosary without the fear of being detected. Available here.

Christ in the Home, Fr. Raoul Plus, S.J. ~ Available here.

A must-read for the married and those considering marriage! This guidebook to finding a happy marriage, keeping a happy marriage, and raising happy children has been out of print for over 50 years…until now! From the master of the spiritual life, Raoul Plus, S.J., it contains loads of practical and spiritual advice on family life. Have you been looking for a handbook on marriage and raising children that is based on truth? You’ve found it!

Holy Simplicity by Fr. Raoul Plus, S.J. ~ Available here.

The saints assure us that simplicity is the virtue most likely to draw us closer to God and make us more like Him.

No wonder Jesus praised the little children and the pure of heart! In them, He recognized the goodness that arises from an untroubled simplicity of life, a simplicity which in the saints is completely focused on its true center, God.

That’s easy to know, simple to say, but hard to achieve.

For our lives are complicated and our personalities too. (We even make our prayers and devotions more complicated than they need be!)

In these pages, Fr. Raoul Plus provides a remedy for the even the most tangled lives.

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