Prayer request from a family in Connecticut asking prayers for a young mother of 3 children.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph please bring help to all who are in need.

From the below video's description: 

Msgr. George F. Dillion, D.D. gave lectures on the subjects of Freemasonry, Communism, Atheism, Liberalism and Secret Societies. He explains the history and how these groups are united to destroy the Catholic Church and Christian Civilization to bring forth the Anti-Christ. This lecture was delivered in October 1884 in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is extremely eye opening and timely given the rise of Socialism [...] infiltration along with the subversion of the Catholic Church via these forces since Vatican II ... . You can read a copy of the book for free at this link.

Taken from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Guéranger  (1841-1875)

Quote:Joachim’s wealth, like that of the first patriarchs, consisted chiefly in flocks and herds. The holy use he made of it drew down God’s blessing upon it. But the greatest of all his desires heaven seemed to refuse him. His holy spouse Anne was barren. Amongst all the daughters of Israel expecting the Messias, there was no hope for her. One day the victims Joachim presented in the Temple were contemptuously rejected. Those were not the gifts the Lord of the Temple desired of him; later on, instead of lambs from his pastures, he was to present the Mother of the Lamb of God, and his offering would not be rejected.

This day, however, he was filled with sorrow and fled away without returning to his wife. He hastened to the mountains where his flocks were at pasture; and living in a tent, he fasted continually, for he said: “I will take no food till the Lord my God look mercifully upon me; prayer shall be my nourishment.”

Meanwhile Anne was mourning her widowhood and her barrenness. She prayed in her garden as Joachim was praying on the mountain. Their prayers ascended at the same time to the Most High, and he granted them their request. An Angel of the Lord appeared to each of them and bade them meet at the Golden Gate, and soon Anne could say: “Now I know that the Lord hath greatly blessed me. For I was a widow and I am one no longer, and I was barren, and lo! I have conceived!”

Quote:“Rejoice, O Joachim, for of thy daughter a Son is born to us,” exclaims St. John Damascene. It is in this spirit the Church reads today the list of the royal ancestors of our Savior. Joseph, the descendant of these illustrious princes, inherited their rights and passed them on to Jesus, who was his Son according to the Jewish law, though according to nature he was of the line of his Virgin Mother alone.

St. Luke, Mary’s Evangelist, has preserved the names of the direct ancestors of the Mother of the Man-God, springing from David in the person of Nathan, Solomon’s brother. Joseph, the son of Jacob according to St. Matthew, appears in St. Luke as son of Heli. The reason is that by espousing Mary, the only daughter of Hili or Heliachim, that is Joachim, he became legally his son and heir.

This is the now generally received explanation of the two genealogies of Christ the Son of David. It is not surprising that Rome, the queen city who has become the Bride of the Son of man in the place of the repudiated Sion, prefers to use in her Liturgy the genealogy which by its long line of royal ancestors emphasizes the kingship of the Spouse over Jerusalem. The name of Joachim, which signifies “the preparation of the Lord,” is thus rendered more majestic, without losing aught of its mystical meaning.

Taken from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Guéranger  (1841-1875)

Quote:The Epistle we have just read is closely connected with the Gospel that is to follow. The rest that Mary sought is the better part, the repose of the soul in the presence of the Peaceful King; and when a soul is thus full of peace, she forms the choicest part of her Lord’s inheritance. No creature has attained so nearly as our Lady to the eternal, unchangeable peace of the ever-tranquil Trinity; hence no other has merited to become, in the same degree, the resting place of God.

A soul occupied by active works cannot attain the perfection or the fruitfulness of one in whom our Lord takes his rest, because she is at rest in him; for this is the nuptial rest. As the Psalm says: “When the Lord shall give sleep to his beloved, then shall their fruit be seen.”

Let us, then, who became Mary’s children on the day the Lord first rested in her tabernacle, understand these magnificent expressions of Eternal Wisdom; for they reveal to us the glory of her triumph. The branch that sprang from the stock of Jesse bears the divine Flower on which rests the fullness of the Holy Ghost; but it has taken root also in the elect, into whose branches it passes the heavenly sap, which transforms them and divinizes their fruit. These fruits of Jacob and of Israel, i.e., the works of the ordinary Christian life or of the life of perfection, belongs therefore to our Blessed Mother. Rightly then does Mary enter today upon her unending rest in the eternal Sion—the true holy city and glorified people—the Lord’s inheritance. Her power will be established in Jerusalem and the Saints will forever acknowledge that they owe to her the fullness of their perfection.

But the plenitude of Mary’s personal merits far surpasses that of all the Saints together. As the cedar of Libanus towers above the flowers of the field, far more does our Lad’s sanctity, next to that of her divine Son, surpass the sanctity of every other creature. In a homily for this Feast, the Angelic Doctor says: “The trees to which the Blessed Virgin is compared in this Epistle may be taken to represent the different orders of the blessed. This passage therefore means: that Mary has been exalted above the Angels, Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins, and all the Saints, because she possesses all their merits united in her single person.”

Quote:To this Gospel the Roman Liturgy formerly added, as the Greek and the Mozarabic still add, the following verses from another chapter of St. Luke: As he spoke these things, a certain woman from the crowd lifting up her voice said to him: Blessed is the womb that bore thee, and the paps that gave thee suck. But he said: Yea, rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God, and keep it.

The words thus added turned the people’s thoughts towards our Lady; still the episode of Martha and Mary in the Gospel of the day remained unexplained. We will use the words of St. Bruno of Asti to express the reason tradition gives for the choice of this Gospel. “These two women,” he says, “are the leaders of the army of the Church, and all the faithful follow them. Some walk in Martha’s footsteps, others in Mary’s; but no one can reach our heavenly fatherland unless he follows one or the other. Rightly then have our fathers ordained that this Gospel should be read on the principal feast of our Lady, for she is signified by these two sisters. For no other creature combined the privileges of both lives, active and contemplative, as did the Blessed Virgin. Like Martha she received Christ—yea, she did more than Martha, for she received him not only into her house, but into her womb. She conceived him, gave him birth, carried him in her arms, and ministered to him more frequently than did Martha. On the other hand, she listened, like Mary, to his words, and kept them for our sake, pondering them in her heart. She contemplated his Humanity and penetrated more deeply than all others into his Divinity. She chose the better part, which shall not be taken away from her.”

“He,” continues St. Bernard, “whom she received at his entrance into this poor world, receives her today at the gate of the holy City. No spot on earth so worthy of the Son of God as the Virgin’s womb: no throne in heaven so lofty as that whereon the Son of Mary places her in return. What a reception each gave to the other! It is beyond the power of expression, because beyond the reach of our thought. Who shall declare the generation of the son, and the Assumption of the Mother?”

In honor of both Mother and Son, let us put this Lesson of the Gospel into practice in our lives. When our soul is troubled, like Martha, or distracted with many anxieties, let us always remember, as Mary did, that there is but one thing necessary. Our Lord alone, either in himself or in his members, should be the one object of our thoughts.

Every human thing is of more or less importance in proportion to its relation to God’s glory; we should value everything in this proportion, and then the grace of God which surpasseth all understanding will keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

INSTRUCTION ON THE TWELFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST.
From Fr. Leonard Goffine's Explanations of the Epistles and Gospels for the Sundays, Holydays, and Festivals throughout the Ecclesiastical Year 36th edition, 1880

Quote:EXPLANATION. St. Paul speaks in the epistle, from which this extract is taken, of the conversion of the Corinthians, which he accomplished not by his own ability, but with the help of God, who made him a minister of the New Testament, a teacher of the true religion of Christ. The New Testament by the grace of the Holy Ghost recalls the sinner from the death of sin, reconciles him to God, and thus enlivens and makes him pleasing to God; whereas the letter of the Old Law, which contains more external ceremonies and fewer commandments, changes not the man, but rather destroys him, that is, threatens with death the transgressor of the law instead of freeing him from sin and reconciling him to God, thus permitting him to die the eternal death. St. Paul preached the true religion of Christ, which vivifies, justifies, and sanctifies man. If the ministry of Moses was so glorified by God, that his countenance shone, when he returned from Mount Sinai, where God gave him the law, how much more dignified and glorious must be the ministry of the New Law. Learn from this to esteem the office of preaching, and be humble like St. Paul, who trusted not in himself but in God, to whom he ascribed all honor.