Rosary Video

The picture shows Dominican Friars singing the Night Office with Our Lady watching over them as they sign the Salve Regina-- Hail Holy Queen!
www.worldpriest asked me to put a Nine minute talk on their Website. Hope you like it.Look up the site below.

Rosary Videohttp://worldpriest.com/home/rosary

Fr. Gabriel at the Dominican Priory, Tallaght Village, Dublin 24

Beads for Meditation

For those who may be shy of producing the Catholic beads in public, it may be of help to know that they are not alone when they pray the Rosary. Hindus, Buddhists and many other folk, use the beads as an aid to meditation. They sit still and pass the beads through their fingers while they repeat a sacred word or mantra. Touching the beads enables them to be serene and secure. The sacred word is more sounded in the depth of the being than spoken by the lips.

So never be tempted to think that the Catholic Rosary is elitist or out of date. Praying with the beads is universal and belongs to every age and civilization. See picture of Buddhist monk meditating with his beads in his hands. You can read more about all this in my book: The Riches of the Rosary, published by Veritas, Dublin.

The Catena of the Legion of Mary

Catena is the Latin word for link or chain. It is the sign of the Holy Slavery of Jesus and Mary as taught by St. Louis Marie de Montfort. It reminds Legionaries that they are bound by the sweet chain of Love and Loyalty to Mary and to each other. Members of the Legion of Mary are not lone rangers working on their own. They are in the service of the Queen of Heaven and they stand shoulder to shoulder in army that has set itself to conquer the world.

Even those who have left are encouraged to pray the Catena and thereby keep a connection with the Legion. The opening Antiphon of the Catena is a panorama of the whole role of Mary: Fair as the Moon, Bright as the Sun, and like an Army in battle array! At once attractive and awesome!

In the Magnificat Mary does what we all need to do: She points to the Lord. For our part we often focus on ourselves -- our projects and our problems and make them still larger. Mary sweetly and surely makes the problems into possibilities as she teaches us instead to magnify the Lord. She is the Magnifier of God and his kingdom. Like her Son, she prays thy name, thy Kingdom, thy will. As we grow in this spirit of Mary, the apostolate becomes no longer my kingdom my project, my problem. As our little kingdom decreases, so does the Kingdom of God take root and grow great.

Pride is the most destructive force in the world and blocks the stream of grace. The Lord scatters the proud hearted. We know this to be true from our own experience and have seen that how it can destroyed or gravely diminish even Mary’s own Legion. Humility on the other hand is the foundation on which the Kingdom is established.

Mary acknowledges that anything that is good in her is the work of the Lord. Her soul proclaims the greatness of God. She knows that God has saved her and she rejoices in God my Saviour. Legionaries should remember the words of St. Ephraem so well: ‘May the spirit of Mary be in every soul to glorify the Lord.’

Fr. Bede the Head spiritual director of the Legion of Mary suggests that while we pray the Magnificat together at all our meetings sometimes we should pray and meditate over it personally and in solitude.

worldpriest.com

Recently I was given the opportunity of appearing live on the
Website entitled: worldpriest.com

The occasion, was the close of the Year for Priests and they asked me to say a few words on the Rosary in the life of a Priest. You can look the site up for yourself and I trust it may bring us a little closer. What I was trying to get across in the short time available, was that in the hands of the Priest, the Rosary was not only a prayer, but that a valuable instrument of preaching the Good News of Jesus and Mary.

For the Rosary is a summary of the Scriptures and Sacred Tradition. Pere Lacordaire spoke of it as L'evangile a genoux-- The Gospel on its knees. You can see and listen live by clicking on the following:
http://www.worldpriest.c/home/rosary_relay_video.php

God needs each one of us

Ascension Day:

This is a great day of Mercy. It is the final work of mercy when Jesus goes to prepare a home for each one of us: I go to my Father and to your Father, I go to prepare a place for you. In my Father’s House, there are many mansions.

It helps me appreciate this work of mercy, when I think of my own earthly father and mother who went to such trouble preparing a home for us. It happened quite a lot because we never really owned a home but simply rented a place, and every few years depending on working situations, we were on the move to a new home. I have vivid memories of all the loving caring work of preparation: carpets, curtains, lights and mirrors not to mention the mountains of bedding and kitchen stuff.

And in this work of preparing a home in heaven, the Heavenly Father wants our co-operation. God our Father has a great task in hands-- keeping this whole creation ticking over, seeing to it that souls are saved and getting all his faithful ones into heaven. He could do it all on his own, but he calls us to share in his work. While God has an infinite supply of mercy to pour out on the world, he ask us to share in his outpouring by being merciful ourselves.

Jesus says: Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
And in the Fifth Beatitude: Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. It would seem that to pour out his mercy, The Almighty has need of our acts of mercy. As the Frenchman, Leon Bloy has written: We have the privilege of being needed by him who has need of no one. We are asked to give from the little we possess, but only to receive much more in return:

Give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, they will pour into your lap. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return. Luke 6:38

By way of illustration let me tell of a couple who loved to work together in their garden. But this day the husband was on his own in the back garden. He was preparing to dig out the stubborn roots of an old tree. He toiled and sweated for over an hour until at last he knew it was coming. There was a surge of pride.... but then another emotion took over. He wanted his wife to share his little victory with him. He wanted her to have the thrill of pulling the old root out together with him. He didn’t really need any assistance. At least not in the physical sense. He had all the strength he needed for that. For love’s sake however, he needed her. He knew that she would like to part of his achievement. So he called her and together they pulled the old root out and dumped it. Together is better.

You notice the same thing when a strong man wins a seat in Parliament. He calls up his wife to stand beside him to share his hour of glory. Don’t we all want to share, to be needed, to be part of the project. As long as he needs me, goes the song. On the other hand there is the trauma of not being needed not wanted, not on the team. It must be terrible to hear those words: Surplus to requirement! Rejected! redundant!
In God’s plan of mercy, there is no redundancy. We all in it together. We have the privilege of being needed by the One who has need of no one. He has entrusted some work of Divine mercy to me which he has committed to none other. He wishes me to work alongside him in his own mission of mercy. Let me do so that I may find mercy in my hour of need.

Eucharistic Tent of Meeting

Domine quo vadis? Lord with are you going, asked Peter as he was running away from Rome to escape death.
Jesus met him on the way and replied:
Peter, I go to Rome to be crucified again.
Peter understood that the Christ who promised to be with us until the end was suffering in the mystical body which is his people.

Despite the storms and the scandals of our times, we have this blessed assurance that the Lord is still with us—until the end of time. If we are experiencing crucifixion, the Lord is enduring in the midst of us. He is meeting up with us.

Tent of Meeting
And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting… and all the people would rise up---each at his own door and observe. Whatever we meet up with as the ground seems to be taken from under us in so many fields -- sacred and secular we have this inner tent—this inner meeting place with the Lord. This is where we go when we sit and meditate each morning and evening.

Living in the Presence of God
For the Jewish people the big question was not the Existence of God, whether there is a God or not, but whether God was with them or not. Speaking to the successor of Moses, the Lord said: As I was with Moses, so I will be with you: I will never forsake you. That means : Behind you, supporting and encouraging you, going before you, as a Pillar of fire by night and as a Cloud of Glory by day.

The word to the Prophets and Leaders always was: I the Lord am with you. To Mary: Hail full of grace, the Lord is with you.

Little wonder that this promise and blessing has found it way into the Eucharist: Dominus Vobiscum. And we keep in mind the words of Paul: If the Lord is with us, who can be against us!

This is one of the characteristics of love: to stay around. A small boy came home and told his Mammy about his Grandad who was sitting alone crying. “But its all right now,” he continued: “I sat with him and helped him to cry.”

This is what gives us security and inner peace and lets us sit still in meditation. We know that the Lord himself sits with us, gathers up our tears and enfolds in his love. We do like that small boy, we sit with each other and live in the presence of each other.
Fr. Gabriel: Dominican Priory, Tallaght, Dublin 24, Ireland.
EMAIL: hartygabriel@yahoo.co.uk

The Tent of Meeting

Domine quo vadis? Lord with are you going, asked Peter as he was running away from Rome to escape death.
Jesus met him on the way and replied:
Peter, I go to Rome to be crucified again.
Peter understood that the Christ who promised to be with us until the end was suffering in the mystical body which is his people.

Despite the storms and the scandals of our times, we have this blessed assurance that the Lord is still with us—until the end of time. If we are experiencing crucifixion, the Lord is enduring in the midst of us. He is meeting up with us.

Tent of Meeting
And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting… and all the people would rise up---each at his own door and observe. Whatever we meet up with as the ground seems to be taken from under us in so many fields -- sacred and secular we have this inner tent—this inner meeting place with the Lord. This is where we go when we sit and meditate each morning and evening.

Living in the Presence of God
For the Jewish people the big question was not the Existence of God, whether there is a God or not, but whether God was with them or not.

Speaking to the successor of Moses, the Lord said: As I was with Moses, so I will be with you: I will never forsake you. That means : Behind you, supporting and encouraging you, going before you, as a Pillar of fire by night and as a Cloud of Glory by day. The word to the prophets and leaders always was: I the Lord am with you. To Mary: Hail full of grace, the Lord is with you.

Little wonder that this promise and blessing has found it way into the Eucharist: Dominus Vobiscum. And we keep in mind the words of Paul: If the Lord is with us, who can be against us!

This is one of the characteristics of love: to stay around. A small boy came home and told his Mammy about his Grandad who was sitting alone crying. “But its all right now,” he continued: “I sat with him and helped him to cry.”

This is what gives us security and inner peace and lets us sit still in meditation. We know that the Lord himself sits with us, gathers up our tears and enfolds in his love. We do like that small boy, we sit with each other and live in the presence of each other.

You can write to me at Dominican Priory, Tallaght Village, Dublin 24, Ireland or email: hartygabriel@yahoo.co.uk