Carlo strove to participate in Mass every day. With smiling confidence, he declared, “You go straight to heaven if you participate in the Mass every day.” The reason was simple. The foundation for holiness is a personal and intimate relationship with Jesus. “The more we receive the Eucharist, the more we will become like Jesus, so that on this earth we will have a foretaste of heaven.”
The official prayer approved by the Bishop of Blessed Carlo’s home diocese of Assisi asking for his intercession.
When Saint Rita asked for a thorn from Christ’s crown she was probably thinking of secret suffering. Did she know how much the wound would stink? And how unpopular that would make her with her religious sisters?
Pray the Litany of the Holy Spirit to invite the third Person of the Trinity into your life.
Though the saints still struggled and suffered with their weaknesses and sins, they lived their lives in Christ’s and were sustained by the fruits of the Spirit in their manner of life. This blog explores four saints who lived the fruits of the Spirit: St Therese of Lisieux and her journey to self-control; St Bonaventure, who saw joy as being an essential aspect of Christian life; St Rita of Cascia who patiently waited many years to enter the convent while persevering through a family feud; and St Maximilian Kolbe, who generously laid down his life for others in Auschwitz.
In 1917, Our Lady appeared to three shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal. During the third apparition came three profound revelations, of which Our Lady asked the children to keep secret - the Three Secrets of Fatima.
