Tag: Grandmaster

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Our Lady of Palestine – Meditations from the Grandmaster: No 3 (of 3)

In this last meditation before tomorrow’s feast, the Grandmaster reminds us of the important mission our Blessed Mother continues to perform in the history of salvation.

The Gibraltar Lieutenancy will be celebrating the feat of Our Lady of Palestine tomorrow (25th October, 2021) at the Cathedral of St Mary the Crowned. Our Grand Prior, Bishop Carmel Zammit, KC*HS, will preside.

You can access the Grandmaster’s podcast on this link:

http://www.oessh.va/content/ordineequestresantosepolcro/en/podcast/3–la-tua-nuova-esperienza-di-vita.html

Or read it here:

“Your procession, God, has come into view,
    the procession of my God and King into the sanctuary.” (Ps 68:25 NIV).

This is the vision in Psalm 67.

It is not just any procession! It is royal! Immediately, there is a great curiosity:  who is in this procession?

The imaginary is confused with reality. And the reality is a fascinating woman: Mary, dressed as a Queen of the East.

In the Holy Land they still call her “Our Lady of Palestine”.

She is not holding a child in her arms, but the model of Jerusalem, or better the simulacrum of the entire Holy Land, of which she was a daughter and then mother of that new Jerusalem, born at Pentecost, which is the Church.

In October, John Paul II established her liturgical memory and the Christian population has perceived that Mary still has a special mission, which is inexhaustible.

The procession is festive, but only for those who join it and allow themselves to be led by it. So Mary is journeying and she accompanies you who love her, you who believe, and you who stand aside, critical, tired and a little resigned.

She lowers her gaze without reproach, full of consolation and prayer.

Hello there! If you want, please join the procession! It will be a new life experience.
 

Fernando Cardinal Filoni

(October 2021)

End of Quote

Deus lo Vult

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Our Lady of Palestine – Meditations from the Grandmaster: No 2 (of 3)

Today the Grandmaster reminds us to be vigilant and temperate and to look to Mother Mary as a great example on how to live life. You can access the pod cast on this link:

http://www.oessh.va/content/ordineequestresantosepolcro/en/podcast/2–una-compagna-per-tutta-la-vita.html

Or you can read the message here:

If you are seeking something, pause for a moment.

Restlessness brings no rewards.  I have something to tell you that may interest you: “Be temperate, be vigilant!”. The Apostle Peter (1 Peter 5:8) said this to the recipients of one of his letters, he who was a restless disciple of Jesus, so much so that in the Garden of Olives he resorted to the sword, which Christ made him put away.

I would also like to repeat this to you, my friend who is listening to me!

Confucius said that even small excesses can ruin great plans. Be temperate! Drugs bring no rewards! Violence brings no rewards! Selfishness brings no rewards!

The Catechism of the Catholic church lists it among the cardinal virtues, and its synonyms are frugality, moderation, sobriety, order and balance. What can we say? The world loves excess; the media rewards it headlines.

And yet, we are all convinced that consumerism, even though we cannot help ourselves, brings no rewards: nature rebels, social crises increase, life is ruined!

Gide – a tormented French writer – had reinvented the parable of the prodigal son, believing that really living lay in the willingness to have every experience; then he confessed that he had not found happiness in that either.

Temperance… It is temperance that teaches you the pursuit of good, your own and that of others, and it is vested in charity.  Noble charity! The  charity has a link with God, that gives us a hand to descend the steps in the dark moments of life.

It is not a virtue for the weak.  Mary made it her lifelong companion.

You should try it too!
 

Fernando Cardinal Filoni

(October 2021)

End of quote

Deus lo Vult

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Our Lady of Palestine – Meditations from the Grandmaster: No 1 (of 3)

As we prepare for the feast of Our Lady of Palestine, on October 25th, our Grandmaster, Fernando Cardinal Filoni, invites us to meditate further on the passion of God in our hearts.

The Grandmaster has released a series of Podcasts that can be listened to on the Order’s website. The first pod cast can be found on the following link:

http://www.oessh.va/content/ordineequestresantosepolcro/en/podcast/La-passione-di-dio-nel-tuo-cuore.html

The text is also available below:

“You must carry God’s passion in your heart; for it is man’s greatest consolation!”, was what one medieval mystic reminded those who visited him; and another commented that “nothing can help or serve you except God’s martyrdom and His bitter suffering”.

Passion is not a feeling proper to God. It is human, deeply human.

That is why God had no other option other than become human himself and take on that feeling as a burden. Those who experience passion know that it has a strong carnal involvement and the heart truly feels great consolation. Lovers, who carry within themselves the asceticism of their relationship, know this well.

Mary knew it too, as the prototype of every human being touched by God’s passion, of that God who wanted to give form to Christ’s humanity. She bore the sign of it through her own motherhood, and she did not shrink from sharing in God’s ‘martyrdom and suffering’.

I will say no more! Although every day there is a demon that sows doubt in your heart, takes away your breath and plots to lessen God’s passion in your heart. The restlessness that runs through the spirit, if it burns the passion leaves only ashes, but there is always an appeal to mercy, which is a divine predicate or attribute.

The old medieval mystic is right; Just think about it!

If you do not carry the passion of God in your heart, you cannot experience the greatest consolation!

Fernando Cardinal Filoni

(October 2021)

End of quote.

Deus lo Vult.