Author: Franciscan

Hello. I hope you week is going well. 

Yesterday, we remembered St. Monica and today we comminate he son St. Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church.

Augustine was one of those success stories in the history of the Church. It was through the prayers and tears of his mother Monica that brought Augustine to become a Christian. 

Augustine, like some other saints, led a rather “foot lose and fancy-free” life. But it was through his mother’s example, that he gave in to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and converted to the faith. He is seen as one of the Doctors of the Church and has left us a great number of works on Christianity. One of his better-known writings called “Confessions” which is an autobiographical work of his conversion to the faith. 

Augustine’s words to us today should give us much to ponder, “To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him the greatest human achievement.”

What I have said before and I say again, the words of Oscar Wilde, ring so true about Augustine, “Every saint has a past, every sinner a future.”

Peace and All Good,

Fr. Vinnie, fcm and the

Bros and Srs of the 

Franciscan House of Prayer. 

Good day.

Today we remember, St. Monica, one of the most tenacious woman saints in Church history. She is the mother of St. Augustine who became one of the Church’s scholars. 

St. Monica was a Christian married to a pagan, who because of her prayers and example, was baptized one year before his death. Their son, Augustine was one of three children of Monica and Patricius, and again through the prayers of his mother, Augustine was converted through the preaching of St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan. 

Monica gives us this thought for today. “Faith is the strength that carries us through the challenges of life.” 

Monica stands before us as a true model of what prayer and strong faith in God can bring about. If there is someone we can pray to in times of challenge in our lives, Monica surely would be there to intercede for us. 

Peace and All Good,

Fr. Vinnie, fcm and the 

Bros and Srs of the 

Franciscan House of Prayer.

Good morning.

As I read this writing by Dominican Father Paul, I could not help but to remember the times I have been this situation. 

Now that I am the age I am, I don’t feel that I have to impress anyone. I am who I am. But there were days that I tried to “put my best foot forward” to impress the person I was speaking to.

Fr. Paul Murray OP gives us this thought today. “Life makes fools of all of us sooner or later. But keep your sense of hummer and you’ll at least be able to take your humiliations with some measure of grace. In the end, you know it’s our own expectations that crush us.”

Fr Paul is not saying that we should not set our expectations for ourselves just a little out of our reach. It we set the bar to low; we will never work just a little harder to reach just a little higher. But if we set the bar too high, we can very easily become discouraged and not try at all. Just remember the story of the “Little Engine Who Could.” He kept saying “I think I can, I think I can.”

Peace and All Good,

Fr. Vinnie, fcm and the

Bros and Srs of the

Franciscan House of Prayer.

Hello. I hope all is well.

Given the fact that we had a long message yesterday, I thought I would give you a thought from Pope Francis, one that echoes the thoughts of yesterday’s Gospel reading.

                                                      “Today the Lord repeats to me, to you. . .

Follow Me!

Waste no time in questioning or in

useless 

chattering.

do not dwell on secondary thing but look

to what is essential and follow Me.

Follow Me without regard for the

difficulties. 

Follow Me in preaching the Gospel.

Follow Me by the witness of a life shaped

by the grace you received in baptism . . . 

Follow Me by speaking of Me, to those 

with whom you live, day after day,

in your work, your conversations and 

among your friends.

Follow Me by proclaiming the Goepel to 

all, especially to the least among us,

so that no one will fail to hear the word of 

life,

which sets us free from every fear

and enables us to trust in the faithfulness

of God.

Follow Me!”

Pope Francis – Homily 29

June 2014.

Peace and All Good, 

Fr. Vinnie, fcm and the 

Bros and Srs of the 

Franciscan House of Prayer.

Good day to you all. 

As we have gone through our summer and head into the fall, we are also looking forward to the different sports that will take place. For some of us, a Saturday or Sunday afternoon is a time to watch our favorite sports team and maybe a “cold one”.

As we sit and watch the game, do we ever consider what it might take for these players to be able to be on the team? Or how long it may have taken them to reach this point in their athletic career? If we were to ask them, they would likely tell us of the hours of disciplinary work they had to put in to reach this point of being a professional athlete.  

(It is like the joke, ‘ A visitor to New York stops a person on the street and says, ‘ Excuse me, can you tell me how get to Carnage Hall? The man looks at the visitor and simply says, ‘Practice, practice, practice.’)

The long and short of today’s Gospel is that getting into the Kingdom is not just following the “rules and regulations” of one’s faith. It is not just “being a nice person.” It is by being humble, recognizing that it is through the discipline of living the Christian life, not just when it is convenient, but every day, every minute of our lives. The athlete keeps up a life of “self – denial” not just when it is convenient, not just when one feels like it.   

It is like our good friend Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote, “Salvation is free, but discipleship will cost your life.”

Peace and All Good,

Fr. Vinnie, fcm and the

Bros and Srs of the 

Franciscan House of Prayer.

Good morning, happy Saturday.

When we think of saints, our minds turn toward Europe. But today we remember the first named saint of the New World. 

Rose’s parents were not happy about her entering a convent. In obedience she continued to live a life of prayer and penance at home as a member of the Third Order of St. Dominic. 

In the last years of her life, she set up a place in her home where she cared for homeless children, the elderly, and the sick. St. Rose gives us this thought today. “When we serve the poor and the sick we serve Jesus. We must not fail to help our neighbors, because in them we serve Jesus.”

Oh, how often the Lord reminds us “the poor you will always have with you.” (Matt. 26:11)

I hope you all have a good weekend.

Peace and All Good,

Fr Vinnie, fcm and the

Bros and Srs of the 

Franciscan House of Prayer.

Good morning. 

Today we remember yet another title given to the Blessed Mother. Today we commemorate the title of Mary, Queen of Heaven.

We in America sometimes do not relate to some of the titles given to our saints. The words King and Queen don’t have the same effect on us as some other titles. But the word MOTHER does resonate with us all. 

St. Theresa of Lisieux. the ‘Little Flower’ tells us today, “What a joy to remember that she is our Mother! Since she loves us and knows our weakness, what have we to fear?”

What do we have to fear? Yes, God is the Almighty. God is the All Just. He is the Righteous Judge. But God is also our loving Father. He is the one who created us just the way we are. He made us the way we are because from all eternity, we are the most perfect and most beloved. In His mind we are just what He wished us to be. The only thing we have to fear is that we do not respond to the Father with our love in return.

We are yet children in His sight. He knows that we still need a Mother to guide us and to give us comfort as only a Mother can, And as Theresa says, “. . . Since she love us and knows our weakness . . .”

“Pray for us now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

Peace and All Good,

Fr. Vinnie, fcm and the 

Bros and Srs of the 

Franciscan House of Prayer

Hello, I pray that your week is going along well.

Today we remember a Pope who is known as the Pope of frequent communion. Up until Pius was pope, people would receive Holy Communion only once or twice a year.

We have heard that the responsibility of the Christian is to serve those in need. Jesus often told his disciples as He tells today that we must hear the cry of the poor and be attentive to the needs of those who are on the margins of our society.

St. Pope Pius X reminds us today “To heal the breach between the rich and the poor, it is necessary to distinguish between justice and charity.”

Jesus told his disciples that the poor we will always have with us. Our job is to hear their cry and do what we can to assist them in their needs.

Peace and All Good, 

Fr. Vinnie, fcm and the 

Bros and Srs of the 

Franciscan House of Prayer.

Good day to you all.

We know what it feels like to be joyful. Joy gives us that feeling of wellbeing and of a sense of security. Unfortunately, joy is one of those feelings that does not last for a long period of time. 

It would be great if we could feel joyful all the time. But that just does not happen. There are days and sometimes weeks that it seems we just move through life as if we were in some kind of cloud, one day melting into another. Then, something happens, we get a phone call from a friend, we run into someone we haven’t seen in a long time, Whatever it might be and there it is; joy.

The author Fr. James Martin, SJ. gives us his thoughts. “The closer one moves to God, the more one experiences a sense of deep joy. So, for those following their heartfelt desires and living out their vocation, there will be joy. For those following God’s call to care for the least of our brothers and sisters, there will be joy. And for those following God’s invitation to love one another, there will be joy. 

    Joy is often an outgrowth not simply of following our vocation in life, but of helping those in need and of loving one another. So, joy is not a selfish thing to seek, but a selfless thing to find.”

So maybe joy should not be that tingling feeling. Maybe it is just knowing that we are following the vocation the Lord has set out for us, whether that be marriage, religious life, or the single life. Knowing that we are comfortable in our chosen life’s vocation, then we can be sure that we have the Joy of the Holy Spirit within us.  

Following in one’s father’s footsteps does not mean that we will be happy and have that deep sense of joy within us. We all have a road we have been put on and are called to follow. That road may not always lead us to where we think it is going to, but if we follow the Holy Spirit’s guidance, then joy will be that secure feeling down deep in our soul.

Peace and All Good,

Fr. Vinnie, fcm and the 

Bros and Srs of the 

Franciscan House of Prayer.

Good day to you all.

There is a story about St. Pope John XXIII that goes that when he would be getting ready for bed, in his night prayers he would say, “Lord, it’s you turn to watcher over the Church, I’m tired and am going to bed”.

When each of us awake in the morning, we all are faced with a number of tasks. They may be as difficult as running a company, head of an office, getting the kids off to school, or having to celebrate morning Mass. Some of these responsibilities may be difficult or as simple as feeding the goldfish. Whatever the task may be, we all have something that needs to be accomplished that day.

The great French author, Victor Hugo, says to us, “Have courage for the greatest sorrows in life and patience for the small ones, and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.”

St Benedict says in his ‘Rule for Monasteries’ “Ora et Labora” “To work and Pray.” No matter what task is before us, know that The Lord is next to us to assists in the task at hand. 

Peace and All Good,

Fr. Vinnie, fcm and the 

Bros and Srs of the

Franciscan House of Prayer. 8