NORANIANA COLLECTION

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Noraniana-Collection-Project/166167646746470

http://superstarstruck.weebly.com/1/post/2010/12/noraniana-collection-project.html

THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

Principal Patroness of the Philippines: December 8

To become the mother of the Savior, Mary “was enriched by God with gifts appropriate to such role.”  The angel Gabriel at the moment of the annunciation salutes her as “full of grace.”  In fact, in order for Mary to be able to give the free assent of her faith to the announcement of her vocation, it was necessary that she be wholly borne by God’s grace.

Through the centuries the Church has become ever more aware that Mary, “full of grace” through God, was redeemed from the moment of her conception.  That is what the dogma of the Immaculate Conception confesses, as Pope Pius IX proclaimed in 1854:

 The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserve immune from all stain of original sin.

The “splendor of an entirely unique holiness” by which Mary is “enriched from the first instant of her conception” comes wholly from Christ: she is “redeemed, in a more exalted fashion, by reason of the merits of her Son.”  The Father blessed Mary more than any other created person “in Christ with every spiritual blessings in the heavenly places” and chose her “in Christ before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless before him in love.”

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Source:  Catechism of the Catholic Church 490 – 492

Source Image:  http://sevenbasketsfull.org/images/immaculate%20conception%201.jpg

MAKE A DIFFERENCE

pixbook

Lumikha Ng Sariling Tatak

MY DREAM CATCHER

simple

Origin of the Dream Catcher

http://www.nativetech.org/dreamcat/dreamcat.html 

silencio

Instruction for Making
Dream Catchers

http://www.nativetech.org/dreamcat/dreamcat.html

PLANO

 

Panginoon, nababatid mo ang nilalaman ng aking puso, ang aking plano sa buhay.  

Ikaw, Panginoon, ano ang plano mo para sa akin?  Nawa'y ang aking plano ay maging plano mo rin.  Gayunpaman, mangyari nawa sa akin ang iyong plano.

GOLDEN VOICE NI SUPERSTAR NORA AUNOR

hidden commitment

 

My hidden commitment in life 

is to embrace the life of poverty and 

to surrender my life to God alone.

word

I am not what others say.

I am not my thoughts.

I am not my feelings.

I am not my acts.

I am not my body.

I am my word.

You are not what others say.

You are not your thoughts.

You are not your feelings.

You are not your acts.

You are not your body.

You are your word.

We are not what others say.

We are not our thoughts.

We are not our feelings.

We are not our acts.

We are not our bodies.

We are our words.

Saint Therese of Lisieux

 

THÉRÈSE MARTIN was born at Alençon, France on 2 January 1873. Two days later, she was baptized Marie Frances Thérèse at Notre Dame Church. Her parents were Louis Martin and Zélie Guérin. After the death of her mother on 28 August 1877, Thérèse and her family moved to Lisieux.

Towards the end of 1879, she went to confession for the first time. On the Feast of Pentecost 1883, she received the singular grace of being healed from a serious illness through the intercession of Our Lady of Victories. Taught by the Benedictine Nuns of Lisieux and after an intense immediate preparation culminating in a vivid experience of intimate union with Christ, she received First Holy Communion on 8 May 1884. Some weeks later, on 14 June of the same year, she received the Sacrament of Confirmation, fully aware of accepting the gift of the Holy Spirit as a personal participation in the grace of Pentecost.

She wished to embrace the contemplative life, as her sisters Pauline and Marie had done in the Carmel of Lisieux, but was prevented from doing so by her young age. On a visit to Italy, after having visited the House of Loreto and the holy places of the Eternal City, during an audience granted by Pope Leo XIII to the pilgrims from Lisieux on 20 November 1887, she asked the Holy Father with childlike audacity to be able to enter the Carmel at the age of fifteen.

On 9 April 1888 she entered the Carmel of Lisieux. She received the habit on 10 January of the following year, and made her religious profession on 8 September 1890 on the Feast of the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

In Carmel she embraced the way of perfection outlined by the Foundress, Saint Teresa of Jesus, fulfilling with genuine fervour and fidelity the various community responsibilities entrusted to her. Her faith was tested by the sickness of her beloved father, Louis Martin, who died on 29 July 1894. Thérèse nevertheless grew in sanctity, enlightened by the Word of God and inspired by the Gospel to place love at the centre of everything. In her autobiographical manuscripts she left us not only her recollections of childhood and adolescence but also a portrait of her soul, the description of her most intimate experiences. She discovered the little way of spiritual childhood and taught it to the novices entrusted to her care. She considered it a special gift to receive the charge of accompanying two “missionary brothers” with prayer and sacrifice. Seized by the love of Christ, her only Spouse, she penetrated ever more deeply into the mystery of the Church and became increasingly aware of her apostolic and missionary vocation to draw everyone in her path.

On 9 June 1895, on the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, she offered herself as a sacrificial victim to the merciful Love of God. At this time, she wrote her first autobiographical manuscript, which she presented to Mother Agnes for her birthday on 21 January 1896.

Several months later, on 3 April, in the night between Holy Thursday and Good Friday, she suffered a haemoptysis, the first sign of the illness which would lead to her death; she welcomed this event as a mysterious visitation of the Divine Spouse. From this point forward, she entered a trial of faith which would last until her death; she gives overwhelming testimony to this in her writings. In September, she completed Manuscript B; this text gives striking evidence of the spiritual maturity which she had attained, particularly the discovery of her vocation in the heart of the Church.

While her health declined and the time of trial continued, she began work in the month of June on Manuscript C, dedicated to Mother Marie de Gonzague. New graces led her to higher perfection and she discovered fresh insights for the diffusion of her message in the Church, for the benefit of souls who would follow her way. She was transferred to the infirmary on 8 July. Her sisters and other religious women collected her sayings. Meanwhile her sufferings and trials intensified. She accepted them with patience up to the moment of her death in the afternoon of 30 September 1897. “I am not dying, I am entering life”, she wrote to her missionary spiritual brother, Father M. Bellier. Her final words, “My God…, I love you!”, seal a life which was extinguished on earth at the age of twenty-four; thus began, as was her desire, a new phase of apostolic presence on behalf of souls in the Communion of Saints, in order to shower a rain of roses upon the world.

She was canonized by Pope Pius XI on 17 May 1925. The same Pope proclaimed her Universal Patron of the Missions, alongside Saint Francis Xavier, on 14 December 1927.

Her teaching and example of holiness has been received with great enthusiasm by all sectors of the faithful during this century, as well as by people outside the Catholic Church and outside Christianity.

On the occasion of the centenary of her death, many Episcopal Conferences have asked the Pope to declare her a Doctor of the Church, in view of the soundness of her spiritual wisdom inspired by the Gospel, the originality of her theological intuitions filled with sublime teaching, and the universal acceptance of her spiritual message, which has been welcomed throughout the world and spread by the translation of her works into over fifty languages.

Mindful of these requests, His Holiness Pope John Paul II asked the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, which has competence in this area, in consultation with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith with regard to her exalted teaching, to study the suitability of proclaiming her a Doctor of the Church.

On 24 August, at the close of the Eucharistic Celebration at the Twelfth World Youth Day in Paris, in the presence of hundreds of bishops and before an immense crowd of young people from the whole world, Pope John Paul II announced his intention to proclaim Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face a Doctor of the Universal Church on World Mission Sunday, 19 October 1997.

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Source:

http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_19101997_stherese_en.html

ms. michelle

 

MS. MICHELLE ABAEGUIN

CFAM Coordinator

Diocese of Novaliches

October 4, 1977 - September 29, 2010

SAN LORENZO RUIZ

BIOGRAPHY OF LORENZO RUIZ

Lorenzo Ruiz was a Filipino, Although his father was a Chinese and his mother, a Filipina. He was born in Binondo, Manila between 1600 and 1610.

According to the documents cited to proclaim him "Blessed", his parents were devout Catholics. He was a christened "Lorenzo" after a martyr during the 3rd century persecution of Christians. his surname "Ruiz" was taken from the last name of his godfather.

In his younger years, Lorenzo served at the convent of Binondo church as a sacristan. Since he lived there together with Dominican priest, he learn from them not just Spanish but also catechism.

After several years, Lorenzo Ruiz earned the title of "escribano" or notary. He became an active member of the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary, an organization devoted to the Blessed Virgin. This group was organized in the Philippines in 1587.

Lorenzo got married but the name of his wife was not mentioned in the documents. He confess before he was convicted that he was a family man - having a wife with three kids, two boys and a girl.

In 1636, a grave crime was committed in Manila. Authorities conducted a manhunt for Lorenzo because they believed he knew something about it or was himself involved in it. When Lorenzo learn of some missionary priest leaving for Japan, he asked if he could be allowed to join them. And he was allowed aboard the ship bound for Japan, along with the Dominicans, safe from fear of being implicated in a crime.

At that time, there was a wide scale persecution of Christians in Japan. All those who professed faith in God and served as missionaries were jailed and even up to death. Their lives were even up to death. Their lives were to be spared if they would renounce their Christians faith. But thousands of those Christians chose death rather than renouncing their belief in God. And Lorenzo Ruiz was among those who underwent excruciating forms of persecution.

One of the forms of punishments imposed on Christians was "hanging n the pit" on the hills of Nagasaki. The victims feet were tied to a beam, his body hanged upside down and his head occupying the amount of the pit. Lorenzo Ruiz went through this agonizing punishment when he refused to renounce his faith.

When he was investigate as a Christian, he answered: "I'm a Christian and I will remain a Christian even to the point of death. Only to God will I offer my life. Even if I had a thousands lives, I would still offer them to him. This is the reason why I came here in Japan, to leave my native land as a Christian, offering my life to God alone.

He was told that he would be put to death if he did not renounce his faith, but his stuck to his belief. He said he will never disown his identity as a Christian. It was on September 23, 1637 that he begun to undergo "hanging in the pit".

Lorenzo Ruiz was proclaim " Blessed" in February 1981 at Luneta, together with 16 other companions, in connection with Pope John Paul II's papal visit to the Philippines. He was canonized and declared a "Saint'on October 18, 1987 in Rome. As such, he is now worthy of being venerated and honoured in the church altar. His feast day falls on September 28.

_________________________________________________

Source:

http://www.fortunecity.com/skyscraper/apple/1434/novena.htm

Catechetical Month 2010: Family and Catechesis

Happy Birthday, Mama Mary!

CATECHETICAL MONTH: SEPTEMBER, 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw3scIxAZDE

ANG MALUWALHATING PAG-AAKYAT SA LANGIT SA MAHAL NA BIRHEN

August 15: Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary

Readings: Rev 11:19, 12:1-6; 1 Cor 15:20-26

Gospel: Luke 1:39-56

This feast has been celebrated in the East since the sixth century. It was introduced in Rome in the seventh century. On Nov. 1,1950 Pope Pius XII defined the Dogma of the assumption. He solemnly proclaimed that the Blessed Virgin Mary was taken up body and soul into the glory of heaven at the end of her life. This feast confirms us in the virtue of hope, whereby we seek holiness of life in the midst of our ordinary duties. At the same time, it exhorts us to see heaven our final home.(Ordo 2010, Cycle C, Year II)

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Ang “pinangalagaang maging malaya mula sa lahat ng bahid dungis ng kasalanang-mana, ang kalinis-linisang Birhena, ay iniakyat – katawan at kaluluwa – sa makalangit na kaluwlahatian pagkatapos ng kanyang paglagi sa lupa.”  Sa pag-aakyat sa kanya sa langit upang makapisan ang kanyang Anak na si Kristong nabuhay na mag-uli, at sa kaganapan ng kanyang katauhan, ipinahahayag ni Maria ang kaganapan ng gawaing pagtubos ng Diyos para sa ating lahat, “isang palatandaan ng tiyak na pag-asa at kaginhawaan para sa naglalakbay na bayan ng Diyos.” [KPK 524]

Ang dalawang natatanging karapatan ni Maria, ang Kalinis-linisang Paglilihi sa kanya at ang Maluwalhati niyang Pag-aakyat sa Langit, ay hindi mga taliwas na aral na naghihiwalay sa atin kay Maria.  Sa halip ang mag ito’y mga natatanging karapatan ng kaganapan at kabuuan.  Ang biyaya ni Maria ay pangkalahatang ibinabahagi: ang kanyang natatanging karapatan ay yaong sa kaganapan.  Iginagawad ang dalawang natatanging karapatang ito sa pamamagitan ng presensiya ng Espiritu, na kung saan tayong lahat ay tinatawag upang makibahagi.  Kaya inilalagay nila si Maria sa pinakabuod ng lahat ng mga tao at ng Simbahan. [KPK 525]

Sa parktikal na pananalita, nangagahulugan ito na tulad ni Kristong walang kasalanan, si Maria ay hindi nabulag o nalito ng kapalaluan o huwad na pagkamasarili.  Higit na ganap at tunay na “makatao” kaysa atin, kaya tunay na napahahalagahan ni Maria ang mga pagsubok at kabiguan nating mga tao. [KPK 525]

Ang mga biyayang ito’y ibinigay kay Maria alang-alang sa kanyang bukod-tanging tungkuling gagampanan sa plano ng Diyos na iligtas ang lahat sa pamamagitan ng mapangtubos na misyon ni Jesus. [KPK 525]

Ang mapitagang kahulugan ng Pag-aakyat sa Langit kay Maria, katawan at kaluluwa, ay nagbibigay sa atin ng isang konkretong huwaran ng bagong sangnilikha ito.  Si Maria ang unang ganap na nakibahagi sa muling pagkabuhay ni Kristo.  Nakita na natin si Maria bilang unang anak, ang huwaran at Ina ng Simbahang naglalakbay.  Ngayon sa diwang kaugnay ng kanilang hantungan, pinag-uugnay si Maria at ang Simbahan.  Ganito inuunawa ng Tradisyon ang teksto mula sa Pahayag: “Lumitaw sa langit ang isang kagila-gilalas na tanda: isang babaeng nararamtan ng araw, at nakatuntong sa buwan; ang ulo niya’y may koronang binubuo ng labindalawang bituin” (Pah 12:1).  Ipinahayag ng Vaticano II: “Samantala, sa kadakilaang taglay niya sa katawan at kaluluwa sa langit, ang Ina ni Jesus ang larawan at simula ng Simbahang magiging ganap sa darating na panahon.  Gayundin, nagniningning siya sa lupa bilang tanda ng tiyak na pag-asa at kaginhawaan sa naglalakbay na Sambayanan ng Diyos hanggang sa dumating ang araw ng Panginoon.(LG 68) [KPK 2080]

Para sa Pilipinong Kristiyano, si Maria marahil ang pinakamabuting tulong sa pagkakaroon ng personal na pagkaunawa kung ano ang inihanda ng Diyos para sa mga nagmamahal sa Kanya. [KPK 2080]

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Source: Katesismo para sa mga Pilipinong Katoliko

Source image: LARAWAN: Gabay sa
Katekesis   [CFAM]                                                                                             http://www.flickr.com/photos/arthurofthechildjesus/4768977399/  

       

 

BIDAHAN 2009

sayaw ng kahapon

Our Lady of Mt. Carmel

Our Lady of Mount Carmel is the title given to the Blessed Virgin Mary, in her role as patroness of the Carmelite Order. The first Carmelites were Christian hermits living on Mount Carmel in the Holy Land during the late 12th and early to mid 13th centuries. They built a chapel in the midst of their hermitages which they dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, whom they conceived of in chivalric terms as the "Lady of the place."

History:

Since the 15th century, popular devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel has centered on the Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel also known as the Brown Scapular, a sacramental associated with promises of Mary's special aid for the salvation of the devoted wearer. Traditionally, Mary is said to have given the Scapular to an early Carmelite named Saint Simon Stock. The liturgical feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is celebrated on 16 July.

The solemn liturgical feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel was probably first celebrated in England in the later part of the 14th century. Its object was thanksgiving to Mary, the patroness of the Carmelite Order, for the benefits she had accorded to it through its rocky early existence. The institution of the feast may have come in the wake of the vindication of their title "Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary" at Cambridge, England in 1374. The date chosen was July 17th; on the European mainland this date conflicted with the feast of St. Alexis, necessitating a shift to July 16th, which remains the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel throughout the Catholic Church. The Latin poem Flos Carmeli (meaning "Flower of Carmel") first appears as the sequence for this Mass.

The Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is known to many Catholic faithful as the "scapular feast," associated with the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, a devotional sacramental signifiying the wearer's consecration to Mary and affiliation with the Carmelite Order. A tradition first attested to in the late 1300s says that Saint Simon Stock, an early prior general of the Carmelite Order, had a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary in which she gave him the Brown Scapular which formed part of the Carmelite habit, promising that those who died wearing the scapular would be saved.

That there should be a connection in people's minds between the scapular, the widely popular devotion originating with the Carmelites, and this central Carmelite feast day, is surely not unnatural or unreasonable. But the liturgical feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel did not originally have a specific association with the Brown Scapular or the tradition of a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In 1653, a Carmelite named Fr. John Cheron, responding to scholarly criticism that Saint Simon Stock's vision may not have historically occurred (these doubts are echoed by historians today), published a document which he said was a letter written in the 13th century by Saint Simon Stock's secretary, "Peter Swanington". Historians conclude that this letter was forged, likely by Cheron himself. It was nevertheless uncritically embraced by many promoters of the scapular devotion. The forged document's claim of July 16, 1251 as the date of the vision (July 16 being the date of the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel) subsequently led to a strong association between this feast day, and the scapular devotion, and in the intervening years until the late 1970s, this association with the scapular was also reflected in the liturgy for that day. The Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel as well as that of Saint Simon Stock came under scrutiny after Vatican II due to historical uncertainties, and today neither of these liturgies, even in the Carmelite proper, make reference to the scapular.

Carmelite Devotion to Mary:

The Carmelites see in the Blessed Virgin Mary a perfect model of the interior life of prayer and contemplation to which Carmelites aspire, a model of virtue, as well as the person who was closest in life to Jesus Christ. She is seen as the one who points Christians most surely to Christ, saying to all what she says to the servants at the wedding at Cana, "Do whatever he [Jesus] tells you." Carmelites look to Mary as spiritually their mother and sister. The Stella Maris Monastery on Mount Carmel, named after a traditional title of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is considered the spiritual headquarters of the order.

Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi, OCD, a revered authority on Carmelite spirituality, wrote that devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel means:

a special call to the interior life, which is preeminently a Marian life. Our Lady wants us to resemble her not only in our outward vesture but, far more, in heart and spirit. If we gaze into Mary's soul, we shall see that grace in her has flowered into a spiritual life of incalcuable wealth: a life of recollection, prayer, uninterrupted oblation to God, continual contact, and intimate union with him. Mary's soul is a sanctuary reserved for God alone, where no human creature has ever left its trace, where love and zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of mankind reign supreme. [...] Those who want to live their devotion to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel to the full must follow Mary into the depths of her interior life. Carmel is the symbol of the contemplative life, the life wholly dedicated to the quest for God, wholly orientated towards intimacy with God; and the one who has best realized this highest of ideals is Our Lady herself, 'Queen and Splendor of Carmel'."

Church Teaching:

A 1996 doctrinal statement approved by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments states that "Devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel is bound to the history and spiritual values of the Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel and is expressed through the scapular. Thus, whoever receives the scapular becomes a member of the order and pledges him/herself to live according to its spirituality in accordance with the characteristics of his/her state in life."

According to the ways in which the Church has intervened at various times to clarify the meaning and privileges of the Brown Scapular: "The scapular is a Marian habit or garment. It is both a sign and pledge. A sign of belonging to Mary; a pledge of her motherly protection, not only in this life but after death. As a sign, it is a conventional sign signifying three elements strictly joined: first, belonging to a religious family particularly devoted to Mary, especially dear to Mary, the Carmelite Order; second, consecration to Mary, devotion to and trust in her Immaculate Heart; third an incitement to become like Mary by imitating her virtues, above all her humility, chastity, and spirit of prayer."

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Mount_Carmel

Source Image: http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?showtopic=70514