Claire’s Corner
· Today in honor of the Holy Trinity do the Divine Office giving your day to God. To honor God REST: no shopping after 6 pm Saturday till Monday. Don’t forget the internet.
- Start Total Concentration to the Virgin Mary July 13 to end on August 15, the feast of the Assumption
· Bucket List Trip: Around the World “Perfect Weather”
· Let Freedom Ring Day 7 Freedom from Vengeance
· Foodie: Qi guo ji in honor of the first cat show
· Harrison Ford, born on July 13, 1942
· Spirit Hour: Mai Tai
· Barn Day
· On Sundays Pray:
o O Glorious Queen of Heaven and Earth, Virgin Most Powerful, thou who hast the power to crush the head of the ancient serpent with thy heel, come and exercise this power flowing from the grace of thine Immaculate Conception. Shield us under the mantle of thy purity and love, draw us into the sweet abode of thy heart and annihilate and render impotent the forces bent on destroying us. Come Most Sovereign Mistress of the Holy Angels and Mistress of the Most Holy Rosary, thou who from the very beginning hast received from God the power and the mission to crush the head of Satan. Send forth thy holy legions, we humbly beseech thee, that under thy command and by thy power they may pursue the evil spirits, counter them on every side, resist their bold attacks and drive them far from us, harming no one on the way, binding them to the foot of the Cross to be judged and sentenced by Jesus Christ Thy Son and to be disposed of by Him as He wills.
o St. Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church, come to our aid in this grave battle against the forces of darkness, repel the attacks of the devil and free the members of the Auxilium Christianorum, and those for whom the priests of the Auxilium Christianorum pray, from the strongholds of the enemy.
o St. Michael, summon the entire heavenly court to engage their forces in this fierce battle against the powers of hell. Come O Prince of Heaven with thy mighty sword and thrust into hell Satan and all the other evil spirits. O Guardian Angels, guide and protect us. Amen.
JULY 13 Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
Fatima July
13
Matthew,
Chapter 10, verse 28
And
do not be AFRAID of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul;
rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in
Gehenna.
Copilot: This verse—Matthew 10:28—is a powerful exhortation from Jesus to His disciples, urging them to live with a holy fear rightly ordered toward God, not toward human threats. Here's a deeper reflection on its meaning:
🔥 Fear Reordered: Body vs. Soul
"And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna."
— Matthew 10:28
🕊️ Context
Jesus is preparing His disciples for persecution. He knows they will face hostility, even violence, for proclaiming the Kingdom. But He reframes fear: not as something to be avoided, but as something to be rightly directed.
💡 Key Themes
· Temporal vs. Eternal:
Human beings can inflict physical harm—even death—but they cannot touch the eternal soul. Jesus is reminding us that the soul’s destiny is of far greater consequence than bodily safety.
· Holy Fear of God:
The “one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna” is traditionally understood to refer to God—not because God desires destruction, but because He alone has ultimate authority over eternal judgment. This is not a fear of terror, but of awe, reverence, and accountability.
· Gehenna as Symbol:
Gehenna was a valley outside Jerusalem associated with idolatry and later with a perpetually burning garbage heap—an image of final judgment. Jesus uses it to underscore the seriousness of eternal consequences.
🧭 Spiritual Application
· Courage in Witness:
This verse emboldens believers to speak truth without fear of worldly repercussions. Martyrs throughout history have lived this verse—valuing fidelity to God over self-preservation.
· Examination of Fear:
What do we fear most—loss of reputation, comfort, life itself? Jesus invites us to shift our fear from man to God, not to live in dread, but in reverent trust.
· Hope in the Soul’s Worth:
The soul is inviolable by human hands. This is a profound affirmation of human dignity and the eternal value of each person.
Therefore love God with all your Strength
We must be resilient in our faith to resist the devil and the suffering he inflicts by his influence on weak and sinful men. John McCain in his book Character is Destiny[1] points to the 16th President of the United States as a man who demonstrates for us the characteristic of RESILIENCE. Resilience is the ability to become strong, healthy, or successful again after something bad happens. Abraham Lincoln had known loss and grief all his life yet rather that than succumb to defeat; he somehow, always found a way to rise back up. He was inarguably a man of action. Although he was known to have chronic depression he never yielded and in some way resurrected from his melancholic states thinking, “To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better.”
Lincoln rose to the highest office in the land after surviving a hard and poor childhood in the Indiana wilderness, a harsh father, little education, and deep loneliness. He survived the death of his brother, a sister, his mother, his first sweetheart, and his own children and his marriage to Mary Todd was troubled. As president he was considered dismal by most.
How did Lincoln persist?
He willed it. He was
neither swift nor brilliant at work but he was exhaustive; he continued. His
resilience sprang from his deep conviction that America was, “the last, best
hope of earth.” In the end he paid for his devotion with his life; so that the government
of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the
earth.
ON KEEPING THE LORD'S DAY HOLY[2]
CHAPTER III
DIES ECCLESIAE
The Eucharistic Assembly:
Heart of Sunday
Easter banquet and fraternal
gathering
44. The communal character of the
Eucharist emerges in a special way when it is seen as the Easter banquet, in
which Christ himself becomes our nourishment. In fact, "for this purpose
Christ entrusted to the Church this sacrifice: so that the faithful might share
in it, both spiritually, in faith and charity, and sacramentally, in the
banquet of Holy Communion. Sharing in the Lord's Supper is always communion
with Christ, who offers himself for us in sacrifice to the Father".(72)
This is why the Church recommends that the faithful receive communion when
they take part in the Eucharist, provided that they are properly disposed
and, if aware of grave sin, have received God's pardon in the Sacrament of
Reconciliation,(73) in the spirit of what Saint Paul writes to the community at
Corinth (cf. 1 Cor 11:27-32). Obviously, the invitation to Eucharistic
communion is more insistent in the case of Mass on Sundays and holy days.
It is also important to be ever
mindful that communion with Christ is deeply tied to communion with our
brothers and sisters. The Sunday Eucharistic gathering is an experience of
brotherhood, which the celebration should demonstrate clearly, while ever
respecting the nature of the liturgical action. All this will be helped by
gestures of welcome and by the tone of prayer, alert to the needs of all in the
community. The sign of peace — in the Roman Rite significantly placed before
Eucharistic communion — is a particularly expressive gesture which the faithful
are invited to make as a manifestation of the People of God's acceptance of all
that has been accomplished in the celebration and of the commitment to mutual
love which is made in sharing the one bread, with the demanding words of Christ
in mind: "If you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember
that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the
altar and go; first be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer
your gift" (Mt 5:23-24).
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost[3]
WITH the priest in the Introit of
the Mass, let us implore God’s assistance, and say: “Hear, O Lord, my voice,
with which I have cried to Thee; be Thou my helper, forsake not, do not Thou
despise me, O God, my Savior. The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall
I fear?” (Ps. xxvi. 7, 9, 1.)
Prayer.
O God, Who hast prepared invisible goods for them that love Thee, infuse into
our hearts the affection of Thy love, that loving Thee in all things and above
all, we may obtain Thy promises which surpass every desire.
EPISTLE, i.
Peter iii. 8-15.
Dearly Beloved: Be ye all of one
mind, having compassion one of another, being lovers of the brotherhood,
merciful, modest, humble: not rendering evil for evil, nor railing for railing,
but contrariwise, blessing: for unto this are you called, that you may inherit
a blessing. For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his
tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile. Let him decline from
evil, and do good: let him seek after peace, and pursue it: because the eyes of
the Lord are upon the just, and His ears unto their prayers: but the
countenance of the Lord upon them that do evil things. And who is he that can
hurt you, if you be zealous of good? But if also you suffer anything for
justice sake, blessed are ye. And be not afraid of their fear, and be not
troubled; but sanctify the Lord Christ in your hearts. How may and ought we to
sanctify the Lord Jesus in our hearts? By faithfully imitating Him; for thereby
we become His true and faithful disciples, honor Him, sanctify ourselves and
edify others, who by our good example are led to admire Christianity, and
Christ its founder, and to become His followers.
GOSPEL.
Matt. v. 20-24.
At that time Jesus said to His disciples: I tell you, unless
your justice abounds more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not
enter into the kingdom of heaven. You have heard that it was said to them of
old: Thou shalt not kill and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the
judgment. But I say to you: that whosoever is angry with his brother, shall be
in danger of the judgment. And whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall
be in danger of the council. And whoso ever shall say, thou fool, shall be in
danger of hell fire. If therefore thou offer thy gift at the altar, and there
thou remember that thy brother hath anything against thee: leave there thy
offering before the altar, and go first to be reconciled to thy brother, and
then coming thou shalt offer thy gift.
In what did the justice of the Pharisees consist?
They were very pious in outward
appearance, and avoided those vices which caused temporal disgrace and injury;
but, on the other hand, they were full of malice in their hearts, and this
Christ often reproached them with, calling them hypocrites.
How are we to understand what Christ says about anger and
using abusive words?
The meaning of His words is, “You
have heard from your teachers and doctors of the law, that whosoever shall kill
shall be in danger of the judgment of men; but I say to you, who think it no
sin to be angry or envious, that whosoever is angry with his brother without
cause, shall be in danger of the judgment of God. You have heard that whosoever
calls his brother fool, shall be brought before the council and punished; but I
say to you, that God punishes with hell fire every grievous offence against
your neighbor, as also the hatred and enmity of your heart towards Him.”
Why must one first be reconciled to his brother before he
offers his gift at the altar, or undertakes any good work?
Because no offering, or other good
work, can be pleasing to God so long as we are living in enmity, hatred, and
strife with our neighbor, and thereby going directly against His will and example.
Remedies for
Anger.
The first and best means to overcome anger is humility; to
become thus humble, gentle, and patient, one must often consider the example of
Christ, Who endured so many contradictions, persecutions, and insults, without
reviling again when reviled Himself, and without threatening vengeance to any
one for all He suffered. An excellent preventive to anger is, to think over in
the morning what causes will be likely to draw us into anger at any time during
the day, and to guard ourselves against them beforehand, by a firm resolution
to bear everything patiently for the love of God; and then, when anything
vexatious occurs and excites our anger, to say and do nothing so long as the
anger lasts.
How shall we be reconciled with our enemies?
Not only with the lips but from the
heart, and with sincerity and promptness. “Is he absent whom you have wronged,”
says St. Augustine, “so that you cannot easily reach him? humble yourself then
before God, and ask His pardon before you offer your gift, with a firm
resolution to be reconciled with your enemy as soon as possible.”
INSTRUCTION
ON SWEARING.
To swear is to call upon God, upon His truth, His justice,
or other attributes, or upon His creatures, in the name of God, as witnesses of
the truth.
Is swearing lawful, and when?
Yes, when necessity demands it, and
when the matter sworn to is true and just: when a man thus swears he imitates
God, honors Him as all-holy, all-wise, all-just, and contributes to the triumph
of justice and innocence. On the other hand, great sins are committed:
1. By
those who swear in a false and unjust cause, which may be, besides, of little
moment; for they call upon God as a witness to falsehood and wrong, thus
violating His truth and justice.
2. By
those who swear in a good cause, but without necessity or a sufficient reason;
for it is certainly unseemly to call God as witness on every trivial occasion.
3. In
like manner, they sin grievously and constantly who have become so habituated
to swearing as to break out into oaths, without so much as knowing or thinking
whether the thing is true or false, whether they will keep their word or not;
where by they expose themselves to great danger, both because they run the risk
of swearing falsely, and also because they frivolously abuse the name of God,
of His saints, and of His works.
Everyone, says St. Chrysostom, who swears often sometimes
swears falsely; just as lie who talks a great deal sometimes utters things
unseemly and improper. For this reason, according to the opinion of St.
Augustine, the Savior forbade Christians to swear at all (Matt. v. 34), that
they might not fall into a habit of swearing, and, by reason of that, into
swearing falsely. Whoever has this habit should take the greatest pains to
overcome it. To accomplish which, it will be useful to him to reflect:
1. That
if we have to render an account for every idle word we speak, how much more
strictly will we be judged for needless, idle, and false oaths! “Remember thy
last end, and thou shalt not sin,”
2. To
remember that persons who swear so lightly are generally less believed than
others.
3. To
repent each time that he swears, and to punish himself by a penance.
Fatima: How July 13, 1917 “changed”
the Church[4]
What Our Lady of Fatima did that day inspired many to convert, but
provoked others to reject the faith.
What she did that day inspired many to convert but provoked others to
reject the faith out of hand. It made some people a little nutty and won the
begrudging respect of others.
July 13 was the day Our Lady scared the daylights out of three shepherd
children by showing them hell and sternly warning them about a second global
war and a new age of martyrdom.
But the surprising — and surprisingly harsh — July 13, 1917, apparition
changed the faith of the Church in our time.
·
First: July 13 returned hell to the center of Catholic
consciousness.
Little Lucia dos Santos was 10 when Our Lady of Fatima began to appear to
her every 13th of the month starting in May, 1917, along with her cousins
Francisco and Jacinta Marto, 8 and 7.
But in July, instead of just exhorting the children to say the Rosary and
pointing them to heaven, she showed them a terrible sight.
“We saw as it were a sea of fire,” Lucia wrote. “Plunged in this fire
were demons and souls in human form … amid shrieks and groans of pain and
despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear.”
To give Our Lady of Fatima credit, the vision of hell only happened after
a year of preparation, including visits by an angel and much reassurance about
heaven. But the vision so badly rattled Jacinta, especially, that it seemed to
change her personality utterly.
The only thing that would make this vision okay, and not an example of
emotional abuse, is if hell were a real place and we were in eminent danger of
ending up there if we don’t do something drastic.
It is. We are.
·
Second: She reiterated the most unpopular — and most
important — message of Christianity.
The messages of Jesus (Mark 1:15), John the Baptist (Matthew 3:1-2) and
Peter (Acts 2:38) were all the same: “Repent!” Jesus defined the Church’s
mission as preaching “repentance, for the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 24:47).
Yet every pope from Pius XII to Francis has said “the sin of the century
is the loss of the sense of sin.”
The refusal to repent — the belief that sin doesn’t really matter — is at
the heart of the major moral disasters of our time, from abortion to human
trafficking, from the pornography epidemic to the urban violent crime rate.
Those who see no wrong do terrible things.
Our Lady of Fatima’s vision of hell is an absolutely necessary corrective
to the presumptuous expectation that we are all going to heaven no matter what.
It is true that God wants to forgive everybody. But one thing stops him: We
don’t repent.
·
Third: Our Lady of Fatima de-romanticized war.
“This war will end,” Our Lady of Fatima told the children in July, “but
if men do not refrain from offending God, another and more terrible war will
begin.”
Whatever they understood about the particulars, the general sense of this
message was clear to the children: War isn’t an occasion for God to reward
victors, but to punish sin.
The “reward” paradigm had existed for a long time in Christian history:
From Charlemagne to Joan of Arc, from Notre Dame des Victoires to the
Conquistadores. Every Christian culture had their Robin Hood and King Arthur
figures: Heroes of the unconventional virtues of clever violence. But Our Lady
of Fatima poured cold water on all of that. Martial virtues are real, but they
are an example of God bringing good out of evil — not of God’s will being won
by violence.
·
Finally, July 13 de-romanticized martyrdom.
For that matter, Our Lady of Fatima also level-set our understanding of
martyrdom.
In the at-home movies era, many of us are only now watching Silence by
Martin Scorcese, which follows a Jesuit’s disillusionment as he looks for glory
in the persecutions of Japan and finds soul-numbing horror instead.
The children saw a vision of the pope “half trembling with halting step,
afflicted with pain and sorrow,” praying for the corpses he stumbled past until
he was himself shot. Our Lady knows that in heaven martyrdom is glorious — and
that on earth, it is painful and sad.
The meaning of all of this was not lost on the three shepherd children.
They learned that it was absolutely urgent that they console Jesus,
convert sinners and commit to Mary.
July 13 is only part of their story — a story that
includes far more consolation than condemnation and was meant for every
generation, including ours.
Fr. Mike takes a look at the dramatic moment when Jospeh makes himself
known to his brothers and weeps out of joy. Today's readings are Genesis 45-46,
Job 37-38, and Proverbs 4:20-27.
The First
Cat Show[5]
Have you ever noticed that some
people may be very, very good at lying with their lips; yet by their gestures
or body language you can always see the truth? This may be the reason we have
such a great affection for pets who bodily speak the truth of their own
likings. Let us ask our Lord whose hands were nailed to the wood and can no
longer gesture---to allow us to be His hands thus making our own gestures speak
His language of love.
A British man, Mr. Harrison Weir, got the idea for the
first cat show. He was a Fellow of the Horticultural Society, and artist, and a
cat lover. He developed a schedule, classes, and prizes for the show. He also
created the "Points of Excellence" -- a guideline for how the cats
would be judged.
The Crystal Palace, in south-east London, was chosen for
the site of the first show. (Dog shows had already been held there). A man
named Mr. F. Wilson was appointed manager of the show for setting up the
Crystal Palace. The judges were Mr. Weir, his brother John Weir, and the
Reverend J. Macdona.
The show was held on July 13, 1871. Nearly 160 cats were
shown. The cats were mostly short-haired and were divided into different color
groups. Pedigrees were not around at this time. It wasn't until 1887 that the
National Cat Club formed in Britain and began tracking the parentage of cats.
The prize cats did not have their photos taken but were drawn by an artist to
record them.
The show attracted a great deal of interest. Cat shows soon
became fashionable in Britain, particularly because they were patronized by
Queen Victoria, who owned a pair of Blue Persians. In the 1870s, larger and
larger cat shows were held in Britain. In 1895 the first official cat show was
held in Madison Square Garden, New York.
Daily Devotions
·
Unite in the work of the Porters of St. Joseph by joining them
in fasting: Victims
of clergy sexual abuse
·
Novena
to Our Lady of Mount Carmel-Day 7
·
Litany of the Most Precious
Blood of Jesus
·
Offering to
the sacred heart of Jesus
·
Rosary
