Quote:EXPLANATION St. Paul's exclamations, in this epistle, are caused by the inscrutable judgment of God in rejecting the Jews and calling the Gentiles. The Church makes use of these words to express her admiration for the incomprehensible mystery of the most Holy Trinity, which surpasses our understanding, and yet is the worthy object of our faith, hope and love. Although neither angels nor men can fathom this mystery, it cannot be difficult for the sound human intellect to believe it, since it is indubitably and evidently revealed by God, arid we, in many natural and human things, accept for true and certain much that we cannot comprehend. Let us submit our intellect, there fore, and yield ourselves up to faith; as there was indeed a time when men were martyred, when even persons of all ages and conditions preferred to die rather than to abandon this faith, so let us rather wait until our faith is changed to contemplation, until we see the Triune God, face to face, as He is, and in the sight of that countenance become eternally happy. Thither should all our hopes, wishes,' and desires be directed, and we should cease all fruitless investigations, endeavoring by humble faith and active love, to prove worthy of the beatific vision; for if we do not love Him who is our all, our last end and aim, and lovingly desire Him, we will have to hope of one day possessing Him.

ASPIRATION O incomprehensible, Triune God! O Abyss of wisdom, power, and goodness! To Thee all glory and adoration! In Thee I lose myself; I cannot contain Thee, do Thou, contain me. I believe in Thee, though I cannot comprehend Thee; do Thou increase my faith; I hope in. Thee, for Thou art the source of all good; do Thou enliven my hope; I love Thee, because Thou art worthy, of all love; do Thou inflame ever more my love, that in Thy love I may live and die. Amen.

Quote:EXPLANATION Christ being God had from all eternity the same power that His Father had; being man, He had this same power by the union of His divinity with His humanity, and on account of the infinite merits of His passion. In virtue of this power, He said to His apostles, before the ascension, that, as His Heavenly Father had sent Him, even so He sent them to all nations, without exception, to teach all that He had commanded, and to receive them, by means of baptism, into the Church; at the same time He promised to be with them to the end of the world, that is, that He would console them in suffering, strengthen them in persecution, preserve them from error, and always protect them and their successors, the bishops and priests, even unto the consummation of the world.

(See Instruction on the doctrine of the infallibility of the Church for the first Sunday after Easter.)

ASPIRATION Be with us, O Lord, for without Thee our pastors cannot produce fruit, nor their hearers profit anything from their words. Be with us always, for we always need Thy help. All power is given to Thee, Thou bast then the right to command, and we are bound to obey Thy commands which by Thy Church Thou bast made known to us. This we have promised in baptism, and now before Thee we renew those vows. Grant now that those promises which without Thee we could not have made, and without Thee cannot keep, may be fulfilled in our actions. Leave us not to ourselves, but be Thou with us, and make us obedient to Thee, that by cheerful submission to Thee true may receive happiness.

Quote:“This is just a small step in this long journey,” Wang said. “If we continue this line of work, it can bring us to a point where we will have vaccines — they could be based on DNA, RNA, proteins — that can be stored without refrigeration and easily delivered under the tongue at the sublingual site.”

“They will be quickly disseminated throughout the world because they don’t rely on certain equipment and preservation and all of that stuff. This will be particularly good for low-resource regions of the world, even in America — rural areas that are lacking certain essential facilities and infrastructure.”

Quote:“The bleak Paul VI Audience Hall has been emblematically chosen as the temple in which to celebrate this new sanitary rite, officiated by ministers of the Covid religion in order to assure, certainly not the salvation of souls, but rather the illusory promise of health for the body.”

Quote:Mary Magdalene was born at Florence, and was of the illustrious family of the Pazzi. It might be said of her that she entered the way of perfection when a babe. When ten years of age, she took a vow of perpetual virginity; and having taken the habit in the Carmelite Monastery of Our Lady of the Angels, she became a model of every virtue. Such was her purity, that she utterly ignored everything that is opposed to that virtue. She received a command from God, which she fulfilled, of fasting on bread and water for five years, Sundays alone excepted, on which she might partake of Lenten diet. She mortified her body by a hairshirt, discipline, cold, abstinence, watching, want, and every kind of suffering.

Such was the ardor of divine love that burned within her, that not being able to bear the heat, she was obliged to temper it by applying cold water to her breast. She was frequently in a state of rapture, and the wonderful ecstasies she had were almost daily. In these states, she was permitted to penetrate into heavenly mysteries, and was favored by God with extraordinary graces. Thus strengthened, she had to endure a long combat with the princes of darkness, as also aridity, abandonment by all creatures, and divers temptations: God so willed it, that she might become a model of invincible patience and profound humility.

She was remarkable for her charity toward others. She would frequently sit up the whole night, either in doing the work of the Sisters, or in waiting upon the sick, whose sores she sometimes healed by sucking the wounds. She wept bitterly over the perdition of infidels and sinners, and offered to suffer every sort of torment, so that they might be saved. Several years before her death, she heroically besought our Lord to take from her the heavenly delights wherewith he favored her; and was frequently heard saying these words: “To suffer; not to die.” At length, worn out by a long and most painful illness, she passed hence to her Spouse, on the twenty-fifth of May, in the year 1607, having completed the forty-first year of her age. Many miracles having been wrought by her merits, both before and after death, she was canonized by Pope Clement the Ninth. Her body is, even to this day, preserved from corruption.

Quote:Although separated materially because of the departure of Mrs. Graham in the department of Calvados shortly before the hearing, the usual residence of the minors was not granted to either of the two parents, this situation having vocation to last insofar as Mrs. Graham indicated not to consider a judicial separation for the moment from her husband. She speaks of difficulty in entrusting the children to the father, which the social services were unable to verify. Finally, it must be noted that although Mr. Graham deplores the choices made by his wife, considering them to be contrary to the interests of their common children, he has never taken a position for the protection of the children until now. In these conditions it is impossible to entrust the minors to one or the other of the parents. No person is capable to be designated as a trustworthy third party and no member of the family seems to reside on the national territory, and it should be recalled that the family was very isolated in the Orne region.

The minor children, who are living with their mother in Calvados, will therefore be placed for 6 months. The parents obtain mediate visits (in presence of third parties) every 15 days in alternation, with the possibility of lightening of these measures. [Emphasis added.]

Quote:I woke up around 7 a.m. to my dad telling me to hurry downstairs — “The police are here to see you.” When I got down, I was confronted with about ten or twelve police in the kitchen. The chief approached me and was very aggressive and frustrated because they had still not found my mum and the six children after three weeks of searching for them. He raised his voice and said that he has been made a fool of because of me and my family.  He then said, ‘I am going to ask you one last time where they are, and if you don't tell me, you will be arrested right now and put in custody until you do.’ I answered, 'I still don't know where they are’ and was then arrested, searched and put in a cell.

Quote: “In those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities or persons of indigenous origin exist, a child belonging to such a minority or who is indigenous shall not be denied the right, in community with other members of his or her group, to enjoy his or her own culture, to profess and practise his or her own religion, or to use his or her own language.”

Quote:Augustine was a Monk of the Monastery of Saint Andrew, in Rome, where also he discharged the office of Prior with much piety and prudence. He was taken from that Monastery by St. Gregory the Great; and sent by him, with about forty Monks of the same monastery, into Britain. Thus would Gregory carry out, by his disciples, the conversion of that country to Christ—a project which he at first resolved to effect himself. They had not advanced far on their journey, when they became frightened at the difficulty of such an enterprise; but Gregory encouraged them by Letters which he sent to Augustine, whom he appointed as their Abbot, and gave him letters of introduction to the kings of the Franks, and to the Bishops of Gaul. Whereupon Augustine and his Monks pursued their journey with haste. He visited the tomb of St. Martin, at Tours. Having reached the town of Pont-de-Cé, not far from Angers, he was badly treated by its inhabitants, and was compelled to spend the night in the open air. Having struck the ground with his staff, a fountain miraculously sprang up; and on that spot, a Church was afterwards built, and called after his name.

Having procured interpreters from the Franks, he proceeded to England and landed at the Isle of Thanet. He entered the Country, carrying, as a standard, a silver Cross, and a painting representing our Saviour. Thus did he present himself before Ethelbert, the king of Kent, who readily provided the heralds of the Gospel with a dwelling in the city of Canterbury, and gave them leave to preach in his kingdom. There was, close at hand, an Oratory which had been built in honour of St. Martin, when the Romans had possession of Britain. It was in this Oratory that his queen Bertha (who was a Christian, as being of the nation of the Franks) was wont to pray. Augustine, therefore, entered into Canterbury with solemn religious ceremony, amidst the chanting of psalms and litanies. He took up his abode for some time near to the said Oratory; and there, together with his Monks, led an apostolic life. Such manner of living, conjointly with the heavenly doctrine that was preached, and confirmed by many miracles, so reconciled the islanders, that many of them were induced to embrace the Christian Faith. The king himself was also converted, and Augustine baptized him and a very great number of his people. On one Christmas Day he baptized upwards of ten thousand English, in a river at York; and it is related that those among them who were suffering any malady, received bodily health, as well as their spiritual regeneration.

Meanwhile, the man of God Augustine received a command from Gregory to go and receive Episcopal ordination in Gaul, at the hands of Virgilius, the Bishop of Arles. On his return he established his See at Canterbury, in the Church of our Saviour, which he had built, and he kept there some of the Monks to be his fellow-labourers. He also built in the suburbs the Monastery of Saint Peter, which was afterwards called “Saint Augustine’s.” When Gregory heard of the conversion of the Angli, which was told to him by the two Monks Laurence and Peter, whom Augustine had sent to Rome,—he wrote letters of congratulation to Augustine. He gave him power to arrange all that concerned the Church in England, and to wear the Pallium. In the same letters he admonished him to be on his guard against priding himself on the miracles which God enabled him to work for the salvation of souls, lest pride should tum them to the injury of him that worked them.

Having thus put in order the affairs of the Church in England, Augustine held a Council with the Bishops and Doctors of the ancient Britons, who had long been at variance with the Roman Church in the keeping of Easter and other rites. And in order to refute, by miracles, these men, whom the Apostolic See had often authoritatively admonished, but to no purpose, Augustine, in proof of the truth of his assertions, restored sight to a blind man in their presence. But on their refusing to yield even after witnessing the miracle, Augustine, with prophetic warning, told them of the punishment that awaited them. At length, after having laboured so long for Christ, and appointed Laurence as his successor, he took his departure for heaven on the seventh of the Calends of June (May 26th) and was buried in the Monastery of Saint Peter, which became the burying-place of the Archbishops of Canterbury, and of several Kings. The Churches of England honoured him with great devotion. They decreed that each year his feast should be kept as a holyday, and that his name should be inserted in the Litany, immediately after that of St. Gregory, together with whom Augustine has ever been honoured by the English as their Apostle, and as the propagator of the Benedictine Order in their Country.

Quote:John, by birth a Tuscan, governed the Church during the reign of the Emperor Justin the Elder. He undertook a journey to Constantinople, in order to solicit the Emperor’s protection against the heretical king Theodoric, who was persecuting the faithful of Italy. God honoured the Pontiff, during this journey, by several miracles. When about to visit Corinth, a certain nobleman lent him a horse, which he kept for his wife’s use, on account of its being so gentle. When the Pontiff afterwards returned, and gave the horse back to the nobleman, it was no longer a tame creature as before; but, as often as its mistress attempted to ride it, would snort and prance, and throw her from its back, as though it scorned to bear a woman’s weight, after it had carried the Vicar of Christ. They therefore gave the horse to the Pontiff. But a greater miracle was that which happened at Constantinople. Near to the Golden Gate, and in the presence of an immense concourse of people, who had assembled there together with the Emperor to show honour to the Pontiff, he restored sight to a blind man. The Emperor also prostrated before him, Out of a sentiment of veneration. Having arranged matters with the Emperor, he returned to Italy, and immediately addressed a letter to all its bishops, commanding them to consecrate the churches of the Arians, that they might be used for Catholic services. He added these words: “For, when at Constantinople, for the interests of the Catholic religion and on account of king Theodoric, we consecrated all the Arian churches we could find in that country, and made them Catholic.” Theodoric was exceedingly angry at this; and, having craftily induced the Pontiff to come to Ravenna, put him in prison. There, from the filth of the place, and from starvation, he died in a few days. He reigned two years, nine months, and fourteen days; during which time he ordained fifteen bishops. Theodoric died soon after; and St. Gregory relates that a certain hermit saw him plunged into a pit of fire at Lipari, in the presence of John the Pontiff, and the Patrician Symmachus, whom he had murdered: thus they whom he had put to death stood as judges condemning him to punishment. The body of St. John was taken from Ravenna to Rome, and buried in the Basilica of Saint Peter.