Our Lady of Ashes

In, The Seven Sacraments: Entering the Mysteries of God,  Stratford Caldecott explores the spiritual connections between the Seven Sacraments of the Church with other sets of seven in the faith: Seven Last words of Christ, Petitions in the Our Father , Theological + Cardinal Virtues ,  Gifts of the Holy Spirit , Days of Creation , etc. Neither the writers of scripture, nor the Fathers of the Church found sets sharing numbers as these to be coincidental, but reflective of a sacred order to Creation, especially when so ordered by the tradition of the Church. These organic spiritual links between all things bring a depth of understanding when meditating upon these sacred things and cause them to settle more firmly into our hearts, and minds and souls. This book of Ven. Fulton Sheen, (included in Caldecott's Bibliography as The Seven Capital Sins) focuses on two of those sets, the Last Words of Christ on the Cross and how those words demonstrate Christ's Victory over the ...

Fascinated by Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson's description of Fr Percy's prayer in The Lord of the World . [H]e hid his face in his hands, drew a couple of breaths, and set to work.  He began, as his custom was in mental prayer, by a deliberate act of self-exclusion from the world of sense. Under the image of sinking beneath a surface he forced himself downwards and inwards, till the peal of the organ, the shuffle of footsteps, the rigidity of the chair-back beneath his wrists--all seemed apart and external, and he was left a single person with a beating heart, an intellect that suggested image after image, and emotions that were too languid to stir themselves. Then he made his second descent, renounced all that he possessed and was, and became conscious that even the body was left behind, and that his mind and heart, awed by the Presence in which they found themselves, clung close and obedient to the will which was their lord and protector. He drew another long breath, or tw...