Showing results by author "Bob and-Penny-Lord" in All Categories

The Lord had an urgency to give Saint Faustina Kowalska the message of divine mercy with or without a spiritual director; and so, the day was to come, on February 22, 1931, in Vilnius, when the Lord’s mission would begin to be revealed to her. She was in her cell; she saw the Lord Jesus clothed in a white garment.

We know Our Dear Lady was upset about how her priests and nuns, as well as the laity were being treated. She had always been so loving to her children. It was she whom Jesus allowed to intercede on our behalf. We drove him beyond reconciliation, and yet, because of her, he allowed his arms to be held back. It did not seem that mankind was going to get any better. It was time for tribulation. But the Mother, the loving Mother, asked again for one more chance to reason with her children, and again, the gift was given by the Son to the Mother.

Fatima, the pleas of Our Lady, and the promises of Fatima have been repeated to and embraced by everyone she has touched. A new generation of believers, people like us who were not born when Our Lady gave us this gift, have become completely enthralled by the power of Jesus and the love of Mary, as revealed to us at Fatima.

When we wrote on the life of St. Teresa in our book Saints and other Powerful Women in the Church, little did we think that we would, some day, be using her visions of heaven, hell, and purgatory to affirm these important truths of our Catholic faith.

Born of a very devout mother and father who, in times when families were feuding amongst themselves, were called by some, "Jesus Christ’s peacemakers," it would appear from the very moment of her birth, God had special designs on Rita. There is a tradition in Roccaporena that as an infant, while she slept in a basket, in the fields where her parents were working, white bees swarmed around Rita’s open mouth. Not only did the bees not sting her, but it is said that they dropped honey into her mouth without her uttering a cry of warning to her parents.

The devil uses any means to kill us. For so many years, in the United States, the Polish people have been the brunt of very poor ethnic jokes. It is true, every new group coming into our free society inherits the suffering that the minority group before them endured. It's like being a freshman in college. The only difference is, growing up out of the persecution is swifter, but the freshman is only degraded for a year, not a lifetime.

As her illness had taken a toll on her strength, Saint Gemma Galgani was not able to return to school. She remained at home and taught her sisters and brothers. At her beatification, one of her brothers said, "Gemma always brought the olive branch." She lovingly cared for the needs, both spiritual and physical, of her family, often at the neglect of herself. She had no use for fancy clothes, and adorned herself in simple, extremely austere black dresses.

Paray le Monial is a beautiful, quiet town nestled in the center of France. But the power that emanates from this town is pure Holy Spirit. You can still feel the presence of our Lord Jesus. For, it is here that our Lord appeared to a nun over a period of 17 years. He brought his faithful message of love to an unfaithful people who had grown cold. Here, he, once again, spoke of that tremendous love of his to become man and suffer death - even death on the cross.

Being of the laity and never feeling worthy to be a priest, Philip Neri desired nothing but to serve as a lay man. He had been preaching in the hospitals and on the street corners, waiting for the office workers to leave for lunch or home. He would speak to them and instruct them with the true teachings of the Church. He taught with such love and such fire that more and more came and stayed longer and longer, until they began following him, visiting the poor and the infirm. The confraternity of the Laity was formed!

Learn about the life of Saint Martin De Porres.

Prophetess of Germany, visionary, mystic, doctor of the Church. Come with us as we travel to Bingen, Germany, and the area of the beautiful Rhine River which is where St. Hildegard lived and had her visions. It was also here where she wrote her books on her visions and many other things, like a morality play put to music, which she also wrote. She wrote a book on herbal medicine, which is used to this day in that area of Germany.

The reason we call Saint Louis Marie de Montfort a prophet of the last days, even though he lived between the last half of the 17th century and the first part of the 18th century, is because of what we read in his prophecies. It deal with the last days.

To study the history of the world, especially Europe, is to discover the history of the Church. For, the Church has always played an integral part in the annals of history, as she continues to follow her master Jesus Christ, who told the apostles, “I will be with you till the end of the world.” For, since the children of God are living in the world, then so must the happenings of the world be intertwined with Mother Church as her children are affected by the world they live in.

Saint Teresa later wrote of Saint John of the Cross: "I realized that he was a saint, and had always been a saint." Before her was a figure tiny in physical stature, as the world measures, but a towering giant in the eyes of the Lord. She recognized the same fire burning in him that raged inside of her. She was 52; he was 25. She, a nun twice his age! He, a young friar with a dream to become a Carthusian hermit.

This is an account of recorded miracles connected with the practice of the Eucharist over the centuries with a view to showing that miracles still happen today.

Saint Anthony of Padua was proclaimed a doctor of the church. There are 33 doctors of the church. In the 2,000 years since the church was instituted, out of its millions of holy people, and thousands of canonized Saints, only 33 have been given the honor of this title. We have written about 15 of them thus far. Saint Anthony of Padua, the saint we pray to for lost objects, is one of these honored people. But until the Lord decided to put St. Anthony into active ministry, he was a dish washer and confessor to Franciscan hermits.

Children have always been uppermost in the mind of the Father, as they have been helpless and in need of protection. There have been orphans and street urchins from the beginning of time. Over the centuries, the Lord has provided for these little ones, by sending men and women to take care of them. An epidemic of exploitation of children began at the end of the 18th century, with the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.

This is an account of four recorded miracles connected with the practice of the Eucharist.

We could not think of writing a book about saints and powerful men who have changed the course of our lives and not include Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. I must admit I never watched Fulton J. Sheen on television, nor was I influenced by him while he was alive. But, as we began to discover our Catholic faith as adults, his words and his living based out of those words, became a strong part of our journey of faith toward new life in the Lord.

We go to Careggi, Italy, where the incorrupt body of Saint Mary Magdalene de Pazzi is. We visit the Carmelite convent where she lived, the bell tower where she rang the bells while in ecstasy, the chapel and the garden where she had ecstasies and visions from souls in Purgatory.