Happy New Year!! A fresh start for all of us. Starting the new year off with celebrating the feast of Mary, Mother of God is a great way to begin this new year with Mary’s intercession. Mass for that feast day is 9 am at St. Casimir and 10:30 am at St. Peter. Mary tells us to do whatever He tells you. So it is important to take time in prayer to listen and respond.
Just a heads up for all, I am heading out to Phoenix from the 8th until the 18th of January. I travel with a fellow priest every other year to enjoy a little R&R. We stay at Mt. Claret Retreat Center so we are able to celebrate Mass every day and keep all of you in prayer. It also allows us to get out in the afternoon for a little hiking or other activities.
For the next few weeks I will be offering the 9 days of the Surrender Novena. Fr. Dolindo Ruotolo lived from 1882-1970. He had a very intense prayer life and our Lord spoke often to him directing in certain ways. The surrender novena is one of the fruits of his prayer. A novena is a prayer that is said over 9 hours, days, weeks or months. The number nine comes from the nine days between Jesus Ascending to heaven and the giving of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. They were directed to pray and wait patiently until the Advocate was given to them. The handout I am using for this novena is from fullofgraceuse.com. From the back cover; “As you can see from this novena much of what our Lord wants flies in the face of normal human inclination and reason. We can only rise to this level of thinking through the grace of God and the help of the Holy Spirit. We must let go of our problems; stop worrying and trying to resolve them ourselves. We must believe, trust, and allow our Lord to rescue us from ourselves and supply our wants and needs; and to resolve our problems as only He can. ‘Jesus, You take care of it,’ should be the first words that come to mind and then flow from our lips. After all, we have tried to do things our way and look where it has gotten us. Just do as the payer says, open our hearts and minds in love and close our eyes in trust and ask Jesus to take care of it. He will.”
Day 1 of the Surrender Novena. Why do you confuse yourselves by worrying? Leave the care of your affairs to Me and everything will be peaceful. I say to you in truth that every act of true, blind, complete surrender to Me produces the effects that you desire and resolves all difficult situations. (After that prayer say 10 times) O Jesus, I surrender myself to You, take care of everything!