Yearly Archives: 2015

Family Prayer and Devotion – The Sacred Heart Ancient Devotion Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is best known to us today as it was revealed to St Margaret Mary Alacoque in the Convent of the Visitation Sisters at Paray-le-Monial in France, from 1671 until her death in 1690. As we have seen in previous articles, this was not a new devotion as it had been practised by St Gertrude and St Mechtilde in the late thirteenth century. I … Read More

Family Prayer and Devotion – The Sacred Heart. It’s not easy to be Catholic. It has never been easy to live life as a Catholic and this is still true today, especially in Ireland, where hostility to the Catholic Faith seems to have reached an all time high amongst the Irish and the faith is regularly derided by those who do not believe and is often poorly presented or distorted by those who do believe in order not to cause … Read More

Marriage a gift from God – Family Prayer and Devotion. The Essential Nature of Marriage. Through Sacred Scripture we discovered the essential nature of marriage. Children are the primary end of marriage therefore; marriage must always remain open to life; marriage can only be between one man and one woman; marriage is for life; marriage is indissoluble; those who wish to marry must be free to marry and the consent given to marry must be given freely. We discovered Christ’s … Read More

Husbands, Love your Wives. We now return to St Paul’s letter to the Ephesians where he addresses husbands and wives. This time we will look first to what St Paul says to the husbands. “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church, and delivered himself up for it: That he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life: That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot … Read More

A Clarification regarding Separation. Before continuing with St Paul’s letter to the Ephesians I would like to make a little clarification based on some recent feedback I received on one of these articles. Indeed I welcome any and all feedback that readers may have and I have included an e-mail address (john@truedevotions.ie) where I may be contacted, or if you you would prefer to send a letter to me my address is, 21 Glenbrook, Knock Claremorris, Co Mayo F12 NW20. … Read More

St Paul on Marriage St Paul has a lot to say to husbands and wives throughout his writings. Much of what St Paul says in this regard is seen as being contentious in our day. St Paul speaks plainly and very bluntly. He doesn’t beat around the bush but is very direct is what he has to say. St Paul is often accused of being misogynistic on account of what he says concerning women. “Let women keep silence in the … Read More

Here in Ireland, I write a column on marriage for a Catholic fortnightly paper called ‘The Catholic Voice’.  I am hoping to make all of these articles available on the website and I managed to post another three today.  You can download those posted so far in .pdf format from the ‘marriage articles’ link at the top of the page. I have also managed to put a few more sacred art pictures up for sale.  These are available as photographic … Read More

The Call to be Faithful The two previous articles in this series explored two extraordinary wives, Blessed Elisabeth Canori Mora and the Servant of God Elisabeth Leseur, who loved their husbands despite all the odds, and who, through their heroic sacrifices, obtained the conversion of these men both of whom ended their lives as priests of the Holy Catholic Church. Just imagine for a moment how the lives of these four spouses would have turned out if these two wives … Read More

Elisabeth Leseur Another more recent example of a wife obtaining the great fruits promised by St Peter is the story of the servant of God, Elisabeth Leseur, who was born into a well to do family in Paris in 1866. She was fervent in the practice of her faith as a child and was very well educated. She married Felix Leseur on July 31st 1889. Felix was brought up a good Catholic and qualified in medicine in Paris. However his … Read More

Marriage a gift from God The Difficult Marriage – following St Peter’s advice: “In like manner also let wives be subject to their husbands: that if any believe not the word, they may be won without the word, by the conversation of the wives”. (1 Peter 3:1) Blessed Elisabeth Canori Mora was beatified alongside Saint Gianna Molla and Blessed Isidore Bakanja by Pope John Paul II on 24th April 1994. At her beatification Pope John Paul II said; “For her … Read More

I haven’t been updating the blog in recent months as I have been working away in the background to get the shop up and running. My computer skills are good, but I have never put a shop online before and so I have had to learn the basics. I had to close the retail shop in Knock due to the seasonal nature of the pilgrimage season but I will be offering a small but growing range of Catholic Art prints … Read More

On Saturday 21st November 2015, I delivered a talk at a Catholic family conference in Limerick, Ireland hosted by ‘The Catholic Voice’ and ‘The Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest.  The talk was titled ‘ Catholic Families will save the world and I used this talk to formally launch ‘Legio Sanctae Familiae’ – ‘The Legion of the Holy Family’. The idea of this Legion is to form an army of Catholic Families who, under the headship of husbands and … Read More

Today is Trinity Sunday.  As a Benedictine Oblate I recite the office of Lauds first thing in the morning.  Today in the Benedictine Office the ‘Athanasian Symbol’ or ‘Athanasian Creed’ is recited.  Whilst scholars do not now believe that this creed was written by St Athanasius it is nonetheless an approved creed of the Catholic Church. No harm to recite it today in Ireland given the recent apostate result of our referendum on same sex relationships.   Whoever desires to … Read More

Marriage a gift from God – The Church’s Understanding through Scripture This article was first published in The Catholic Voice in March 2014 St Peter on Marriage We have seen that Dei Verbum says “the interpreter of Sacred Scripture, in order to see clearly what God wanted to communicate to us, should carefully investigate what meaning the sacred writers really intended, and what God wanted to manifest by means of their words.”. With this in mind let us have a … Read More

Ninth Day: Transfiguration and Ascension of Our Lord, and the Manifestations of the Holy Ghost. Hymn: – Veni Creator – Let us prostrate ourselves before the majesty of the most Holy Trinity, and uniting our dispositions with those of our blessed Lady and the holy apostles in the upper room at Jerusalem, let us say one Our Father and one Hail Mary, to obtain, by the merits of Jesus ascended, the fruits of the Holy Ghost – continence and chastity … Read More

Eight Day: Descent of the Holy Ghost upon Jesus at the Jordan Hymn: – Veni Creator – Let us prostrate ourselves before the majesty of the most Holy Trinity, and uniting our dispositions with those of our blessed Lady and the holy apostles in the upper room at Jerusalem, let us say one Our Father and one Hail Mary, to obtain, by the merits of Jesus ascended, the fruits of the Holy Ghost – continence and chastity Our Father…      Hail … Read More

Seventh Day: Descent of the Holy Ghost upon Mary at the Annunciation Hymn: – Veni Creator – Let us prostrate ourselves before the majesty of the most Holy Trinity, and uniting our dispositions with those of our blessed Lady and the holy apostles in the upper room at Jerusalem, let us say one Our Father and one Hail Mary, to obtain, by the merits of Jesus ascended, the fruits of the Holy Ghost – continence and chastity Our Father…      Hail … Read More

Sixth Day: Fruits of Continence and Chastity Hymn: – Veni Creator – Let us prostrate ourselves before the majesty of the most Holy Trinity, and uniting our dispositions with those of our blessed Lady and the holy apostles in the upper room at Jerusalem, let us say one Our Father and one Hail Mary, to obtain, by the merits of Jesus ascended, the fruits of the Holy Ghost – continence and chastity Our Father…      Hail Mary… Most holy, most divine … Read More

Fifth Day: Fruits of Faith and Modesty Hymn: – Veni Creator – Let us prostrate ourselves before the majesty of the most Holy Trinity, and uniting our dispositions with those of our blessed Lady and the holy apostles in the upper room at Jerusalem, let us say one Our Father and one Hail Mary, to obtain, by the merits of Jesus ascended, the fruits of the Holy Ghost – faith and modesty. Our Father…      Hail Mary… O eternal Father, how … Read More

Fourth Day: Fruits of Benignity and Goodness Hymn: – Veni Creator – Let us prostrate ourselves before the majesty of the most Holy Trinity, and uniting our dispositions with those of our blessed Lady and the holy apostles in the upper room at Jerusalem, let us say one Our Father and one Hail Mary, to obtain, by the merits of Jesus ascended, the fruits of the Holy Ghost – peace and patience. Our Father…      Hail Mary… Most holy prince of … Read More