3 2us - Totus2us

Fr Francis Selman: "When the Emperor Maxentius began persecuting Christians in the early 4th century, in the final gasp of pagan fury, before Constantine through his defeat of Maxentius at the Milvian bridge in 312 brought peace to the Church, Catherine rebuked him and, with the clear-sighted wisdom of her young mind, she showed that his pagan gods were empty idols. As Maxentius could not reply to her arguments, he called a large group of philosophers to a dispute with St Catherine, who was only 18 years of age but well able to handle her case single-handed against the most learned men of Alexandria. On the way she converted the Emperor's wife, which further infuriated him. He gave orders for a spiked wheel to tear her flesh, a so-called 'Catherine wheel', but the bonds that held her down broke, so she was beheaded instead." Visit Totus2us.com for more. Totus Tuus (All Yours) was Pope John Paul II's motto to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus 2us.

Fr Francis Selman: "The relevance of St Albert for our own time can hardly be over-estimated. Surely the Patron of Scientists deserves to be better known today than he is and to be properly honoured. For the main attack on Christianity today comes from materialists who are much influenced by the scientific outlook. We need to pray to St Albert the Great, so that the study of natural science does not lead people away from God but can open their eyes and minds to Him, for they are studying the wonders of His creation. St Albert also reminds us that a knowledge of natural science needs to be a part of Christian learning today if we are to be able to hold a dialogue with non-believing scientists. For this purpose the Pope now has a Pontifical Institute of the Sciences. In our time we especially need to know how to apply our scientific knowledge and to use the inventions of technology with wisdom: this is, in a way that is truly beneficial for our way of life and is not destructive of human life nor diminishes a f

Mgr Leo Maasburg: "John Paul II was a very courageous man, not only during the Nazi occupation when he was studying for the priesthood himself secretly and was ordained priest. But also later on in his life he never shrank back from things which his heart told him to do. A few weeks after his election to the See of St Peter, I had a friend with advanced cancer and she asked me if it would be possible to meet the Pope ... After Mass, he came out and greeted us and said to her: "Il tuo sorriso mi indica la presenza di Dio in te' - 'Your smile indicates to me the presence of God in your heart.' .. When I had the occasion to meet him together with Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the way they met, how they communicated with each other, it was such a joy, but the atmosphere was so normal, although there was a big, big tenderness in their relationship. And I noticed that when they had finished talking about their business hardly anything was said, they didn't speak anymore. The Pope normally accompanied Mother Teresa to

Fr John Edwards SJ: "It's 1673 in France. A nun aged 26 has been 2 years in the convent, she's pale, she's thin, she's ill, big eyes, nervous, it's dark, she's praying. What's she doing? She's talking to Jesus who will reveal to her in 4 visions over the next 2 years the mystery of His Sacred Heart. This woman, St Margaret Mary Alacoque, is terribly important, massively important. What she sees and hears will alter nearly every Catholic church to be built and the devotional life of every good Catholic. It will restore the Church after the blight of Jansenism, it will give rise to religious orders and devotional practices. Until the devotion to the Divine Mercy in the late 20th century, it will do more than anything else to assure us that God loves us - loves us humanly as well as divinely, that God thinks we're worth dying for." Music by John Bevan and sung by the Holy Redeemer Choir. Visit Totus2us.com for more. Totus Tuus (All Yours) was Blessed John Paul II's motto to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to u

Mgr Keith Barltrop: "It's a message that although we have so much to distrust in ourselves, we can have an absolute complete confidence in God's mercy towards us. St Faustina was not only the 'secretary', the mouthpiece of this message but she lived it herself in the convent, through many ups and downs, as did St Thérèse. She had to learn to trust the message of mercy, she had to learn to detach herself, as we all do, from doing what she wanted, she had to experience many, many trials, disbelief, people thinking that she was deluded. Even after her death for many years the message of Divine Mercy was suspect. .. Eventually, thanks to the very providential appointment of John Paul II as Pope, these messages became known and accepted, and with them obviously it was only right to honour St Faustina, the very unknown, humble saint." Visit Totus2us.com for more. Totus Tuus (All Yours) was Blessed John Paul II's motto to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus 2us.

Fr Emmanuel Mansford CFR: "St Francis had everything - from a very wealthy family, properous father, very popular young man, bit of a party boy, went off to be a knight when he was about 20 which was sort of the equivalent of being the winner of the X-Factor, very respected and loved by his friends, the one who was at the centre of the life in Assisi - and yet when Jesus came into his life, it was like a revolution for him and he simply responded whole-heartedly. Just as he had given himself totally to partying, totally to fighting in the war, suddenly when Christ comes into his life he's changed and the encouraging thing for all of us is that it wasn't just overnight. Sometimes we think with the saints they're bad and then they become good but for Francis it was probably over a period of 5 years where Jesus is taking more and more of his heart captive." Visit Totus2us.com for more. Totus Tuus (All Yours) was Blessed John Paul II's motto to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus 2us.

Fr Anthony Doe: "Thérèse embodies an extremely important truth that Jesus clearly enunciated to his disciples many times. Thérèse with that transparency of faith, that openness of heart, that childlike trust in the power, the mercy and love of the Lord, embodies for us this message so profound of Jesus: unless we become like little children, we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. To become a little child, not to become childish but childlike: open, receptive, willing to receive what God wishes to give us, just as a child so desires the gifts that the parents wish to give, the gifts of their love, of their strength. And Thérèse above all embodies that spirit of openness, childlike willingness to receive from God. And in her teachings she very clearly enunciated a pattern of life, what she called her 'Little Way', a way of surrender to the person of Jesus in the minutest details of daily life, but particularly when she and we are confronted by our weakness, our failure, our human frailty, our vulnerability, all

Fr Ed Tomlinson: "Today's the feast of Our Lady of Walsingham, calling us to prayer for Christian unity. Why this connection between Mary's appearance in Britain and Christian unity? Because Our Lady's appearance was not accidental but a moment of grace and the start of a chain of events connected to England's conversion which involves, I believe, the implementation of the ordinariate in our day. To better understand, let us travel back together to the day it all started. The year is 1061 and, under a Catholic banner, England is known as Our Lady's dowry and its flourishing like never before. This was a great golden era, a time of renewal: cathedrals are built, churches are erected and they're going to define the landscape for so many different generations. Catholic devotion suits the English people and it leads to a great cultural flowering, producing in my opinion the greatest art, music and architecture that this land has ever seen. And in a tiny Norfolk village we find a noblewoman, Richeldis de Faverches

Mgr Leo Maasburg: "Jesus redeemed us because he accepted all that suffering without hating us. Because the normal human reaction if we are hurt, if we're offended, if we suffer, is at least resentment, if not hatred. And Christ did not hate us for a single second (had he hated us for a single second we would not be here). So in that moment on the Cross, instead of reacting humanly, he reacted divinely. He said 'Father, forgive them, they do not know what they are doing.' And maybe the young people of our day have understood that there is suffering in the world - there is no life without suffering, we cannot avoid, we cannot flee suffering; so suffering is part of our human condition. But the answer, our reaction to suffering, is a revelation either of our human state or of our divine state. And I believe that this celebration of the Exultation of the Cross is for us a question mark: where are you standing? How are you reacting to suffering? Are you so close to Christ that you say "His example, his suffering o

Fr John Edwards SJ: "In 590 he became Pope; he was Pope for 13 years and what a lot he did. He was only Pope for 2 years before he had to make treaties with the invading Lombards. He reformed the administration of Church lands, managed to devote an awful lot to charity, he kept the Church free from civil power. He had to deal with barbarian Franks and Visigoths, as well as the Lombards. A busy man, a very able man and, of course, he did something about the Anglo-Saxons. In the slave market in Rome he saw these 3 handsome young men and he said 'Where do they come from?' and they told him 'They're Angli' and he said 'Non Angli sed angeli' - 'Not Angles but angels.' And he realised that here was a country that needed evangelizing and so in 597 he sent St Augustine to evangelise the Anglo-Saxons." Visit Totus2us.com for more. Totus Tuus (All Yours) was Blessed John Paul II's motto to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus 2us.

Fr Francis Selman: "Although Edtih Stein became intellectually convinced of the truth of the Catholic faith, what moved her to become a Catholic was the example of the serenity of a friend in accepting the death of her young husband. One night when she was guarding the house for some friends, she found a copy of St Teresa of Avila's 'Life of Herself' on the bookshelves. She took it down and read it right through that night. In it St Teresa of Avila talks about 'the Truth that underlies all truth'. Edith wanted to possess what St Teresa of Avila had. Thus Edith Stein's conversion to Catholicism was a the same time her vocation to be a Carmelite. She was baptised in 1922, aged 31, but it wasn't until 1933 that she entered the Carmelite Order in Cologne. .. After a time her superiors asked her to continue her writing, this time in the form of a commentary and summary of the works of St John of the Cross, which she called 'The Science of the Cross'. St John of the Cross tells us that the highest wisdom is to medi

Fr John Edwards SJ: "Dominic was a very lovable, a very compassionate man and of course he loved God, and that, as with every saint, was the main thing about him. The order that he founded, the Dominicans, the Order of Preachers, has as its main note love of truth and approaching God through the intellect. And the greatest theologian of the Church, St Thomas Aquinas, was a Dominican. So a man very compassionate, very far-seeing, moved with love of sinners, eager for the truth, ready to spend himself for the Word of God. Very good with women ... But of all the things we might remember him for, perhaps the main thing is the rosary. St Dominic it is who is associated with it above all, the great saint of the rosary. And if we want to please him in heaven, we've only got to say the rosary." Visit Totus2us.com for more. Totus Tuus (All Yours) was Blessed John Paul II's motto to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus 2us.

Mgr Leo Maasburg: "I believe this is a little bit what Jesus wanted to tell his apostles: the big storms of our life are coming but do not forget I am with you. I am not only with you as a human person, as your friend, as your brother, your counsellor, I am also with you as the Son of God, because your vocation, every person's vocation, is not just to be a good human person, an anthropologically good person, but we are all called to be beyond that saints, beyond that we are called to be simply children of God, children of God who are the first born of Our Lord. And we have to learn in the whole of our life to come into a relationship, to God, to the Most Holy Trinity, to each other, exactly in the way the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father. There is a new communion coming up and that communion comes through the mystery, and for many the scandal, of the Cross. And this is precisely what Jesus wanted to prepare his apostles for. Never to cease loving, never to cease to be in friendship with one a

Fr Anthony Meredith SJ: "St Bonaventure had the enormous power of having both a spiritual approach to life, which was not something which was divorced from a clearly articulated way of dealing with the subject. It wasn't simply a question of having a funny inside feeling, it was something connected very closely with very clearly articulated ideas and structures, some of which he inherited from his ancestors in the spiritual life. There are 2 particular works of his which call for our attention - one is called The Threefold Way and the other is The Journey of the Mind into God. The Threefold Way outlines 3 basic stages through which the human spirit has to go if it wishes to arrive at the knowledge and love of God. And these 3 are: purgartio - freeing ourselves from sin, illuminatio - the knowledge of God which is the consequence of our purification, and perfectio - finally enjoying God, which takes place most perfectly in the life to come. ..This work has been called a masterpiece of the spiritual psychology

Abbot Kevin Taggart OSB: "When St Benedict fled to Subiaco many wanted to come and lead the life he was embarking on and they wanted him as their leader and so he wrote his rule. It's a wonderful document well known for its humanity and its simplicity of living, much of it going into considerable detail about how to pray what is called the Divine Office in Church, but preceded and followed by some wonderful spiritual advice to people who wanted to lead the monastic life. I suppose his most famous chapters are on obedience and humility. The other thing St Benedict stresses is stability within the community. So for a Benedictine, a monk takes 3 vows - obedience, stability and a third vow called 'conversatio morum' which is really conversion of life. For me, that's a wonderful vow because it gives one the whole of one's life to convert into a better way of life and that ties in so much with St Benedict's idea of a monk never despairing of the love and the mercy of God, and that continues right through one's life

Fr Anthony Meredith SJ: "St Peter is the person who stands, as it were, by his very name for stability, for endurance, for strength, whereas St Paul was always on the go, going all over the place, doing his best to teach the gospel of Christ to others, which he also supplemented by his wonderful letters, many of which still survive, arranged in order of length in the New Testament, from the longest - the Letter to the Romans, to the shortest - the Letter to Philemon. .. Both of them ended their lives as martyrs in Rome during the persecution of the Emperor Nero, which took place in 65 AD when he was able to accuse the Christians of the great fire in Rome .. they both gave their lives for the gospel." Visit Totus2us.com for more. Totus Tuus (All Yours) was Blessed John Paul II's motto to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus 2us.

Mgr Leo Maasburg: "Our Lady takes us to the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, and she comes to us, inviting us to open our hearts to the Lord. Our Lady is the expression of the highest dignity which God has bestowed on men and that dignity which makes him a real child of God. St John says 'Now we are children of God. What we are going to be, we do not know, but we will see Him as He is.' So let's get rid of false glitters and idols, that our eyes become clear and that we can collaborate with Our Lady, to bring not only ourselves to conversion, fasting, prayer, to the Lord, but to take many with us; to be co-redeemers, to be collaborators in the redemptive work of God; that we too one day can say 'Our Lady, your visit was not in vain. You have stayed so long with us but thank you because you have convinced us, that through your humility, through your simplicity, through your tender love, you have convinced us that we can follow you, that we can open our hearts to you and that you can lead us into the open heart o

Mgr Keith Barltrop: "The two martyrs who really stand at the head of our English martyrs are Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher. .. They were in no sense narrow-minded men; they were part of what was really called a humanistic revival of the Renaissance, they were very open to new ideas, which made it so tragic that they had to give their lives for a new ideas which they couldn't accept, that is the supremacy of the king over the Church of England and the complete alteration of the Catholic faith. Blessed Newman, who was beatified last year by Pope Benedict, spoke eloquently about the way Catholic teaching and life develops over the years, but he stressed that while it is continually growing it doesn't mutate from one thing to another, so the whole art of discernment is seeing if this new development that is taking place, is this enriching our Catholic faith?" Visit Totus2us.com for more. Totus Tuus (All Yours) was Blessed John Paul II's motto to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus 2us.

Fr Anthony Meredith: "So marvellous was St Anthony's preaching that the churches in Northern Italy weren't large enough to contain the crowds that wanted to hear him preach. He did preach remarkably and this fact is recorded. Not only did he write out many of his sermons, which are still preserved, but also the animals also wanted to hear him preaching and apparently even the fish poked up their heads out of the water to hear him.. One of the extraordinary things about him is that the rest of his body corrupted very quickly except for one particular part, the tongue. The fact the tongue alone remains now reflects something of his power as a speaker, that he was able to attract so many people and perhaps even the animal world to hear him, and that brings home to us the importance of preaching, of bringing home to other people the message of the Gospel." Visit Totus2us.com for more. Totus Tuus (All Yours) was Blessed John Paul II's motto to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus 2us.

Fr Matt Blake: "Jesus has just been conceived in the womb of Mary; it's probably only days, weeks at the very most, time when most women would not even know that they are pregnant, Jesus is a living human being but in the most hidden place any human being can be. Yet we remember that Jesus is hidden within us, within every person, in what St John of the Cross calls our deepest centre. That's where we first meet Him in the Gospels and that's where He is with us always. John the Baptist is also a child in the womb. We're told by his mother Elizabeth that he leapt with joy. John, in the womb, could receive Jesus, could receive the grace of Jesus's presence. A reminder to us that not only is a child in the womb a living human being, but a child in the womb has the capacity to receive God's grace, has a spiritual life, is in relationship with God." Visit Totus2us.com for more. Totus Tuus (All Yours) was Pope John Paul II's motto to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus 2us.