3 2us - Totus2us

Fr Leo Maasburg: "The angel asked the children in Fatima if they were ready to go out and they say yes, we are ready to face the sufferings of this world which nobody can avoid. On 13th May 1981 another great person had to suffer and that was Blessed John Paul II. And I happened to be at St Peter's Square when, in the evening, hundreds and thousands of people gathered just to pray. There were candles on the ground where he had been shot and he was in hospital. We were praying the rosary there. Suddenly you could hear a strong clicking noise and the loud speakers were switched on in St Peter's Square. And after a long time, maybe 10 minutes, you could hear a very heavy breathing, very slowly, and already the word spread that this was a broadcast from the room of the Holy Father in hospital. And then a very, very slow, a real suffering voice came across "Totus tuus ego sum." A long silence; it took him I guess at least 3 minutes to pronounce these words. And then he said "I have forgiven the man who made an att

Fr Francis Selman: "What can we learn from this brief outline of St Catherine's life? First, she knew how to find all the time and space she needed for prayer in the busy household of her family. Second, prayer was not so much something that Catherine went to, as we do in moments snatched from our work, but she went from to her activity. Third, she knew how to combine inner peace with political activity.. Fourth, the Eucharist was the centre of her daily life. And lastly, her life was focused on the Trinity, the source of all love, and on Christ who, by his Incarnation, is the bridge by which we cross over from earth to heaven." 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 William Pearsall: "Christ washes the feet of his disciples and on the day that follows he will wash the world in his own blood. So the bread which is broken is his own body which will be offered for us and the cup which he blesses and gives to his disciples is the cup of his blood which will be shed for us. And for this reason the Last Supper can never be separated from the Cross. They belong together. And the Cross itself is the reason Christ came - it is so that we can be reconciled with God through this gift of love whereby the Son of God offers himself on behalf of humanity and in his human nature is crucified to the wood of the cross, with his arms outstretched in an embrace nailed to that wood and an embrace that will include the whole universe and he bares the wounds of that suffering, even in his risen body. They remain the marks of that love in His glory in heaven so that God's own life is inseparable now from this moment of death, the death of Christ on the Cross and the Gospels speak of that as

Fr John Edwards SJ: "We should be so grateful that we have a mother like Mary. A mother is one who gives life. The life of Christ, which is meant to be in each one of us, comes as a condition through Mary. As St Augustine said: "From one woman, death (meaning Eve), from a woman, life (meaning Mary). On 25th March we should, among other things, be very grateful to our mother." 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 Anthony Doe: "The Father chose Joseph because He saw in him a man who would be able to initiate His Divine Son into His own life; He saw in Joseph the depth and tenderness of heart, the compassion, the mercy, the wisdom and the openness to others that He wished to communicate to His Son Jesus in the flesh. So Joseph was the one who enabled Jesus to really freely embrace the Father in the depths of His spirit and come to know him, because Joseph was the human template that had cared for him as a child. So Joseph played an extremely important part in the life of Jesus. In those hours of silent prayer, in those encounters with the Father, something had already been implanted so that Jesus could genuinely know that the Father's presence was authentic and true, because he had already experienced it in Joseph." 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 David Barnes: "Another David, living 500 years after Christ, is the patron saint of Wales. He too wanted to put his whole heart into loving God. As a young priest he defended Catholic teaching, especially about how Christ alone saves us from the power of sin which is destructive of our humanity and how our humanity grows only with the help of God's grace. David lived a very ascetic life, he founded monasteries where a very simple life was promoted, a life stripped of as many material things as possible. It was not that he saw material things as bad, but simply that our attachment to material things, an over-dependence on them blinds us to the love of God. He became known as the waterman because his monks drank only water, a way of wanting to rely totally on 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.

Fr John Edwards SJ: "We too are presented to God. Please God each one of us is alive in the life of Christ, what we Catholics call 'in a state of grace', and presented in some way also through the hands of his mother. It was through her, after all, through her yes, that God became man. So we are endlessly in the situation of being held before God in his holy place by Mary and we must pray that the Christ life in us should grow and develop." 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 John Edwards SJ: "Now what is important about his conversion? Well this, that he is so vital for the Church. It's very mysterious, Our Lord had chosen 12 apostles to whom he gave authority to teach all nations and guaranteed that they would teach the truth. We look on them as the first bishops; 1 of them was Judas, he had to be replaced, but these people had all known Our Lord in his earthly life. He chose out 12, St Mark says, to be with him. But St Paul was not with him. St Paul, a learned man, learned in Jewish religion, highly intelligent .. persecuted the Church and did it zealously for a long time. Now it was this man who met Jesus in a different way. He was on his way to Damascus to persecute Christians and Jesus appeared to him, he knocked him off his horse, turned him blind, and a voice from heaven... Now that was the man whom Jesus chose. God can do anything and he chose him, as St Paul says, as it were out of due time. He really did meet Jesus but it was in a different way and he realised that G

Fr Javier Igea: "The best gift that we can give is the gift of ourselves. The best gift is not a material thing but it is our heart and It is what we truly celebrate in the Feast of the Epiphany: God has given himself to us, God has given our heart to us in the Incarnate Word, the baby Jesus, which is given to humanity." Carol - In the Bleak Midwinter. 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 Leo Maasburg: "The World Day of Peace is about God who works together with us to change the state of the fallen world into the state of the redeemed world of paradise. Mother Teresa in her 80s was asked by a journalist "What have you changed in the world?" She answered "I never wanted to change the world. I only wanted to be a drop of fresh water in which God's love could be reflected into the world." .. I hope that we will be the same - to be little drops of clean water through which the love of God can, unhindered, be let through into the world. And that love of God is done by faith, by prayer, by fasting and by almsgiving. In this way our love for God and for our brothers and sisters will grow, and through that the light of God will start shining into the world. Here in Medjugorje this is precisely the message of Our Lady: faith, to change our way, to believe in God, to fast, to pray and to give alms. This is the classical teaching of the Church throughout all the centuries. Our Lady does not change - s

Fr Leo Maasburg: "The Immaculate Conception of Mary in the womb of her mother Anna - it starts us off to think: Why is that something so exceptional? Why do we celebrate it in a special feast day? I believe it is because we rejoice in the Lord for the unique holiness He has given to Our Lady. Her unique holiness was not a special gift for her, she was not just a privileged woman whom the Lord has chosen, but He has chosen the whole of humankind in her, she is only you could say the point where He entered that human history. She is the entrance door and also at the same time the symbol and the aim, the fulfilment and the example for that unique holiness to which all humankind is called. God has somehow promised in that vocation which He gave to Our Lady that He will lead the whole of humankind to that holiness. Our Lady in Lourdes calls herself "I am the Immaculate Conception". We know that in baptism, which is symbolised by the waters in Lourdes, we are called to follow her into that holiness, into that compl

Fr John Edwards SJ: "St Francis Xavier is one of the patrons of the missions .. when he turned to Jesus, he was ambitious for Jesus. The thing is he was totally unselfish which is the vital thing. Unselfishness is really almost what we mean by charity, by love: not having self first. Incredible journeys in those 10 years in the East, massive responsibility, India, Malaysia, islands of the East Indies, Japan, very nearly China; greatest hardship and through it all immense prayer life, immense charity, immense love. " 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 Nathan Cromly CSJ: "St Catherine Labouré was a woman to whom Mary revealed the desire of God to give grace. In a special way therefore in celebrating this feast day, we need to celebrate this saint who allowed herself to receive that message: the humility of her heart to enable herself to be so loved by God that she could even receive Mary as a mother, mediatrix (which means channel) of His gift of Himself to her; to allow oneself to be loved in a way that we can't even understand. For example to think about those graces for which we haven't even asked - what must those graces be like? That's what Our Lady told St Catherine: God wants to give even more than what you ask for. It's like plunging St Catherine on a spiritual path of desire, saying 'Do you really want to cooperate with God?' then desire for the rest of your life." 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 Leo Maasburg: "The Church celebrates all saints - all the saints of all the centuries.. all those who have gone to heaven through the grace of God. Sanctity, Mother Teresa once said, is not the privilege of the few, sanctity is the simple duty for you and me, we have all been created for that. That is her view and she echoes very well what the Second Vatican Council tells us: the common call to sanctity. .. Of course none of us can live the virtues but we all can open up to the guidance, to the strengthening, to the counselling of the Holy Spirit .. Sanctity is the path and it is the narrow path into the kingdom of God. It is a path which Jesus says is comparable to the eye of a needle - it cannot be found by ourselves. It is very difficult for ourselves to enter the kingdom of heaven but what for us is impossible, for God is possible. So sanctity has a lot to do with us being linked closely to God. And how do we get linked to God? By the means by which the Holy Spirit guides us and the Church teaches us;

Fr John Edwards: "There wasn't a slacker or a coward among them. These men were on fire with the love of God and of Jesus crucified and love of the indigenous people they came to serve. Men of total generosity, faithful to God, gifted in prayer, unsparing in their unselfishness, courageous, tough, spiritual giants .. But physically how did this weak man, Noel Chabanel, stand up to martyrdom - superbly; he died, like the others, without a murmur. You see he was hit on the head with a tomahawk by a renegade Huron while they were going through the forest and he never knew a thing, he just woke up in heaven. He wasn't a wimp but I like to think he is the patron of those of us who are." 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 Ian Ker: "When the Catholic Church canonises somebody they are talking about heroic virtue, heroic sanctity, that a person was heroic, they are not talking about somebody being faultless. I think sometimes people used to say 'O well, Newman had this fault and that fault, so he couldn't be a saint.' That is actually not relevant because no-one is perfect and indeed all the saints have faults. What the Church is looking for is a heroic quality, it is not looking for impeccability, it is looking for heroism and Newman heroically followed the kindly light of truth through his life." 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.

Mother Teresa: "The young people, especially in their applications, write: 'I want a life of poverty, prayer and sacrifice that will lead me to a service of the poor.' … The lonely, the unwanted, the unloved – we try to bring Jesus to them, by involving them in the service of the poor, by our presence among them, they must be able to look up and see Jesus in us. And also I believe in helping them to come in touch with the poor, because the poor give us much more than we give to the poor." Father Leo: "John Paul II said 'In Mother Teresa we meet one of the most important personalities in history' ... Hers is the sanctity which shows the whole mystery of the redemption, sin and redemption. And I believe that we can pray to and venerate Mother Teresa precisely for this, to help us to collaborate in the redemption of the world. On her feast day this is the biggest wish I want to express. When we celebrate the memory of her death on 5th September, we can even liturgically invoke that favour from her: to be able t

Fr Anthony Meredith SJ: "One of the most vital and important elements of St Augustine's spiritual vision is his stress on the importance of the heart; he is not simply a mental thinker or a mental prayer. He believes the heart is important and he has famous sentence in the opening of The Confessions when he says 'Thou has created O Lord for Thyself and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.' The word heart occurs on many, many occasions. The inner truest self.. the heart directing itself always inwards and upwards, upwards and outwards to 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.

Fr Anthony Doe: "This is really the meaning of Our Lady as Queen of Heaven: Queen of Mercy, Queen of the compassionate outreach of the Father's love in her Son. And so she stands as the greatest gift to the human race. She is one of us, somebody who is now living her humanity to the full, and who is living it for us, for our salvation, and is there always with that power and authority that comes from God, to take every single human being by the hand and lead them into His merciful presence." 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 Iain Matthew OCD: "To be assumed into heaven means to be taken into the fullness of love. It does not mean to be taken away, it means be taken into the fullness of love, into the life of the Blessed Trinity. So the whole of Mary is taken into God's love, which means that she is completely here with me, with you. Assumed into heaven means more in God, so more with you, able to embrace you, to take you into her heart, to carry you in her heart." 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.