Christianity

Days of prayer, and formerly also of fasting, instituted by the Church to appease God's anger at man's transgressions, to ask protection in calamities, and to obtain a good and bountiful harvest...

The Rogation Days are the 25th of April, called Major, and the three days before the feast of the Ascension, called Minor.

The order to be observed in the procession of the Major and Minor Rogation is given in the Roman Ritual, title X, ch. iv. After the antiphon "Exurge Domine", the Litany of the Saints is chanted and each verse and response is said twice. After the verse "Sancta Maria" the procession begins to move. If necessary, the litany may be repeated, or some of the Penitential or Gradual Psalms added.

Catholic encyclopedia on "Rogation Days": https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13110b.htm

Based on this, I've sometimes thought people might observe the days at times by fasting, and by praying a Litany of the Saints and / or the Penitential Psalms.

Litany of the Saints: https://www.dailycatholic.org/litanyst.htm

About the Prayer: https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09291a.htm

Penitential Psalms: https://traditionalcatholicprayers.com/2020/09/26/the-seven-penitential-psalms/

My favorite portion - from the end:

Three Hail Marys is a traditional Roman Catholic devotional practice of reciting three Hail Marys as a petition for purity and other virtues. Believers recommended that it be prayed after waking in the morning, and before going to bed, following the examination of conscience at night. This devotion has been recommended by St. Anthony of Padua, St. Alphonsus Liguori, St. John Bosco and St. Leonard of Port Maurice.

A short and simple religious practice for those interested.

I'd like to do a longer post about the history of papal elections as I think their principles could be relevant to consider for the present or future, but I only have time to post this tonight.

For example, some questions come up about how Catholics would elect if the cardinals all died in a war for example or something; a little research indicates for example that cardinals were not always the exclusive electors of the pope, and that a "general imperfect council of bishops" might elect a pope if cardinals cannot, or a papal election might occur in some other way so long as it gains a kind of "universal acceptance by Catholics".

The election of a pope exclusively by cardinals is only from 1059 onward I believe:

The selection of the pope, the bishop of Rome and supreme pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, prior to the promulgation of In nomine Domini in 1059 varied throughout history.

...

The absence of an institutionalized procedure of papal succession facilitated religious schism, and the Catholic Church currently regards several papal claimants before 1059 as antipopes.

...

In 1059, Pope Nicholas II succeeded in limiting future papal electors to the cardinals in In nomine Domini, instituting standardized papal elections that eventually developed into the procedure of the papal conclave.

Considered by a growing minority as a non-Catholic antipope who continued the "Vatican 2" revolt against Catholicism, the late "Francis" in our view continually pushed heterodox ideology at odds with traditional Catholic belief and practice.

While I do not necessarily agree with the all these critiques of him or how they're delivered, here's a laundry list of articles that viewed him in the most negative light, from a "traditional Catholic" (sedevacantist) perspective: https://novusordowatch.org/francis/

It would be nice to see at this point before a new "pope" is elected to continue the confusion, of there being a global rejection of Vatican 2's "reforms" and of there then being a conclave to elect an unquestionably Catholic pope.

http://infogalactic.com/info/Doctor_of_the_Church#List_of_Doctors

(note that we recognize the doctors listed up to 1958; not that some of the others listed may not be holy people)

So I had this idea to compile sermon collections of the Doctors of the Church (and theology writings). Does something like this exist, an organized collection of links to such sermons, or is there an interest in such a list?

I guess it was an attempt to curate a list of some of the most edifying spiritual sermons, for education and inspiration.

Has this already been done in the discipline of homiletics, or are there compilation books from some of the writings of the Doctors of the Church?

(Another approach to this might be to find some compilations of "sermons for every Sunday of the year" and to compile some sermons for certain holidays, like this compilation by St. Alphonsus Liguori - https://archive.org/details/sermonsforallsun00liguuoft)

For example, for Easter (sermons by Church Doctors; note that I do not think they are, but the translations may be corrupted in some way, so this may require double checking to make sure something wasn't translated incorrectly - also that linking to these sites does not imply endorsement of other content posted on the sites):

St. John Chrysostom: https://earlychurchtexts.com/public/john_chrysostom_easter_sermon.htm

St. Athanasius: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2806002.htm

Pope St. Leo the Great: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/360371.htm

St. Augustine: https://catholicism.org/st-augustine-easter.html

Pope St. Gregory the Great: https://catholicism.org/st-gregory-resurrection.html

Anyone find any others to share?

I personally had to experience, through the example of our family, what it means to pray together for the deceased. After my grandmother passed away, she began to appear in the dreams of relatives in a very distressed state, asking for help and support. We organised ourselves and began to pray simultaneously for her repose every day for forty days, each in our own home.

Time passed, and she appeared in a dream to her daughter. When asked how things were, my grandmother replied, "At first, it was very bad, dark, cold, scary, and drowsily, but now it is very good."

We are not ascetics, saints, or great men of prayer. We are ordibnary, sinful people, without any hint of anything special. And we prayed most simply, reading prayers from the prayer book, and I served the Litia – just as usual. But, as some would say today, "it works". And all of us need to know this! God hears even us – common, sinful, imperfect people, very far from true holiness. And not only does He hear, but He also accepts our prayers, shows mercy and forgiveness. Of course, hundreds of such stories can be read today, but there is a difference between reading them and having one's own experience.

Mostly I've seen this one before which made me think of the topic:

May the road rise to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, the rains fall soft upon your fields, and, until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

But I have seen others; not sure all these are "theologically sound", but otherwise here may be some more:

https://www.today.com/life/holidays/irish-blessings-rcna138613

Any favorites or thoughts on the topic?

Letter 148: To A blacksmith, Radosav I

By Saint Nikolai Velimirovich

You would like for God to pardon all sinners of His Terrible Judgement. Are you again tempting Christ just like that enemy of God tempted Him on the mountain? "If you are the all-merciful Son of God, have mercy on Judas and Cain and all serious sinners, and I will worship you!" This is how you could phrase your tempting of Christ. And the Lord Himself could respond to you and say, "Was I not merciful enough when I descended from my eternal glory into human darkness and gave my whole self as a sacrifice for mankind? How shall I pardon those who never asked me for it; who despised my offered mercy to their last breath; who spilled the blood of my faithful disciples like water; who remained servants of Satan to the end?"

And how is it now that mortal men compare their mercifulness to God's and even think themselves to be more merciful than God? Examine yourself thoroughly and see how limited and vain human mercy is. See if you would easily forgive a friend who swore three times that he does not know you. Would you forgive a man who was persecuting your relatives with the sword to the point of extinction? Would you forgive a man who would mock everything that is most sacred to you? The Lord Jesus forgave Peter who renounced Him three times. He forgave Saul who was persecuting His followers, His relatives. He forgave Augustine who mocked the sacred things of Christianity. He forgave all those who repented wholeheartedly and turned their rebellion into zeal for God and God's sacred things. He will forgive at His terrible judgement even those who repented only on their deathbed, confessed Christ as the Son of God and cried out to Him for salvation. He will also forgive those who showed even as much mercy in His name as to give a glass of cold water to the least of His followers.

But all this is not enough for God's tempters! It is not enough for those who neither know what it is to forgive nor to repent. They do not know how God's mercy overcomes our way of thinking. Nor do they know how deep are the wounds of Christ for mankind. They would like for God to mingle the Kingdom of eternal light with darkness and for there to be a mixture of good and evil on heaven as on earth. They would like for Cain and Judas and all the fratricides, all the godless, all the bloodthirsty, debauchers, lascivious, mockers of sanctity, ridiculers of God - everybody, all the unrepentant evildoers to stand at the right hand of Christ at the last Judgement, together with the Saints, martyrs and the righteous, and for no one to be on the left side! Is that justice? Is it just to give the same wages to those who worked all day? Is it mercy to mix light with darkness, truth with lies, wheat with chaff?

Who are you, O man, to teach justice to the One who founded justice? Or to remind of mercy the One who out of mercy gave Himself to be crucified for mankind? Bow down to the sanctity of His justice and to the unsearchable depth of His mercy, cry out, "O Most-Merciful One, have mercy one me a sinner and save me!"

johnsanidopoulos.com

(Lifted from this post on reddit)