Blessed Villana de'Botti

Today is the feast of Blessed Villana de'Botti according to the Domincan Ordo. (It is Feb. 28 in the Ordinary calendar of the Roman Rite.) Bl. Villana tried to enter religious life by running away to a convent when she 13 years old.  Expectedly, she was turned away.  This prompted her father to arrange an early marriage for her to a wealthy man.  She gave into a worldly life of the idle rich.  Eventually, she saw the effects of how her turning away from God had sullied her soul.

She sought the help of the nearby Dominican Fathers of Santa Maria and made herself right with God.  She became a third-order/lay Dominican, living the rest of her short life in a holy marriage while also given to prayer, doing penance, and studying.  She was publically ridiculed but remained strong in her spiritual life and duties.  She was only 30 years old when died in AD 1361.  Beacause of the constant amounts of mourners, it was a month before the Dominican Fathers could bury her.      

Prayer

 

O God, our merciful Father, you called Blessed Villana back from the emptiness of the world and aroused in her a spirit of humility and true penitence. Recreate in our hearts the power of your love and, filled by that same spirit, may we serve you in newness of life. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Tomb of Bl. Villana de'Botti

St. Thomas Aquinas

  Today is the Ordinary calendar feast of one of the Dominican Order's greatest glories, St. Thomas Aquinas. There is absolutely nothing I can say about him that has not already been better recorded.

Instead, here is list of personal suggestions of things anyone can do to honor the Angelic Doctor on his feast:

• Spend an hour in Eucaristic adoration.
• Read some of the Summa Theologiae (Click here for an online version of the 1947 translation by The Fathers of the English Dominican Province)
• Join the Angelic Warfare Congraternity (A Dominican apostalate under St. Thomas' partronage. Anyone can join!)
• Pray a prayer by St. Thomas or for his intercession
• Sing or listen to a hymn written by St. Thomas:
• Pange Lingua
• Adoro Te Devote  
• O Salutaris Hostia

Some prayers by St. Thomas Aquinas

Prayer for Guidance

 
O creator past all telling,
you have appointed from the treasures of your wisdom
the hierarchies of angels,
disposing them in wondrous order
above the bright heavens,
and have so beautifully set out all parts of the universe.
You we call the true fount of wisdom
and the noble origin of all things.
Be pleased to shed
on the darkness of mind in which I was born,
The twofold beam of your light
and warmth to dispel my ignorance and sin.
You make eloquent the tongues of children.
Then instruct my speech
and touch my lips with graciousness.
Make me keen to understand, quick to learn,
able to remember;
make me delicate to interpret and ready to speak.

Guide my going in and going forward,
lead home my going forth.
You are true God and true man, 
and live for ever and ever.

 

Prayer After Communion

 

I thank You, Lord, Almighty Father, Everlasting God, for having been pleased, through no merit of mine, but of Your great mercy alone, to feed me, a sinner, and Your unworthy servant, with the precious Body and Blood of Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. I pray that this Holy Communion may not be for my judgment and condemnation, but for my pardon and salvation. Let this Holy Communion be to me an armor of faith and a shield of good will, a cleansing of all vices, and a rooting out of all evil desires. May it increase love and patience, humility and obedience, and all virtues. May it be a firm defense against the evil designs of all my visible and invisible enemies, a prefect quieting of all the desires of soul and body. May this Holy Communion bring about a perfect union with You, the one true God, and at last enable me to reach eternal bliss when You will call me. I pray that You bring me, a sinner, to the indescribable Feast where You, with Your Son and the Holy Spirit, are to Your saints true light, full blessedness, everlasting joy, and perfect happiness. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

Redundant Headline

From The Blaze:

The Conditions at This MI Abortion Clinic Were So ‘Dangerous’ & ‘Disgusting’ It Was Shut Down

Funny, aren't all abortion clinics 'dangerous' and 'disgusting' by definition and design?