Today is the Feast Day of the Two Hearts--please keep this and read when you can--you may want to print and take with you to your Face Time with Jesus at your next Holy Hour.

Love,
Daniel
Trusting in the Two Hearts and keeping each of you in mine.


JOHN PAUL II

Address at Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Sunday, 6 June 1999



1. “We honour your Heart, O Jesus . . .”.

I thank Divine Providence that together with all of you here present I am able to give praise and glory to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, the most perfect revelation of the paternal love of God. I am glad that the devout practice of reciting or singing the Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus every day during the month of June is very much alive in Poland and continues to be followed.

I greet everyone gathered here this Sunday afternoon. In a special way I greet Bishop Andrzej, Pastor of this Diocese, his Auxiliary Bishop and the representatives of the Polish Bishops, the priests, consecrated men and women and all the People of God. I extend a cordial welcome to the pilgrims from Russia, from the District of Kaliningrad, who are present here with their Archbishop, Tadeusz. I also greet the faithful of the Greek Catholic Church. And I greet all the members of the young Church in Elblag, which is particularly linked to the figure of Saint Adalbert. Not far from here, according to tradition, he gave his life for Christ. In the course of history, the death of this martyr has produced in this land abundant fruits of holiness. In this place I wish to remember Blessed Dorota of Matowy, wife and mother of nine children, and also the Servant of God Regina Protmann, foundress of the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Catherine, whom — God-willing — the Church will raise to the glory of the altars during this pilgrimage through my ministry in Warsaw. Another one to be enrolled in the ranks of the Blessed will be a son of this land, Father Wladyslaw Demski, who gave his life in the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen, publicly defending the cross which was sacrilegiously profaned by the executioners. You have received this magnificent spiritual heritage and you must care for it, develop it and build the future of this land and of the Church in Elblag on the solid foundation of faith and religious life.

2. “Heart of Jesus, fount of life and holiness, have mercy on us”.

Thus we invoke Jesus in the Litany. Everything that God wanted to tell us about himself and about his love he placed in the Heart of Jesus, and by means of that Heart he has told us everything. We find ourselves before an inscrutable mystery. In Jesus’ Heart we read the eternal divine plan of the world’s salvation. It is a plan of love.

We have come here today to contemplate the love of the Lord Jesus, his goodness which is compassionate towards every person; to contemplate his Heart blazing with love for the Father, in the fulness of the Holy Spirit. Christ loves us and reveals his Heart to us as the fount of life and holiness, the source of our redemption. In order to have a deeper understanding of this invocation we must turn to Jesus’ meeting with the Samaritan woman in the little town of Sicar, at the well which had been there since the time of the Patriarch Jacob. She had come to draw water. Jesus said to her: “Give me a drink”, and she answered him: “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” She then received Jesus’ response: “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink', you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water . . . the water that I shall give will become a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (cf. Jn 4:1-14).

Jesus is the source; it is from him that divine life in man finds its beginning. To have this life, we need only approach him and remain in him. And what is this life if not the beginning of human holiness, the holiness which is in God and which man can reach with the help of grace? All of us wish to drink from the divine Heart, which is the source of life and holiness.

3. “Blessed are they who observe justice, who do righteousness at all times” (Ps 106:3).

Brothers and Sisters, meditating on God’s love, revealed in the Heart of his Son, requires a consistent response on our part. We have not been called only to contemplate the mystery of Christ’s love, but take part in it. Christ says: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (Jn 14:15). He thus places before us a great calling and at the same time a condition: if you want to love me, keep my commandments, keep God’s holy law, walk in the way that I have shown you.

God’s will is that we keep the commandments, that is, the law of God given to Israel on Mount Sinai through Moses. Given to all people everywhere. We know the commandments. Many of you repeat them everyday in prayer. That is a very good and devout practice. Let us repeat them now, as they are found in the Book of Exodus, to confirm and renew what we remember:

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
You shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you.
You shall not kill.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.
You shall not covet your neighbour’s house.
You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife” (cf. Ex 20:2-17).

This is the foundation of the morality given to man by the Creator: the Decalogue, the ten commandments of God pronounced resolutely on Mount Sinai and confirmed by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount, in the context of the eight Beatitudes. The Creator, who at the same time is the supreme law-giver, has inscribed on the human heart the whole order of truth. This order determines what is good, provides a foundation for the moral order and constitutes the basis of the dignity of man created in God’s image. The commandments were given for the good of mankind, for man’s personal good and the good of family and society. They are truly the way for all people. The material order by itself is not enough. It must be completed and enriched by the supernatural order. Thanks to this, life takes on a new meaning and man is made better. Life, in fact, needs the power that comes from divine, supernatural values; only then does it take on its full splendour.

Christ confirmed this law of the Old Covenant. In the Sermon on the Mount he spoke clearly to his hearers: “Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them” (Mt 5:17). Christ came to fulfil the law, above all to give it its proper content and meaning, and to show its full significance and depth: the law is perfect when it is pervaded by love of God and love of neighbour. It is love that determines man’s moral perfection and his likeness to God. “He who has my commandments and keeps them”, says Christ, “he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him” (Jn 14:21). Today’s liturgical celebration dedicated to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus reminds us of God’s love, for which man yearns intensely. It shows us that the practical response to this love is the keeping of God’s commandments in our daily lives. God does not intend that they should grow dim in our memory but that they should remain forever impressed on people’s consciences so that, knowing and keeping the commandments, they “might have eternal life”.

4. “Happy are they who practise righteousness”.

The Psalmist refers thus to those who follow the path of the commandments and keep them to the end (cf. Ps 119:32-33). Keeping the divine law, in fact, is the basis for obtaining the gift of eternal life, that is, the happiness that never ends. To the question of the rich young man, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” (Mt 19:16), Jesus responds: “If you would enter life, keep the commandments” (Mt 19:17). This response by Jesus is particularly important in our modern reality, in which many people live as though there were no God. The temptation to organize the world and one’s own life without God or even in opposition to God, without his commandments and without the Gospel, is a very real temptation and threatens us too. When human life and the world are built without God, they will eventually turn against man himself. Breaking the divine commandments, abandoning the path traced out for us by God, means falling into the slavery of sin, and “the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23).

We find ourselves face to face with the reality of sin. Sin is an offence against God, it is being disobedient to him, to his law, to the moral norms which God has given to man, inscribing them on the human heart, confirming and perfecting them by Revelation. Sin pits itself against God’s love for us and turns our hearts away from him. Sin is “love of self carried to the point of contempt for God”, as Saint Augustine put it (De Civitate Dei, 14, 28). Sin is a great evil in all its many dimensions. Starting with original sin, to the personal sins committed by each person, to social sins, the sins which weigh heavily on the history of the entire human family.

We must be constantly aware of this great evil, we must constantly cultivate the subtle sensitivity and clear consciousness of the seeds of death contained in sin. This is what is commonly known as the sense of sin. Its source is to be found in man’s moral conscience; it is linked to the knowledge of God, to the experience of union with the Creator, Lord and Father. The more profound this awareness of union with God — strengthened by a person’s sacramental life and by sincere prayer — the clearer the sense of sin is. The reality of God lays open and sheds light on the mystery of man. We must do all that we can to make our consciences more sensitive, and to guard them from becoming deformed or imperceptive.

We see what great tasks God has put before us. We must truly form our humanity in the image and likeness of God, to become people who love the law of God and want to live according to it. The Psalmist cries out: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin” (Ps 51:1-2). Is this not for us a touching example of the man who presents himself repentant before God? He desires metanoia for his own heart, so that he may become a new creature, different, transformed by God’s power.

Saint Adalbert stands before us. We feel his presence here because in this land he gave his life for Christ. For a thousand years he has been telling us, by the witness of his martyrdom, that holiness is attained by sacrifice, that there is no room here for compromise, that we must be faithful to the end, that we must have the courage to protect the image of God in our souls even if it means paying the ultimate price. His martyr’s death is a reminder to all that by dying to evil and sin they will enable the new man to come to birth in themselves, the man of God who keeps the Lord’s commandments.

5. Dear Brothers and Sisters, let us contemplate the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which is the source of life, since by means of it victory over death was achieved. It is also the source of holiness, since in it sin — the enemy of man’s spiritual development — is defeated. The Heart of the Lord Jesus is the starting-point of the holiness of each one of us. From the Heart of the Lord Jesus let us learn the love of God and understanding of the mystery of sin — mysterium iniquitatis.

Let us make acts of reparation to the Divine Heart for the sins committed by us and by our fellow men. Let us make reparation for rejecting God’s goodness and love.

Let us draw close each day to this fount from which flow springs of living water. Let us cry out with the Samaritan woman “Give us this water”, for it wells up to eternal life.

Heart of Jesus, burning flame of love,
Heart of Jesus, fount of life and holiness,
Heart of Jesus, expiation for our sins
— have mercy on us. Amen.

Dear Ones in Standing Just for the Gospel of Life,

Here is another- too wonderful- opportunity for you to share with me. The White Rose is having a day of Adoration from 9:00 AM to 4:30 PM in their chapel that overlooks by a wall of windows the entire property of the Rue Street Abortion Facility with Holy Mass at 1:00 PM celebrated by our own diocesan priest--Fr. Paul Weinberger. This is in celebration of the Feast of Corpus Christi.

If you are able to schedule your day to come to mass or any of the times of Adoration, I promise you that your heart will be empowered to believe stronger for the goodness of the Lord to show up in the land of the living. You will be stirred to offer up prayers in reparation for the many sins committed in our society and in the whole world. And you will enter into the silence and the peace of our Mighty God as HE shows up in that precious little Chapel and as you agree with His Sacred Heart.



And here is the best part—starting June 11, 2009 it will be the beginning of weekly Thursday Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at The White Rose. I know you are truly as excited as I am. Nowhere in the Dallas diocese can you find a closer spot to the Gates of Hell where Jesus shows up 24 hours a day in the Tabernacle of the Holy Alter—as you knell or sit in prayer looking out of that wall of windows watching all that goes in as the poorest of the poor are carried against their wills to be ripped out of the very bodies of life of their own Mothers—your cries will reach the very Heart of Heaven. I can tell you there is nowhere else I would rather be. I hope to bump into you or see your name on the list as one of the many praying Catholics in the Dallas diocese in this most Holy place.



You remain in my heart —standing for the Gospel of Life in the midst of this Culture of Death,



Daniel

214-566-2298



The White Rose Women’s Center and St. Joseph’s Helpers of Dallas

4313 N. Central Expressway



The Feast of Corpus Christi



Thursday, June 11, 2009

9:00am – 4:30pm

Holy Sacrifice of the Mass 1:00pm

Celebrated by Fr. Paul Weinberger



You are invited to spend time with our Lord at the foot of Calvary to pray for God’s mercy in the conversion of all hearts involved in the killing of innocent human life and in support of all those in the prolife ministry. Adoration will be held in the chapel at the White Rose Women’s Center which overlooks Routh Street abortion mill located next door. Please come and pray with us.



Will you please sign-up for adoration by going to www.mysignup.com/stjosephshelpers or contact Darcy Maggio by email maggio@sbcglobal.net or phone 214-824-7314. Weekly Thursday adoration beginning June 11th.


Please park on the side streets to be mindful of our clients.

Directions: We are on the west side of Central Expressway between Knox and Fitzhugh. It is a blue building with alley access between Oliver and Lee Streets.

I trust you are well. A recent event made me think again of you and I wanted to share it with you.
I am having more of my T. S. Elliot and Alford Lloyd Tennyson moments in friendships and memories--

I am including a quick email to a high school friend who was writing me to tell me the boy I had dropped off at St Louis so long ago--sometime in the winter of 1973 and he was then Confirmed in 1974--under Bishop Harris--my first Mass--had died recently and his funeral Mass was at St. Louis last week. We had long lost touch, but the video of his Tribute service brought back so many memories--and happily so many pleasant memories and as a result of his passing I am now hearing and reconnecting to many I have lost touch with over the last 30 years--very touching.

It has been very nice to be reacquainted with the original joy of seeking after and finding so many of the wonders of the Church--all there at St. Louis. Such a sweet, unexpected surprise of joy in remembering.

God bless,

Daniel

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
Hi Danny,
So good to hear that you and your sons are doing well, in spite of the difficulties over the years with Jan and her decisions. I remember in HS you were very interested in Catholicism (didn't we drive with Mark Gilmer and Donna Perry to St. Louis church at night one time in somebody's VW, or did I dream that?) I was surprised to read you converted in 1998, when I thought it was 20+ years prior! I'm proud of the father you are, and it sounds like you have had a long and reflective spiritual journey over the years. What do you like/find in Catholicism that you didn't find in your former Baptist faith?

You may recall that I was Baptist for many years, but when I married Ed in 1977, he was Methodist, so I've been going with him to 1st UMC here ever since. It's okay - I deeply admire their commitment to mission work world-wide and tolerance, but on some levels (not all), I miss my Baptist days. I don't know if I'd ever go back to it, though, although the core beliefs are the same. My brother and family are Catholic, so we've had several worship experiences there with them over the years. Some of it I understand, all of it I deeply respect. My world view is there's room for all :)

Please don't be too hard on yourself for getting a bit out of shape over the years! It's a tough world out there, and we all have our comfort zones. I'm facing down a piece of carrot cake as we speak, and I truly hope my willpower to save it for a later date (in small bites!) wins out! But knowing me, I'll replace it with hot dogs, because those are also calling me (and chips, and watermelon...oh my...)

Take care of yourself and the boys, and keep being the good dad and good person you seem to be. I've enjoyed "typing" to you, so I hope you stay in touch!

Anne :)


Hi Anne,

Wow I have been taking back with so many memories since Donna emailed yesterday just before you on Mark's passing.

My charity is a bit weak for Bruce right now as I asked him about Mark last Summer at the Midway reunion for the 1970-1974 Classes and he only mentioned he was teaching in Chilton and when I asked if he had remained Catholic he said yes he had--did not mention him getting married or having the cancer---how I would have liked to catch up with him while he was still here and tell him how much he meant to me. And I would have driven down to honor his life for the Viewing or the Mass.

I just finished the Tribute video and Randy brought so many memories back to me--I was actually teaching a Bible study on Cardinal the night Mark ran his hand through Teresa's window and as soon as he had it stitched up--we talked all night long that night.

I have told the story far and wide of taking Mark and Teresa to St Louis and handing them over to the priest saying, "These two Baptist would like to be Catholic, can you help them?" It did not occur to me for over 30 years I do not even know how they got home--I left them there and walked off with the Rosary the priest gave me as a dumbfounded gift for bringing him a couple of Baptist and I still carry the medal Scapular medal he gave me. When Mark was confirmed the next spring that was the very first Mass I went to--so me taking him, him becoming Catholic, the priest giving me the gifts, and going back to the Church for his confirmation and then night after night all through the rest of High School was my beginning to the Church myself---I just wrote Randy a long note and asked for Mark's address so I can send a Mass card to his wife, and have a Mass up here said for him.

Yes, indeed we did go--I sat many late nights in that wonderful church, and I am so glad Mark continued to find comfort there and finished his funeral mass there--did they marry at St Louis? Was his wife Catholic--I saw they only married in 2006 and Donna thought he had been sick about 3 years--did they know each other long before his illness? Questions--tell what you know eh.

All of the songs he played at his Tribute brought back the vivid memories of our youth--the movie, the poem, the book--we had remained close in the things we loved although we lost touch these last 30 years---wow.
We may have not been the Great Generation, but we are what we are and who we are and our times have made us so.

God bless,

Danny

Hi Randy,

Anne and Donna just told me about Mark's passing. I am so sorry to not have the chance to connect with him again before losing him.

I saw Bruce at the 1970-1975 joint class reunion last year in Waco and asked about him, but he never let on he was ill and I just saw your FB page today to see you had mentioned him earlier in the month.

I would like very much to get his widows address and send a Mass card. I just finished watching the video and it brought back so many memories.
Mark came and found me at a party in Woodway the night he put his hand thorough Teresa's window and we talked almost the whole night that night with his wrist all bandaged up.

I have told the story about taking him and Teresa over to St Louis and dropping them off at the priest saying, "I have two Baptist kids that want to be Catholic, can you help them?..." and it took me 30 years to realize I dropped them off and never knew how they even got home that day from St Louis after talking to the priest. A year later when I went to his Confirmation again at St Louis was the very first Mass I attended and I still carry the medal Scapular medal he gave me but have long lost the rosary the priest gave me for bringing him two Baptist kids :)

I would have very much liked to have written him and driven down for his funeral Mass. I to have such memories of him and his VW and the love for hockey which I had never followed before meeting him. I do want to send a Mass card and have a lovely Mass said for him up here at the Cistercian Monastery which is a very fine Catholic Boys School in Dallas--you can see the Monastery on line--he would have liked it very much and they do the music in Latin.

I noticed they only married in 2006 and Donna thought he had been sick almost 3 years--had he known his wife much longer, did they have time together before the sickness--I would love to hear a bit more of his life--Bruce only told me he taught at Chilton last Summer which I thought was wonderful having driven through there many times and thought it was a sweet little Texas town.

I lost a very good friend up here--my mentor at 64 to the same cancer and it was a very hard death. I am very close to his widow and although it has been 3 years she is just now finding her own way again and is in fact leaving today for 36 days in Italy--I am so glad to see her getting out and onto something other than the routine she had always known.

Randy, any thoughts on his last few years would be very appreciated along with the address.

Thank you again for your touching tribute to such a long and continued friendship.

God bless,

Danny Vinzant