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The Catholic Defender: Powerful Novena To Jesus In The Most Holy Eucharist


Let us begin, In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.


Lord Jesus Christ in the Most Holy Eucharist, I thank You for the gift of Your most precious Body and Blood present in the form of bread and wine. This precious and priceless food You have made available, out of Your abundant and deep love for me. I thank You once more for the gift of Your most precious Body and Blood, available to quench my eternal hunger and thirst.


Lord Jesus Christ, I acknowledge your real and full presence in the Most Holy Eucharist. I worship and adore You my God and my king in the Most Holy Eucharist.


Lord Jesus in the Most Holy Eucharist, help me to have great and deep longing, respect and reverence for You. I pray with all my heart that all men will come to respect, worship and adore You in the Holy Eucharist. I pray for a change of heart and a deep conversion of all those who despise, reject, mock and refuse to believe and appreciate your presence in the Holy Eucharist. Lord Jesus Christ,


I apologize for all the times I have received Your Body and Blood in a sinful state without considering the great pains I cause You. I console You for the countless abuses and desecrations done to your Precious Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist in various ways and forms. Lord Jesus, I console Your wounded heart present in the Holy Eucharist with all sincerity and love, and I beg You to forgive my sins and those of the world which we have committed and are still grievously committing against You. Forgive me for the times I have been at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass without receiving You, or seeing the need or making efforts to receive you in the Holy Eucharist. Give me the grace to love you more and more and to be devoted to you in the Most Holy Eucharist. Plant oh lord Jesus Christ a deep longing for you in my heart and soul, and let me always find my rest in you.


Lord Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, I consecrate my body, soul and spirit to you without reserving or withholding them. In the same way You gave Yourself freely in the Holy Eucharist, I give you myself and everything that has to do with me; my entire will, pleasures, ambitions, plans, marriage, family, work, wealth, children, destiny and all my life. Please accept my offering to you this day and seal it with the powerful sacrifice of Your most precious Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist. May I live for you alone from today henceforth and may I seek only your will, glory and happiness in all that I do. Amen.


We pray for America, for our constitution, for those suffering addictions and those in bondage. For those who need Deliverence. We Pray for the Catholic Church, for Pope Francis and all the Clergy.


Day 8 – St. Catherine of Siena Novena


Heavenly Father, your glory is in your saints. We praise your glory in the life of the admirable Saint Catherine of Siena, virgin and doctor of the church. Her whole life was a noble sacrifice inspired by an ardent love of Jesus, your unblemished lamb. In troubled times she strenuously upheld the rights of his beloved spouse, the church. Father, honor her merits and hear her prayers for each of us. Help us to pass unscathed through the corruption of this world. Help us always to see in the Vicar of Christ an anchor in the storms of life and a beacon of light to the harbor of your love, in this dark night of your times and men’s souls. Grant also to each of us our special petition. We ask this through Jesus, your Son, in the bond of the Holy Spirit.

Amen


Saint Catherine of Siena, pray for us.


Wednesday of the Third Week of Easter

Reading 1 Acts 8:1b-8 There broke out a severe persecution of the Church in Jerusalem, and all were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria, except the Apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made a loud lament over him. Saul, meanwhile, was trying to destroy the Church; entering house after house and dragging out men and women, he handed them over for imprisonment. Now those who had been scattered went about preaching the word. Thus Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed the Christ to them. With one accord, the crowds paid attention to what was said by Philip when they heard it and saw the signs he was doing. For unclean spirits, crying out in a loud voice, came out of many possessed people, and many paralyzed and crippled people were cured. There was great joy in that city.

Responsorial Psalm Ps 66:1-3a, 4-5, 6-7a R. (1) Let all the earth cry out to God with joy. or: R. Alleluia. Shout joyfully to God, all the earth, sing praise to the glory of his name; proclaim his glorious praise. Say to God, "How tremendous are your deeds!" R. Let all the earth cry out to God with joy. or: R. Alleluia. "Let all on earth worship and sing praise to you, sing praise to your name!" Come and see the works of God, his tremendous deeds among the children of Adam. R. Let all the earth cry out to God with joy. or: R. Alleluia. He has changed the sea into dry land; through the river they passed on foot; therefore let us rejoice in him. He rules by his might forever. R. Let all the earth cry out to God with joy. or: R. Alleluia.

Alleluia See Jn 6:40 R. Alleluia, alleluia. Everyone who believes in the Son has eternal life, and I shall raise him up on the last day, says the Lord. R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel Jn 6:35-40 Jesus said to the crowds, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst. But I told you that although you have seen me, you do not believe. Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day."


Saint of the Day: Saint Pedro de San José Betancur


Betancourt was born at Vilaflor on the Island of Tenerife in 1626, one of the five children


As a small child, he worked as a shepherd, caring for his family's small flock, their only source of income, but also spending some time praying in small cave


Central America claimed its first saint with the canonization of Pedro de San José Betancur. Known as the “Saint Francis of the Americas,” Pedro de Betancur is the first saint to have worked and died in Guatemala.


Pedro very much wanted to become a priest, but God had other plans for the young man born into a poor family on Tenerife in the Canary Islands.


Pedro was a shepherd until age 24, when he began to make his way to Guatemala, hoping to connect with a relative engaged in government service there. By the time he reached

Thavana, he was out of money. After working there to earn more, he got to Guatemala City the following year.


When he arrived, he was so destitute that he joined the breadline that the Franciscans had established.


Soon, Pedro enrolled in the local Jesuit college in hopes of studying for the priesthood. No matter how hard he tried, however, he could not master the material; he withdrew from school.


In 1655, he joined the Secular Franciscan Order. Three years later, he opened a hospital for the convalescent poor; a shelter for the homeless, and a school for the poor soon followed.


Not wanting to neglect the rich of Guatemala City, Pedro began walking through their part of town ringing a bell and inviting them to repent.


As a penance, each night he went out to carry a heavy cross through the streets. Peter later founded a congregation for the care of the poor, the Bethlehemite Brothers and Sisters. Deeply devoted to the Christ Child, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the relief of the souls in purgatory, Peter was a promoter of the Franciscans' rosary of the Seven Joys of Mary, and instituted a weekly rosary procession in Guatemala City. He died on April 25, 1667.

Other men came to share in Pedro’s work. Out of this group came the Bethlehemite Congregation, which won papal approval after Pedro’s death. A Bethlehemite sisters’ community, similarly founded after Pedro’s death, was inspired by his life of prayer and compassion.


He is sometimes credited with originating the Christmas Eve posadas procession in which people representing Mary and Joseph seek a night’s lodging from their neighbors. The custom soon spread to Mexico and other Central American countries.


Pedro died in 1667, and was canonized by Pope John Paul II in Guatemala City on July 30, 2002. Calling the new saint an “outstanding example” of Christian mercy, the Holy Father noted that Saint Pedro practiced mercy “heroically with the lowliest and the most deprived.” Speaking to the estimated 500,000 Guatemalans in attendance, the Holy Father spoke of the social ills that plague the country today and of the need for change.


“Let us think of the children and young people who are homeless or deprived of an education; of abandoned women with their many needs; of the hordes of social outcasts who live in the cities; of the victims of organized crime, of prostitution or of drugs; of the sick who are neglected and the elderly who live in loneliness,” he said in his homily during the three-hour liturgy.


Deeply devoted to the Christ Child, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the relief of the souls in purgatory, Peter was a promoter of the Franciscans' rosary of the Seven Joys of Mary, and instituted a weekly rosary procession in Guatemala City. He died on April 25, 1667.


The liturgical feast of Saint Pedro de San José Betancur is celebrated on April 25.


The healing of a child with an intestinal lymphoma was taken by the Catholic Church as the miracle required for his canonization. The circumstance occurs that this child was precisely a native of Betancourt's native locality, Vilaflor.


Betancourt was known to work miracles also, some of them including healing sick people in under an hour. Also getting notes from deceased family members by setting rocks out and letting the member arrange them over time


He was beatified on June 22, 1980, and canonized on July 30, 2002, by Pope John Paul II. At the homily read by Pope John Paul in Guatemala City on July 30, 2002, Betancourt was called the "first Tenerifean and Guatemalan saint",


Among other facets of his life, his defense in the Immaculate Conception stand out two centuries before the declaration of said dogma, his devotion to the souls of Purgatory and his penances.


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