Showing results by author "Bob and Penny Lord" in All Categories

How does a just king, a loyal defender of the faith, turn on all that he vowed to protect, betraying church and country? Was it the limitless power he had, the power to decide between life and death, that gave birth to him placing himself above his pope and church? Was it the example of other Henrys before him? This chapter is about one man's infamy and the powerful men and martyrs God raised up to defend his church. But before we speak of King Henry VIII and the martyrs who died rather than deny the Church, we want to touch briefly on some of his predecessors.

There are many stories that can be told of a mysterious voice warning you of danger, of something or was it someone interfering in the knick of time. As we started to write this book on Angels, we found ourselves remembering incidents in our lives we had long forgotten. Could it be our Guardian Angels reminding us? Why not?

“Born poor and humble of heart, undaunted champion of the Catholic faith, zealous to restore all things in Christ, crowned a holy life with a holy death.” Who was Pope Saint Pius X? This is the story of a Pope who refused to stay buried in the annals of history. The boy who became Pope always worked with the image of Mother Church and her founder Jesus Christ before him, leading the way, as if on a path, beckoning him to follow. He never ceased being the boy who worked and struggled endlessly to keep alive the true teachings of the Church!

Padre Pio was gifted with the cross of Jesus from his earliest days. His personal relationship with Jesus and Mary manifested itself to him from the time he was a child. His entire world centered around the little church of Our Lady of the Angels in his little home town of Pietrelcina. It might as well have been his home. He spent more time there than at his home. All the important events in his early life took place in that church.

We bring you the life of Saint Peregrine the Cancer Saint at Forli, Italy; incorrupt body. The Lord came down from the cross, and healed him of cancer of the leg the night before it was to be amputated. Room where the miracle took place. Ex-votos, for the miracles attributed to him. This saint has been credited with many miracles of healing.

Saint Anthony of Padua was proclaimed a doctor of the church. There are 33 doctors of the church. In the 2,000 years since the church was instituted, out of its millions of holy people, and thousands of canonized Saints, only 33 have been given the honor of this title. We have written about 15 of them thus far. Saint Anthony of Padua, the saint we pray to for lost objects, is one of these honored people. But until the Lord decided to put St. Anthony into active ministry, he was a dish washer and confessor to Franciscan hermits.

Born of a very devout mother and father who, in times when families were feuding amongst themselves, were called by some, "Jesus Christ’s peacemakers," it would appear from the very moment of her birth, God had special designs on Rita. There is a tradition in Roccaporena that as an infant, while she slept in a basket, in the fields where her parents were working, white bees swarmed around Rita’s open mouth. Not only did the bees not sting her, but it is said that they dropped honey into her mouth without her uttering a cry of warning to her parents.

This story is about another who suffered, only as a Dry Martyr for her Lord, a willing victim of sacrifice for her Church. Just as Blessed Anna Maria Taigi was being born in Italy, another child was coming into the world, Napoleon Bonaparte. When Anna Maria opened her eyes and let out her first cry, it was to a world groaning in pain, a world inundated by sin and perversion, very like our own. The throne of France was heading madly toward its own destruction and demise, taking Christianity down with it.

The name of Saint Maria Goretti has a special place for me. I would judge that most everyone in my generation has grown up having heard the story of the little crimson and white rose of Jesus, Saint Maria Goretti. Her story inspires such emotions in us, such a desire to bring ourselves to Jesus and his mother Mary as pure buds, ready to flower into whatever vocation they desire for us, whether it be religious, lay people, or as in the case of little Maria, saints who gave their lives as martyrs.

Lourdes is such a tribute to, and affirmation of, the love and care, the concern, patience, and attention that is showered on us by our Heavenly Family. It is also a magnificent prayer of faith the world has been given in the the desire of Our Sweet Mary, Bernadette’s Aquero (Dear One), to take care of our physical and spiritual needs. The natural question we are asked after we have visited Lourdes is, "Did you see any miracles, any cures in Lourdes?" The account of the apparitions at Lourdes, France 1858.

Fatima, the pleas of Our Lady, and the promises of Fatima have been repeated to and embraced by everyone she has touched. A new generation of believers, people like us who were not born when Our Lady gave us this gift, have become completely enthralled by the power of Jesus and the love of Mary, as revealed to us at Fatima.

It is said of St. Francis of Assisi that he didn't trust books and never wanted his friars to get distracted and influenced by the words of authors, whose works he also didn't trust. He trusted the Bible, but not certain people's interpretations of it. He was finally willing to bend in his staunch stand against book learning on the advice of St. Anthony of Padua, who was not only brilliant, but whom St. Francis trusted.

Founder of the Jesuits. The life story of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. Bob and Penny traveled to Spain, France, and Italy for the materials for this minibook.

One of the most fascinating gifts the Lord has given us is His own burial cloth. How His image was projected onto that cloth, and how it has survived these 2,000 years is nothing short of miraculous. We have always had a great love for and devotion to this gift of Our Lord. Let us share with you the history and the journey of the Shroud.

When Saint Leopold Mandic had dreamed of the priesthood, his eyes traveled over the Adriatic Sea to far-off lands to bring the Gospel of Hope to brothers and sisters starving and thirsting for this Lord who died for them. He was not to even travel from village to village, like Father Francis and Saint Anthony (Saint of Padua), proclaiming the good news.

God's beloved children of Ireland are a paradox in terms. Those who only see the surface of the Irish people, don't know about the years of suffering, persecution, famine, Martyrdom, and near annihilation of them as a people, all for their faith. When they joke that there are more Irish in Boston than in Ireland, there is somewhat of a note of melancholy, mixed with the joke.

Saint Dominic Savio was born of very poor but holy peasant stock, one of ten children. His parents were from Castelnuovo D’Asti, ten miles outside Turin. When things got desperate they were forced to leave, to find work in a small village outside of Chieri called Riva. There on April 2, 1842, a boy child was born to Charles and Brigid Savio, whom they baptized Dominic. When Dominic was two years old, the family moved once again, to a village near their home town of Castelnuovo d’Asti, Murialdo.

The Life of Saint Veronica Giulianni. Discover the monastery where she spent her life as a religious. The cell where she lived; the bed she slept on, the pillow-case which still shows the blood-stains from her Stigmata, the tree to which she levitated, the cross upon which she hung, and the cross she carried. The Devil attacked and tormented her.

As her illness had taken a toll on her strength, Saint Gemma Galgani was not able to return to school. She remained at home and taught her sisters and brothers. At her beatification, one of her brothers said, "Gemma always brought the olive branch." She lovingly cared for the needs, both spiritual and physical, of her family, often at the neglect of herself. She had no use for fancy clothes, and adorned herself in simple, extremely austere black dresses.

This is an account of recorded miracles connected with the practice of the Eucharist over the centuries with a view to showing that miracles still happen today.