Handmaids of the Precious Blood

06/15/2026

Continue to pray for our Bishops across the United States!

06/15/2026

06/15/2026

We just marked the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart by consecrating the United States of America to the Sacred Heart. Why? We need to return to being one nation, one united nation, under God. So many things divide: our sins, our wounds, our emotions, our injustices, the disparities between peoples etc. The devil loves division and he is rightly called the scatterer. If we, as a people, are scattered for whatever reason, we cannot gather together under one God. This is the tactic of the evil one. Keep us apart. Keep us divided.

The United States bishops' consecration of the whole country to the Sacred Heart seeks to place this problem of our divisions directly into Jesus' Heart. There the fire of his all consuming love will begin burning away the dross that contaminates the unity we need.

Is it not ironic that only in his broken Heart can we make our broken hearts whole again? Only the pierced Wound can let us in to be healed. Only the Heart crushed and encircled by thorns sets our minds at healthy rest. Only his fiery love can douse the flames of our petty human hatreds.

Oh Sacred Heart of Jesus, I Place My Trust (and our Land) In Thee!

06/09/2026

Continue to pray for our Bishops across the United States!

06/09/2026

The day prior to Corpus Christi the Diocese of Knoxville received (and gave) one great gift - a new priest ordained forever! As Father Daniel Cooper takes on this utterly new way of being he has long prepared for, we offer prayers of encouragement, accompaniment, and thanksgiving. It's wonderful to have an ordination take place just prior to Corpus Christi for the Eucharist and Priesthood can never be separated.

On Corpus Christi itself, another priest, Pope Leo XIV processed in Madrid with the Blessed Sacrament along with 1.2 million people, walking over a floral carpet made from 70,000 flowers. It was gloriously magnificent. Here at Cor Jesu Monastery we had a small, but beautiful procession, thanks to Father Randy Stice for enabling us to honor Jesus in this special way. But our rose bushes had already peaked and we were lacking in rose petals customarily strewn before the monstrance. Nevertheless, Sister Guadalupe scoured the garden beds and bushes resourcefully gathering a small basket of rose petals, just enough to sprinkle the path between the stations. Most were just a single petal. Yet hidden within these delicate petals were exquisitely tiny blossoms intact and whole yet nearly unnoticed as a full rose.

If we look at these strewn roses and rose petals as symbols of our lives given over to Jesus - what can we see? Most of us give something of ourselves, petals here and there along the path of life. But priests? Be they newly ordained or the Supreme Pontiff, they give their entire selves, the whole blossom, stem and all, immediately and always. On ordination day they freely prostrate face down offering their whole being, their whole identity, with no idea what the Lord will demand of them. The "Yes!" spoken that day echoes through every subsequent day of their lives whether they are well known and listened to or unknown and ignored. It's the same priesthood. The same life given totally as an Alter Christus. A full flower given unreservedly for God's good purposes as they set out. At the end of their lives, we pray they will find that that one full blossom, cast down completely on ordination day, will have resulted in a breathtaking harvest of roses - other souls they brought to Christ.

We thank every priest for their "Fiat!" and promise all of them our prayers and sacrifices as their lives are poured out for others to bring them Our Lord.

06/03/2026

Our cartoon this week is in response to the fact that Shadow and Sunbeam haven't been in any recent cartoons so to rectify the situation we've doodled them so they don't feel left out. We can assure our audience that they are now as satisfied...as cats can get which is always temporary. Enjoy the laugh at their expense. We will pet them on your behalf.

The reflection that follows has nothing to do with the cats but does involve the finale of the Easter Season, the Solemnity of Pentecost.

The Acts account of Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit uses the phrase, "filled the entire house". The mighty sound of the wind filled the entire house. The Holy Spirit descended on our Lady, the Apostles, and disciples gathered together in Jerusalem. Our God is the God of completeness. He simply is. He is being itself. He needs nothing yet gives us everything we need - completely. In the Gospel for Pentecost Sunday we have Jesus appearing to the Apostles and breathing on them. Peace be with you. His peace - therefore already complete and unworldly. He gives the Holy Spirit and confession. And again on Pentecost in an unmistakable way - in a completely overflowing and generous way he pours out the Holy Spirit on them. It "filled the entire house." Where have we heard that before? The anointing at Bethany. The aroma of the nard filled the house. The broken alabaster vessel, the total sacrificial gift of the oil 'wasted' to fill the entire house to impact everyone there with the overpowering scent of delight. Saturating the air, filling the nostrils. In the Incarnation, in our Lord's Passion and Death, his life was freely broken open and poured out on the Cross and this allows, after the Ascension, for him and the Father to send and pour out the Spirit into our souls, on the Church, and on all the world.

05/19/2026

We got in a little over our heads on Mother’s Day. Well actually a little on Mary’s head. Actually, make that four heads. We were so wanting to honor Mary as our Mother on Mother’s Day that we had FOUR May Crownings – something we haven’t done here before.

Mary, the first Handmaid of the Lord, is our Mother. She is everyone’s Mother as Jesus intended on the Cross. May is considered her month devotionally and it just made sense to honor her this way on Mother’s Day. So we made a whole day of it starting not long after a foggy sunrise in the Mary Mother of Priests Garden and crowning her statue that faces east while singing Marian hymns.

Later, we crowned two other indoor statues, one in our Chapel to be moved to a dormitory area later. Another larger one in the refectory. And finally at the completion of the day, crowning Our Lady of Fatima in the Mater Dei Oratory.

We can never say enough to honor Mary says Saint Bernard. Likewise, we can never crown her Queen of our hearts too often as she is not only the first Handmaid of the Lord but also his most perfect disciple.

05/19/2026

On the Solemnity of the Ascension we read the Gospel MT 28:16-20. There is serious food for thought and prayer in these very last verses of Matthew's Gospel.

Everyone likes to be prepared. Really prepared. Who sets out on a task or journey or adventure thinking, "I have no idea what I'm doing but so what? Let's forge ahead blindly." Now, in truth many do that just hoping to squeak by. People often do. But as Christians we are not tasked to just get by and do the minimum hoping for the best. Jesus explicitly commands his Apostles (and us) to transform the world - all humanity, everywhere, until the end of time. He did this regardless of their level of belief in him. Depending on the translation, Matthew 28:17 can include a little phrase that ought to catch our attention. "...though some hesitated," "...but they doubted," "...but some doubted" which should startle us.

He's risen. They were told by the women to go to Galilee. Now, are they doubting Jesus or the women's report? Are they afraid that he is a ghost? Fear of retribution for abandoning him in his Passion? What they are thinking or hesitating about doesn't matter. He approaches them and charges them to go to the ends of the earth - make disciples, baptize, and teach. He will soon send them the Holy Spirit to enable them to carry out these tasks but it is instructive that no where in this account is there any reliance on them. Of themselves (and by extension also of ourselves) it is impossible to do anything. But, with the Holy Spirit, even their faults and failings (and ours) will be used to transform the world because the readiness to accomplish the mission is not a result of preparation, training, or academic instruction. The readiness is full reliance on God. With God, doing his will, there is no 'squeaking by'. It is letting go of our trust in ourselves and letting him do his work in us.

It really isn't a cliche. It's right there in the pages of scripture: Jesus does not call the equipped. He equips the called.