{"id":3358,"date":"2014-09-17T10:43:19","date_gmt":"2014-09-17T09:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/2008\/09\/fire-for-a-world-grown-cold-1\/"},"modified":"2014-09-17T11:23:04","modified_gmt":"2014-09-17T10:23:04","slug":"fire-for-a-world-grown-cold-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/2014\/09\/fire-for-a-world-grown-cold-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Fire for a World Grown Cold"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"17<\/a><\/span>Never underestimate the effect of an image on the memory and imagination of a little child. Long before a child learns to read, he begins to receive deeply the impressions of the pictures that surround him.<\/p>\n

An image of the stigmata of Saint Francis of Assisi profoundly marked my childhood. The image was in a stained\u2013glass window shining with jewel-like colors in the south transept of my beautiful parish church, named for Saint Francis, in New Haven, Connecticut. I only regret that I don’t have a photo of that stained-glass window.<\/p>\n

Later on, after I learned to read, I discovered in my Daily Missal the Collect for the Commemoration of the Holy Stigmata celebrated on September 17th. It remains, to this day, a prayer that speaks to my heart. My dear friends, the Poor Ladies of Bethlehem Monastery<\/a> in Barhamsville, Virginia, pray this Collect when they rise for Matins in the middle of the night. It is, in effect, a prayer for the dark and cold hours of life.<\/p>\n

Lord Jesus Christ,
\nwho didst reproduce,
\nin the flesh of the most blessed Francis,
\nthe sacred marks of Thine own sufferings,
\nso that in a world grown cold
\nour hearts might be filled with burning love of Thee,
\ngraciously enable us by his merits and prayers
\nto bear the cross without faltering
\nand to bring forth worthy fruits of penitence:
\nThou who art God,
\nliving and reigning with God the Father,
\nin the unity of the Holy Spirit,
\nfor ever and ever. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Never underestimate the effect of an image on the memory and imagination of a little child. Long before a child learns to read, he begins to receive deeply the impressions of the pictures that surround him. An image of the stigmata of Saint Francis of Assisi profoundly marked my childhood. The image was in a <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-saints"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paVypq-Sa","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3358"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3358"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7985,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3358\/revisions\/7985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}