LEAVES Website for May-June 2005 Issue

Excerpted from “Leaflets” column

          No one wishes for suffering. However, hardships can serve to strengthen us. When we acknowledge that life is a mixture of good and bad, we are more apt to try to use suffering in a positive way.

          Those who suffer can dedicate their pain for the benefit of someone or something else. By doing so, the focus is changed away from oneself. That alone can help ease pain and disability.

          Is there someone you know who has strayed from the Faith? If so, offer up your suffering for the intention that the person returns to the Church. If you cannot think any cause to pray for, remember to pray for the poor souls in purgatory. As you pray for their release, also beg for their prayerful assistance to help you through your suffering.

          Those who are disabled, either temporarily or permanently, usually can still pray. We do not need physical strength or abilities to offer up prayers. During this Year of the Eucharist, spend a holy hour in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament on a regular basis. Pick a day and time, if possible, and make it an actual appointment, even marking it on your calendar or in your day planner.

          If you are unable to get to a chapel or church for Eucharistic devotion, spend an hour at home in prayer that honors the Holy Eucharist. You might schedule your hour to coincide when adoration is being celebrated at a nearby adoration chapel. Include in your prayers all those who are attending Eucharistic devotions and all the intentions requested at the chapel.

          Anyone who is suffering can also offer his or her suffering for a greater reverence of and dedication to the Holy Eucharist. Too many Catholics do not comprehend the magnificent gift in the Eucharist. As you pray, ask the Lord to open hearts and minds to the glory of His gift. Let us pray, as the Holy Father’s June Prayer Intention reminds us: “For Christians: may they come to an ever deeper realization that the Most Holy Eucharist is the pulsing heart of the Church.”

          ...May God grant you abundant blessings always - Father Thomas Heier, C.M.M.

Excerpted from “Our Family Album”

Fr. Engelmar Is

Spiritual Sponsor

          I’m 78 years old. I’ve lived through the nightmares of alcoholism, jail and the ravages of a war. I had U.S. army duty at Dachau. I attended the Dachau military tribunals and the Nuremberg war crimes trials. I’ve come out of it all, and I want to help others that still hurt.

          I conduct presentations on drugs and alcohol to groups in state prisons and in county jails, and I am a firm believer in the Father Engelmar novena. I have received many favors via his route.

          For the past eight or nine years I have volunteered a part of my life to teaching and talking to a certain type of people that I feel I can help to influence a change in their lives. These are people in treatment programs or needing treatment, groups in jail, prison or a shelter, groups of the homeless. I give presentation-type sessions to these various groups.

          This past month I’m trying to bring God more into the lives of these men, and Father Engelmar is my own spiritual sponsor. I’m asking these prisoners to give Father Engelmar a chance to help them. You may be interested to learn that I had some 122 state and county prisoners request his novena booklet - Larry Tillemans.

Praying Novena

Brings Peace

          I am not a Catholic, but I married into a Catholic family and have embraced the Catholic Church. My mother-in-law put me on the mailing list for the LEAVES magazine. I always thought it was junk and threw it out without reading it. Then one day I picked it up and read it. I was instantly hooked! I found it to be inspiring and uplifting.

          I sent off for the novena to Fr. Engelmar Unzeitig. I started praying the novena with a whole list of needs. During the first time through the novena, it came to me that everything was going to be okay by the sixth time through the novena. I don’t know why I felt that, but it was like I just knew it in my heart.

          I am in the third set now and my prayers are one by one being answered! I am so thankful and excited! I have prayed for so long and been at such a loss for what to do or who to turn to. I honestly believe in Fr. Engelmar’s intercession on my behalf and on the behalf of my family’s needs. Many thanks to Fr. Engelmar. Also, many thanks to the good Lord above along with Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mary and Joseph.

          I can honestly say that through praying this novena I have come to feel a greater peace in my heart and soul as well as comfort with my life and my future - Mrs. R.L.G.

Excerpted from Father Engelmar Testimonies

There is now available a booklet of the novena of Fr. Engelmar Unzeitig, C.M.M. You may receive a free copy of it by sending a stamped (postage for one ounce, currently 37 cents), self-addressed envelope to us at:

LEAVES

P.O. Box 87

Dearborn, MI 48121-0087

          Several years ago our two sons got into a terrible conflict with each other. It got to the point where it seemed that they could never be brothers again. I read many times when people had their favors granted through the intercession of Fr. Engelmar so I too asked for his help. I prayed his novena three times and he came through 100%. To my relief they are brothers again. As their father, my prayer of thanks was to the good Lord and Fr. Engelmar - J.B.

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          My donation is for a petition received. Before my second novena was over, my petition was already answered. Thank you, Fr. Engelmar, for my son-in-law not to get a divorce when they (my daughter) have four small children, ages five to 10. Please continue to pray for that family that they will stay together - Mrs. M.N.

Little Prayer

Dear Lord, that You for today

Walk beside me all the way.

Keep me safe from all who would

Cause me heartache if they could.

Guard my eyes and ears and lips.

Give me strength to come to grips

With each problem I must face

And some courage, just in case.

Never let my footsteps stray

Lest perhaps I lose the way.

And whatever may befall,

Keep me humble through it all.

If a cross must be my share,

Make it one that I can bear.

And through the shadows of the night

Hold me close ‘til morning light!

          By Grace E. Easley

Our Beautiful World

There’s much beauty in this world

If we but stop and take a look.

To try to write about it all

Would fill a mighty heavy book.

Look at the magnificent ocean;

See its huge waves all curled.

Notice the unending vastness

Of sparkling waters unfurled.

The sky dressed in azure blue

Reaches far beyond our sight.

It hugs the bright sun all day

And kisses the stars at night.

Pretty multi-colored flowers

Attract the bird, bee and fly,

Who know they can’t compete

With the lovely butterfly.

Up and up purple mountains reach,

Trying to touch the far off sky,

But failing in that endeavor,

Snatch at clouds rolling by.

Who created all this, we ask?

Why, the mighty God above

Who, looking down on earth,

Showers all with perfect love.

          By Bernice Laux

Mary, Pray for Us

          O Mary, Immaculate Virgin, Woman of suffering and hope, be kind to every suffering person, obtain fullness of life for each one.

          Turn your maternal gaze upon those whose need is extreme. Look upon the mothers who are mourning their children. Look upon the grandparents who lack the resources to support their orphaned grandchildren.

          Embrace them all. Keep them close to your Mother’s heart. Queen of the whole world, Virgin Most Holy, pray for us!

(Adapted from Pope John Paul II’s 2004 World Day of the Sick message)

Sunshine on Golgotha

I saw the sun in its glory / over the hill and through the trees / shine on the crown of thorns, / making beads of gold of the tips, / and the red of the blood / on the hands of Jesus / shone from its rays / in clear bright royal red, / and streaming slowly down, / in dark drops it fell.

“This is good, ‘tis well, / ‘tis well,” they smiled, / as its droplets touched / on the brown craggy earth / where those of Satan’s great army / stood and watched all those

who did not want to do / what they said was right for all to do / who wanted money and to acquiesce.

“These things are right,” they said, / as each nail they hammered, / “and true and scientific / and for the best.” / And long shadows came creeping toward them / as they did the law’s behest.

          By Sarah E. Fisher