July 3, 2025

The month of July is dedicated to The Most Precious Blood of Jesus and this image depicts the angels collecting the blood from Jesus’ Crucifixion. Who can forget the scene in The Passion of the Christ of Pilate’s wife providing the cloths for Our Lady and Mary Magdalene to mop up Christ’s blood after the scourging?

With so much unrest in the world as well as problems with our practices and possibly in our personal lives, we may be inclined to become discouraged. Therefore, the theme for this month is The Virtue of Hope. “The virtue of hope responds to the aspiration to happiness which God has placed in the heart of every man; it takes up the hopes that inspire men’s activities and purifies them so as to order them to the Kingdom of heaven; it keeps man from discouragement; it sustains him during times of abandonment; it opens up his heart in expectation of eternal beatitude. Buoyed up by hope, he is preserved from selfishness and led to the happiness that flows from charity” (CCC 1818). Don’t forget to get your plenary indulgence in this Jubilee Year of Hope.

Our Lady has always been held up as a model of hope and the feast of Our Lady of Holy Hopeis celebrated on July 9. Read more about this devotion here.

The CMA ZOOM Prayer Group will meet July 12 at 2:00 PM EDT. Come pray with us!

The Vatican released a document in January on AI, entitled Antiqua and Nova: Note on the Relationship Between Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence. This ties in beautifully with our 94th Annual Educational Conference, “Tradition, Ever Ancient, Ever New”, Sept. 4-6, 2025 in Kansas City, MO. Register here. See you in Kansas City!

Focusing on saints who exemplified this virtue, St. Junipero Serra (July 1), the Apostle of California, brought hope to the Indigenous people of Mexico and California. Born in Spain and ordained a Franciscan, he came to the New World in 1749 and walked 250 miles to Mexico City to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. He worked in that region for nearly 20 years before going to California in 1768, where he established a total of 24 missions and baptized over 6,000 Native Americans. St. Junipero Serra was canonized by Pope Francis in 2015 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C. We strongly recommend this Serra Prayer for vocations.

Saint Anthony Mary Zaccaria (July 5) was first trained as a physician and then entered the priesthood at age 26. He co-founded the Barnabites order, encouraged involvement of the laity, the Forty Hours devotion, frequent Communion and ringing of the church bells at 3:00 on Friday. He died in 1539 at the age of 36. This novena is for a growth in virtue.

Lastly, St. Mary Magdalene (July 22), the Apostle to the Apostles, had the courage to stand at the foot of the Cross with Our Lady and St. John and had her hope fulfilled when Jesus appeared to her in His resurrected body.

Suggested summer reading includes:

• Inside the Bible by Fr. Kenneth Baker

•God’s Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine by Dr. Victoria Sweet

•Sister, Soldier, Surgeon: The Life and Courage of Sister Deirdre Byrne, M.D. by Dr. Leisa Marie Carzon. Sister Byrne is our banquet speaker at the AEC.

•Domestic Monastery: Creating a Spiritual Life at Home by Fr. Ronald Rolheiser

•Hope: an Autobiography by Pope Francis.