Marthe Robin was born on March 13, 1902, in Châteauneuf-de-Galaure (Drôme), in France, to a family of peasants, and she spent her entire life in her parents’ home, where she died February 6, 1981. Marthe’s entire existence revolved around the Eucharist, which for her was “the one thing that cures, comforts, lifts, blesses, my Everything.” In 1928, after a serious neurological illness, Marthe found it almost impossible to move, especially to swallow because those muscles were affected. Moreover, due to an eye illness, she was forced to live in almost absolute darkness.

At Macerata in the church of the Cathedral of Holy Mary Assumed and St. Giuliano, under the altar of the Most Holy Sacrament, it is possible to venerate the relic of the “corporal marked by Blood.” Also preserved in this church is the parchment on which the miracle is described.

The Summary of the Whole Gospel

584. Why do we say “our” Father?

“Our” expresses a totally new relationship with God. When we pray to the Father, we adore and glorify him with the Son and the Holy Spirit. In Christ we are “his” people and he is “our” God now and for eternity. In fact, we also say “our” Father because the Church of Christ is the communion of a multitude of brothers and sisters who have but “one heart and mind” (Acts 4:32).

“The Summary of the Whole Gospel"

579. What is the place of the Our Father in the Scriptures?

The Our Father is the “summary of the whole Gospel” (Tertullian), “the perfect prayer” (Saint Thomas Aquinas). Found in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), it presents in the form of prayer the essential content of the Gospel.

As a young child, one of seven born to a noble family in Poland, Stanislaus was educated with his older brother, Paul, by a private tutor. At the age of 14, the two brothers were sent to study at the Jesuit College in Vienna. Stanislaus was a kind, intelligent and pious young man, but his piety was disdained by his older brother, who continually bullied him, lashing out at him verbally and physically.

On August 22, 1888, at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, there took place for the first time at Lourdes the procession together with the benediction of the sick with the Blessed Sacrament. It was a priest who proposed this pious practice and it has not been abandoned since that time.

Our Father

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem was born just about the time the Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire (313 AD) and was a boy when Queen Helena came to Jerusalem and erected the Church of the Holy Sepulchre over the site of Golgotha and the empty tomb. This church became Cyril’s cathedral when he became bishop of the Holy City of about 349 AD. St. Cyril was banished from his Jerusalem see a total of three times for his bold proclamation of faith in Christ’s full divinity during a time when many bishops and emperors favored various forms of the Arian heresy.

At Cascia, in the basilica dedicated to St. Rita, is also preserved the relic of the Eucharistic Miracle, which happened near Siena in 1330. A priest was asked to bring Communion to a sick peasant. The priest took a consecrated Host which he irreverently placed in the pages of his breviary and went to the peasant. When he arrived at the house of the sick man, after hearing his confession, he opened the book to take out the Host which he had placed there. To his great surprise he found that the Host was stained with living blood, so much as to mark both pages between which the Blessed Sacrament had been placed.

The Battle of Prayer

572. Why is prayer a “battle”?

Prayer is a gift of grace but it always presupposes a determined response on our part because those who pray “battle” against themselves, their surroundings, and especially the Tempter who does all he can to turn them away from prayer. The battle of prayer is inseparable from progress in the spiritual life. We pray as we live because we live as we pray.

Between Lake George and Lake Champlain, there was a passage taken by a dozen canoes, carrying a few French Missionaries and a number of Huron Indians, returning with medical supplies from Quebec in 1642. The Huron men and women trusted the white man in the black robe who guided the lead canoe downstream. “Ondessonk”, they called him, “Bird of Prey”. Who could have said that the cultured boy with a decent upbringing in France would find himself at 35 years of age surrounded so far from home by such a flock? It had taken countless hours to grow accustomed to the uncomfortable crouch in that canoe, weeks to become the first white-man to hike over the Adirondacks and see Lake Superior, months to learn the languages and customs of these people he loved so dearly, and all of those prior six years to earn their trust.