Deacon Richard

#Catholic ✝️ 🇨🇦 ➡️ Permanent Deacon ➡️ Archdiocese of Toronto ➡️ Humble Servant of God 📖 Acts Chapter 6 📣 Let's spread the Good News of the Gospel

[Deacon Richard @CatholicDeacon]

June is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus because the Church wants us to pause and contemplate the Heart that loved us first.

Not a symbol of sentimentality.

A symbol of divine love poured out.

The Heart of Jesus is pierced, crowned with thorns, burning with love, and still open to sinners.

That is the mystery.

When we hurt Him with our sins, He responds with kindness and forgiveness.

We turn away, and He keeps calling.

Our hearts can grow cold, but His love remains strong and constant, a burning flame that never fades.

The Sacred Heart reminds us that Christianity is not simply about rules, ideas, or religious identity.

It is about the love of God made visible in Jesus Christ.

A love that took flesh.

A love that suffered.

A love that forgives.

A love that still says:

“Come to me.”

So this June, let us draw closer to the Heart of Jesus.

To pray with more trust.

To repent with more humility.

To forgive with more mercy.

To love with a heart less divided.

**Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.
Make our hearts like Yours.**

[Deacon Richard @CatholicDeacon]

I love hearing church bells...

Before Lebanon had cedars on its flag, it had monks willing to die for the truth about Christ.

The monks of Beit Maroun defended the faith when it was costly:

Jesus Christ is fully God.
Jesus Christ is fully man.
One divine Person.
Two natures.
No compromise.

In 517, 350 monks of St. Maroun were massacred for holding fast to the teaching of Chalcedon.

That is the soil from which the Maronite Church grew.

Not comfort.
Not popularity.
Not vague spirituality.

Martyrdom. Orthodoxy. Fidelity.

The Church is still built that way to this day.

🔔✝️

[Deacon Richard @CatholicDeacon]

“Do not be ashamed to confess the Cross, for angels glory in it.”
— St. Charles Lwanga

The world tells us to hide the Cross.
The martyrs tell us to carry it.

Faith that costs nothing rarely converts anyone.

St. Charles Lwanga please pray for us.

[Diana Henry @dianahenry]

Moments before he was burned alive, Saint Charles said, "It is as if you are pouring water on me.
Please repent and become a Christian like me.”

Saints Charles Lwanga and Companions, pray for us.

[Deacon Richard @CatholicDeacon]

@chicago_co37632 @sheryl_coyne2 30 minutes ago I received some positive news from my manager.
Of course I have been fearing the worst but was encouraged by today’s first reading and your prayers.

The Lord is kind and merciful 🙏🏽❤️

[Deacon Richard @CatholicDeacon]

@booterart 💪🏽

[Deacon Richard @CatholicDeacon]

June is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Every day this month I will pray and post the Prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus:

O most holy Heart of Jesus, fountain of every blessing, I adore Thee, I love Thee and with a lively sorrow for my sins, I offer Thee this poor heart of mine.

Make me humble, patient, pure and wholly obedient to Thy will.

Grant, good Jesus, that I may live in Thee and for Thee.

Protect me in the midst of danger; comfort me in my afflictions; give me health of body, assistance in my temporal needs, Thy blessing on all that I do, and the grace of a holy death.

Within Thy Heart I place my every care.

In every need let me come to Thee with humble trust saying:

Heart of Jesus help me.

[Deacon Richard @CatholicDeacon]

@KatiePMcGrady A beautiful blessing.

[Deacon Richard @CatholicDeacon]

❤️ June draws us into the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and today’s readings reveal two virtues His Heart forms in us: courage and hopeful endurance.

Courage, because faith must be stirred into flame. God has given you a spirit of power, love, and self-control, not fear.

Hopeful endurance, because Jesus is the God of the living. What you suffer, what you offer, what you carry in faith…none of it is lost.

This is how perseverance is built.

🚫 Never through avoiding hardship.
🚫 Never through waiting for perfect conditions.

But by trusting the Heart of Jesus in the middle of the trial and continuing forward with quiet strength. 💕

If your faith feels tested today, stay close to His Sacred Heart.

👉 He sees you.
👉 He strengthens you.
👉 He walks with you.

And the God who holds your life will also raise it. 🙏

Share the beauty and love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. 🔄

[Deacon Richard @CatholicDeacon]

@dianahenry @andrealaudate98 Oh the joys of technology 😵‍💫

[Deacon Richard @CatholicDeacon]

I learned something new about praying to Our Lady of Sorrows👇🏽

[Deacon Richard @CatholicDeacon]

If you’re seeing this please know I prayed for your intentions during Holy Hour and the sacrifice of the mass this evening.
Peace and blessings.

[Deacon Richard @CatholicDeacon]

I am on my way to Holy Hour, sacrament of Reconciliation and mass.
Be assured that I am praying for your intentions as well as for the men who have sent me DMs who are discerning the Permanent Diaconate.

John 15:16 RSV-NT

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.

[EOB 🇺🇸 @EOB174]

Jesus Christ, my God, I adore You and thank You for all the graces You have given me this day. I offer You my sleep and all the moments of this night. I place myself and all my loved ones, wherever they may be, in Your sacred side and under the mantle of Our Blessed Mother. Let Your holy angels stand watch and keep us in peace. Amen.

“Christ in the Wilderness” is a contemplative painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Moretto da Brescia (Alessandro Bonvicino), created in the 16th century. The work reflects the artist’s characteristic serenity and spiritual introspection, portraying Christ during His forty days of fasting and prayer in the desert.
The composition presents Christ seated alone within a natural, rocky landscape, surrounded by sparse vegetation and animals. He is positioned slightly off-center, creating a sense of quiet isolation while still anchoring the scene. The surrounding environment is gently animated with wildlife and subtle angelic presence, reinforcing both the physical solitude and the spiritual significance of the moment.

[Deacon Richard @CatholicDeacon]

We give thanks to your witness Nancy.
Offering my continued prayers for you, Joshua and your family.

[Nancy Charles @cancelwok3]

It’s not just #Pride month; for Catholics, June is the Sacred Heart of Jesus month.

This matters to me deeply.

Why?

Because I know how it feels to be a slave to the world’s agenda while insisting that I was free. I remember feeling deeply convinced of this pride narrative about myself, and I lived in that narrative my entire life.

I started having same-sex attraction as young as third grade. I grew up, came out of the closet, and lived as a lesbian for almost 15 years, until I decided to identify as a trans male. I even changed my name to Roman.

The hardest part of living this experience, internally, is that you experience yourself as something you aren’t. But you don’t know that.

You don’t simply make a choice to feel same-sex attraction. You just feel it. And because you just feel it, you don’t question it.

I would have never in a million years believed that there was a God, and that He would completely uproot the self narrative that I had once internally experienced as true about myself.

After all, who could know me better than I know myself?

I lived in a world that constantly mirrored back to me that my feelings and internal experience of myself, attractions, and desires were normal and good.

Quickly, this idea of good was affirmed to me by the world because it was connected to this word called love.

And that’s the difficult part for people caught in the LGBTQ+ lifestyle to understand. In their hearts, they connect their attractions to their understanding of love.

The human person was made by Love Himself. We are made to be loved and to give love. That’s why this is one of the most manipulative lies the devil has ever sold the human heart.

But what Christ helped me see was that love and desire become corrupt very quickly without proper order.

If you would have told me that one day I would no longer feel same-sex attraction, I would have actually laughed in your face. I would have believed that it was impossible.

And people who identify as LGBTQ believe this too.

Why?

Because they don’t know the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Christ is not just a person who gives life, who speaks truth, who gives love. He is Life. He is Truth. And He is LOVE.

I had an encounter with the real Christ at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in 2023. In that encounter, I felt a love so total, so intense, so undeniable, that it brought me to my knees.

I realized instantly that I didn’t know anything about love, and in that realization, I had to concede that maybe, also, I didn’t know anything about myself.

Every way in which I had previously experienced myself internally had to be rigorously brought into the light of Christ.

It was terrifying.

But after feeling that level of love, I had no choice but to chase after Him. I knew for the first time in my life, that whatever that was, it was what I was made for.

Every previous longing of my heart collapsed in importance. It’s not that I didn’t have those other longings still. I did.

But the love Christ showed me, now took the highest place in my chase for fulfillment.

I knew, for the first time in my life, that if I could only touch the hem of His garment, then just maybe I could, for the first time in my life, be fully known and fully loved.

I was right.

To be fully known and fully loved restores the human person and their dignity in ways that would shock the world to its knees.

Just like the Gospel tore down the pagan altars of the ancient world, so too did it tear down the altars of self within me.

You think you know who you are until you stand bare before the One who made you.

You will tremble in the presence of that.

It will change you.

❤️‍🔥

#Catholic #LGBTQ #Pridemonth #SacredHeart

[andrea @AndreaReflects1]

Matthew 7:7–8
7 Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall
find: knock, and it shall be opened to you.

8 For every one that asketh, receiveth: and he that
seeketh, findeth: and to him that knocketh, it shall be
opened.

Jesus, Ocean of Mercy,
Teach me to ask with faith, to seek with hope, and to knock with humility.

[Deacon Richard @CatholicDeacon]

@sistervpaul_ @JulieOfAutumn Peace and blessings. United in prayer 🙏🏽❤️

[Diana Henry @dianahenry]

Let’s read the Word! @CatholicDeacon @andrealaudate98 Set a reminder for my upcoming Space! https://t.co/wqUGjVTC4A

[Deacon Richard @CatholicDeacon]

@timmjphillips Offer my prayers for your sister in law and your family

[Deacon Richard @CatholicDeacon]

Who says consecrated life is boring?👇🏽

[Deacon Richard @CatholicDeacon]

My prayers go with you and I ask all my fellow Catholics who see this post to pray for you, your family and all men who are discerning the call.

[Stoneshield @Stoneshieldz]

@CatholicDeacon I have seriously been considering starting the journey to become a Deacon. I think it's where I can do really good works. I have the love and support of a wonderful wife of 22 years. I feel as I should (and know I can) do more than just "be a good catholic".🤔