O most beautiful Flower of Mt Carmel, fruitful vine, splendor of Heaven, Blessed Mother of the Son of God, Immaculate Virgin, assist me in this my necessity. O Star of the Sea, help me and show me herein you are my Mother.

O Holy Mary, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven and earth, I humbly beseech you from the bottom of my heart, to succor me in this my necessity, there are none that can withstand your power.

O show me herein you are my Mother.

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us that have recourse to thee. (3 times)

Sweet Mother, I place this cause in your hands. (3 times)

Amen.

Labels: Restorationists

# posted by G. Thomas Fitzpatrick : 8:49 AM

Flos Carmeli

Flower of Carmel,
Tall vine blossom laden;
Splendor of heaven,
Childbearing yet maiden.
None equals thee.

Mother so tender,
Who no man didst know,
On Carmel's children
Thy favors bestow.
Star of the Sea.

Strong stem of Jesse,
Who bore one bright flower,
Be ever near us
And guard us each hour,
who serve thee here.

Purest of lilies,
That flowers among thorns,
Bring help to the true heart
That in weakness turns
and trusts in thee.

Strongest of armor,
We trust in thy might:
Under thy mantle,
Hard press'd in the fight,
we call to thee.

Our way uncertain,
Surrounded by foes,
Unfailing counsel
You give to those
who turn to thee.

0 gentle Mother
Who in Carmel reigns,
Share with your servants
That gladness you gained
and now enjoy.

Hail, Gate of Heaven,
With glory now crowned,
Bring us to safety
Where thy Son is found,
true joy to see.

Labels: Restorationists

# posted by G. Thomas Fitzpatrick : 8:42 AM

O most beautiful Flower of Mt Carmel, fruitful vine, splendor of Heaven, Blessed Mother of the Son of God, Immaculate Virgin, assist me in this my necessity. O Star of the Sea, help me and show me herein you are my Mother.

O Holy Mary, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven and earth, I humbly beseech you from the bottom of my heart, to succor me in this my necessity, there are none that can withstand your power.

O show me herein you are my Mother.

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us that have recourse to thee. (3 times)

Sweet Mother, I place this cause in your hands. (3 times)

Amen.

Labels: Restorationists

# posted by G. Thomas Fitzpatrick : 8:48 AM

I do not see that there is any sinner in the whole Gospel story who was brought to repentance otherwise than by kindness and by benefits. Our Lord drew to Himself St. Matthew, Zacchaeus and other publicans by inviting Himself to eat with them and showing that He did not spurn their company, ---- unlike the Pharisees who treated them as infamous persons. He won the heart of Magdalen ---- not by severe reproaches, but by permitting her to draw near to Him, praising what was praiseworthy in her action, taking up her defense against the respectable people whom she scandalized. Any other but Jesus would have pronounced against the woman taken in adultery the sentence of death written in the Law; but He saved her by a miracle; He obliged the judges and the accusers to retire, and, when she stood alone, He said: "Woman, has no one, then, condemned thee?" "No one, Lord," she answered. "Neither, then, will I condemn thee. Go now and sin no more." He did not put to shame the Samaritan woman by at once recalling to her what He knew concerning her sinful life; He quietly won her to make her own confession; after that first step He so gained on her that she admitted everything, recognized Him for what He was and made Him known to all that city of Samaria. What did He not do to win back Judas? Everything, except to confound or denounce him or speak to him harshly. He showed him clearly that He knew of his crime, but spoke so that the others did not understand; He washed his feet and wiped them, He suffered the traitor to kiss Him, He called him "Friend", He called him by his name, He uttered no word of bitterness or anger. To move Peter to repentance He was content with a look; and it was not a look that struck terror, but a look full of tenderness and affection. Finally, to conquer the obstinacy of Thomas, He took the doubting Apostle's hand and gently placed it in the wound of His pierced side.

If, when God seeks to convert us, He were striving for some interest or advantage of His Own, I should not be surprised at His acting with such extreme moderation and clemency; but since His zeal has no other end than to withdraw us from sin and death, we may well wonder that He acts so delicately and so patiently spares us and yields to us. When a father sees his child in danger of death by drowning or by fire, he does not consider whether he seizes him by the foot or by the hand, whether he drags him into safety by his clothes or by his hair, whether he hurts him or not, provided only he can rescue him from that extreme peril. But God seems to have consideration for our weakness even in the extremity of our dangers; He studies our humor, inclination, disposition, even our passions and bad habits, in order to seize and draw us in the way that will pain us least. To the man that loves gain He offers the treasures of Heaven; to the miser He suggests the terrible poverty in which he will find himself in the next life; to the votary of pleasures He insinuates the peaceful joys of a life free from guilt, from remorse and from the warfare of the passions; to one who shrinks from suffering and pain He recalls the endless sufferings of the lost; to one who is of affectionate and grateful disposition He recalls His benefits ---- the blessings that He has given, is giving, and proposes in future to give.

But if this delicacy and ingenuity of your Lord in drawing you to Him has not powerfully struck you, at least you cannot have failed to notice His constancy, His perseverance; for surely we have, most of us, strangely tried and proved it! Were there not long periods during which you heard but would not even listen to His voice? If you listened, how long did you not deliberate as to whether and how far you would yield to His urgent and loving invitations! When at length you were persuaded that it was best for you to give yourself wholly to Him, how many battles were still required in order to induce your will, your heart, to follow the light of your mind! How many delays, what compromises, what promises made and broken, what good resolutions unfulfilled, what resistances and failures in the work of giving Him what He asked of you!

Encouragement for the Prodigal

O my God, Thy love has been proof against this long, this insulting resistance! It did not grow cold; Thou hast continued to pursue me, to call me, to entreat me, to cherish me. "Who knows," Thou doth seem to have said to Thyself, "whether that heart will not at length let itself be softened, after having been so long obdurate? I see that it will not be soon; I see that the resolutions of today will not be kept better than the resolutions of six months ago; that tomorrow and tomorrow will still be the date of its conversion; but perhaps also if I continue to pursue, at length it will cease to fly from me.1 Gladly would I see it Mine this moment; but I prefer to wait for it a long time rather than to lose it for ever."

God hates sin with a kind of infinite hatred, and the soul stained with sin necessarily brings on itself something of that hatred. Yet God does not cease to love such a soul, to extend to it His arms, to offer it the kiss of peace, to pursue it as if it were something perfectly beautiful.

"Whom do you pursue, O king of Israel?" said David long ago to Saul, and we might well repeat what he said to that Divine love that concerns itself so with us. "Quem persequeris? Canem mortuum persequeris?" After whom dost Thou run, O King of Heaven and earth. Thou art pursuing a vile creature that, far from deserving Thine affection, is not worth even Thine anger, and might well cause Thee merely feelings of disgust. And we, dear Christians, from Whom do we fly? What can we mean by despising this Lover, trifling so long with His patience, refusing the friendship and union that He offers and urges upon us? We know Who it is that is calling us in the depths of our souls, and yet we are not afraid to allow the Master of the Universe to come and knock at our doors, to keep Him waiting so long without deigning to open or to answer. What ought I to wonder at most, O my God, Thy patience or our obstinacy, Thy love or our hardness of heart? What will be the confusion of such an ungrateful and audacious soul, whenever Thou doth open its eyes; how shall it dare to appear in Thy presence after having so treated Thee? And if we have the courage to present ourselves, will the Almighty deign to receive us? Yes, my brethren, so long as this life lasts He will not fail to receive the sinner, if only, after his long wanderings, he will return repentant to his duty and allegiance. Nay; I say more: that Divine love which impelled our God to pursue us in our flight, leads Him also to anticipate and meet us on our return, and to rejoice with an extraordinary joy when He once more clasps us in His arms.

Insensible, surely, is the sinner whom such patience, such indulgence, such love does not draw to repentance. But more unhappy still is the sinner who defers repentance and resists the Divine Love just because it is waiting for him with so much patience; who does not ask for pardon just because God is always ready to grant it; who is evil because God is good; who sins easily because He forgives easily; who is willing to displease because He is so unwilling to punish.

O Lord, deign to perfect in each of us the work of Thine infinite mercy! Do not permit it to become hurtful to us or useless to us; do not let us be lost in the very ocean of Thy generosity! Grant that the infinite love Thou hast for the sinner may compel him to feel an almost infinite hatred for sin; compel him to love Thee changelessly on earth that he may come to love Thee changelessly in Heaven!
Amen.

St. Claude de la Colombiere

Labels: Restorationists

# posted by G. Thomas Fitzpatrick : 8:32 AM

O most beautiful Flower of Mt Carmel, fruitful vine, splendor of Heaven, Blessed Mother of the Son of God, Immaculate Virgin, assist me in this my necessity. O Star of the Sea, help me and show me herein you are my Mother.

O Holy Mary, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven and earth, I humbly beseech you from the bottom of my heart, to succor me in this my necessity, there are none that can withstand your power.

O show me herein you are my Mother.

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us that have recourse to thee. (3 times)

Sweet Mother, I place this cause in your hands. (3 times)

Amen.

Labels: Restorationists

# posted by G. Thomas Fitzpatrick : 8:47 AM

Rorate Caeli, following the lead of Damien Thompson, reports that two C. of E. bishops are thinking of swimming the Tiber, and bringing a substantial number of their flocks with them, including maybe parishes, and so on. Of course, if they do, there will be litigation with the C. of E. over the property. And the Catholic Church will probably lose those suits.

And keep in mind that this is on top of, and separate from the question of the Traditional Anglican Communion, which has already voted to seek union with Rome (Rome seeming strangely distant and aloof, probably because of the misguided notions of Cardinal Casper). I happened a few years ago to glance through the directory of the Traditional Anglican Communion. They have quite a few parishes in the US, and would represent quite an accretion to the right side of the Church, if we can ever bring ourselves to allow in these people earnestly seeking full communion.

If the entire right side of the C. of E. does swim the Tiber, what will remain of the Church of England and protestant Episcopal Church in the US will be extreme liberals with more grounding in the gospel of the Left than in Jesus Christ and Him Crucified. The serious Christians will all end up as Roman Catholics again, bringing much of England back to the Faith of its ancestors.

I think that will be the destiny of the historic mistake of England. Henry VIII's schism and the subsequent heresies maintained by the many generations of the Church of England will wither away. Will there be a Church of England in 100 years? Right now, I would doubt that there will be.

Of course, other developments may bail them out. We see in the US large numbers of leftist Catholics, dissatisfied with the Church's positions on homosexuality and homosexual marriage, homosexual priests, female ordination, and sexual morality generally, leaving for the Episcopal church, where they can have things their way, a church made in the image of their political beliefs, rather than the model created by Our Lord. Will these, shall we say "light people" in the sense of their being trendy, political, easily swayed, lacking in Christian seriousness, not well-informed, and certainly not well-catechized, be able to maintain a working church somewhat along the lines of the old C. of E.? I doubt it. I think they will end up splintering even further.

Memo to serious Anglo-Catholics:

The time is now. Come to Rome, sweet Rome.

Labels: Restorationists

# posted by G. Thomas Fitzpatrick : 9:40 AM

O most beautiful Flower of Mt Carmel, fruitful vine, splendor of Heaven, Blessed Mother of the Son of God, Immaculate Virgin, assist me in this my necessity. O Star of the Sea, help me and show me herein you are my Mother.

O Holy Mary, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven and earth, I humbly beseech you from the bottom of my heart, to succor me in this my necessity, there are none that can withstand your power.

O show me herein you are my Mother.

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us that have recourse to thee. (3 times)

Sweet Mother, I place this cause in your hands. (3 times)

Amen.

Labels: Restorationists

# posted by G. Thomas Fitzpatrick : 8:45 AM

You Are 79% American

You're as American as red meat and shooting ranges.

Tough and independent, you think big.

You love everything about the US, wrong or right.

And anyone who criticizes your home better not do it in front of you!

How American Are You?

Labels: Silly Quizzes

# posted by G. Thomas Fitzpatrick : 8:34 AM

To Restored Traditions, a dealer in vintage Catholic art prints, which I just today discovered.

I like it, and had thought of an enterprise like that myself. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

Here is a tiny sampling of what they have on offer:

I had never seen this last one, by Ariel Agemian, in color.

Labels: Restorationists

# posted by G. Thomas Fitzpatrick : 9:57 AM

A little late posting this one, but we have only missed some of the simple processions. The major festivals are all yet to come.

June 7 - 8, 2008
Santa Maria Di Anzano
Feast Celebration & Procession
Hanover & Prince Streets

June 28, 2008
Society of Saint Jude Thaddeus of Boston
Procession

July 6, 2008
Maria del Graze Society
Procession

July 13, 2008
St. Rocco Society
Procession

July 20, 2008
St. Domenic Society
Procession

July 25 - 27, 2008
St. Joseph Society
Feast Celebration
Battery & Hanover Streets

August 1 - 3, 2008
St. Agrippina di Mineo Society
Feast Celebration
Battery & Hanover Streets

August 8 - 10, 2008
Madonna Della Cava Society
Feast Celebration
Battery & Hanover Streets

August 14 - 17, 2008
Fisherman's Feast of the Madonna
Del Soccorso di Sciacca Society of Boston
Feast Celebration
Fleet & North Streets

August 29 - 31, 2008
San Antonio Di Padova Da Montefalcione, Inc.
Feast Celebration
Thatcher & Endicott Streets

September 1, 2008
St. Lucy Society
Feast Celebration
Thatcher & Endicott Streets

September 7, 2008
Santa Rosalia Di Palermo Society
Procession

Labels: Restorationists

# posted by G. Thomas Fitzpatrick : 9:49 AM

O most beautiful Flower of Mt Carmel, fruitful vine, splendor of Heaven, Blessed Mother of the Son of God, Immaculate Virgin, assist me in this my necessity. O Star of the Sea, help me and show me herein you are my Mother.

O Holy Mary, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven and earth, I humbly beseech you from the bottom of my heart, to succor me in this my necessity, there are none that can withstand your power.

O show me herein you are my Mother.

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us that have recourse to thee. (3 times)

Sweet Mother, I place this cause in your hands. (3 times)

Amen.

Labels: Restorationists

# posted by G. Thomas Fitzpatrick : 8:37 AM

A year ago today, Summorum Pontificum was released. In that year, we have seen celebrations of the traditional Mass spring up everywhere like wildflowers. We have seen new orders and new vocations devoted to the traditional Mass flourish. Every few weeks it seems that there is news of a new training program for priests or servers, or for chant. And we have just seen the Transalpine Redemptorists reconciled to Rome.

Without the special insight and keen intellect of our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI, none of this would have happened. We cannot thank him enough for this initiative. God bless him, and long may he reign!!!!

Labels: Restorationists

# posted by G. Thomas Fitzpatrick : 9:07 AM

Photos here.

Courtesy of Save Holy Trinity Yahoo Group, and Mary Immaculate of Lourdes Yahoo Group.

Labels: Restorationists

# posted by G. Thomas Fitzpatrick : 8:35 AM

O most beautiful Flower of Mt Carmel, fruitful vine, splendor of Heaven, Blessed Mother of the Son of God, Immaculate Virgin, assist me in this my necessity. O Star of the Sea, help me and show me herein you are my Mother.

O Holy Mary, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven and earth, I humbly beseech you from the bottom of my heart, to succor me in this my necessity, there are none that can withstand your power.

O show me herein you are my Mother.

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us that have recourse to thee. (3 times)

Sweet Mother, I place this cause in your hands. (3 times)

Amen.

Labels: Restorationists

# posted by G. Thomas Fitzpatrick : 8:34 AM