Saturday, September 04, 2010
BC Wins Opener
Our Blessed Lady's Saturday
I compassionate thee, O most sorrowful Mother! Thy heart was pierced with a sword of grief when Simeon foretold to thee in the Temple the ignominious death and the desolation of thy divine and most dear Son, which thou west destined one day to witness. By the great anguish of thy suffering heart, O gracious Queen of the universe, impress upon my mind, in life and in death, the sacred Passion of Jesus and thine own sorrows.
Amen.
Labels: Our Blessed Lady
Friday, September 03, 2010
Friday At the Foot Of the Cross
Prayer by Saint Alphonsus de Liguori:
Lord! enlighten me, that I may feel the injustice which I have done Thee, and the eternal chastisements I have deserved, by offending Thee. My God! I feel a great remorse for having offended Thee; but this pain consoles me. Hadst Thou sent me to hell, as I deserved, the thought of the trifle for which I was damned should be the hell of my hell. But now this remorse, I say, consoles me; because it encourages me to hope for pardon from Thee, who hast promised to pardon all who repent. Yes, my Lord! I repent of having outraged Thee. I embrace this sweet pain of remorse. I even entreat Thee to increase it, and to preserve it in my heart till death, that I may always weep bitterly over the offences I have offered to Thee. My Jesus! pardon me. O my Redeemer! who, to procure mercy for me, hadst not mercy on Thyself, but condemnedst Thyself to die through pain in order to deliver me from hell, have mercy on me. Grant that my remorse for having offended Thee may keep me always sorrowful, and, at the same time, inflame my whole soul with love for Thee, who hast loved me so tenderly, who hast borne with me so patiently, and who now, instead of chastising me, enrichest me with Thy lights and graces. I thank Thee, O my Jesus! and I love Thee. I love Thee more than myself. I love Thee with my whole heart. Thou knowest not how to despise a soul that loves Thee. I love Thee. Do not banish me from Thy face. Receive me, then, into Thy friendship, and do not permit me ever more to lose Thee. Mary, my Mother! accept me for thy servant, and bind me to Jesus, thy Son. Ask him to pardon me, to give me his love and the grace of perseverance till death.
Amen.
Labels: Friday At the Foot Of the Cross
Saint Pope Pius X
September 3rd is his feast in the Ordo in use before 1970. He was canonized in 1954 by Servant of God Pope Pius XII.
In the 1970 Ordo, this is the feast of Saint Pope Gregory the Great. September 3rd is the date of the beginning of his pontificate. His feast is March 12th (the date of his death) in the traditional Ordo. The move was made because March 12th always falls in Lent, and there are no obligatory memorials during that season.
Labels: Our Saintly Brethern
Thursday, September 02, 2010
Saint Stephen Of Hungary
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Mi-Week Mix
This week features Irish anti-recruiting songs. Next week we give equal time to the gallantry of the Irish soldier.
Tommy Makem, Mrs. McGrath
Planxty, Arthur McBride
Bobby Lynch and The Dubliners, The Kerry Recruit
Bobby Clancy, The Recruiting Serjeant
The Wolfe Tones, Serjeant William Bailey
The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye
The Wolfe Tones, The Connaught Rangers
Luke Kelly and The Dubliners, Come and Join The British Army
Bonus Track:
Ronnie Drew and the Dubliners, Johnny McGory
Can't leave out a song with lyrics like this:
Up the Gloucester Diamond
Red Biddy on your mind
Not a tosser in your pocket
Not a soul you could remind
The Lord knows you're a darling
You never did give in
Your neck's as hard as concrete
And your laugh's a mortal sin
Tommy Makem, Mrs. McGrath
Planxty, Arthur McBride
Bobby Lynch and The Dubliners, The Kerry Recruit
Bobby Clancy, The Recruiting Serjeant
The Wolfe Tones, Serjeant William Bailey
The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye
The Wolfe Tones, The Connaught Rangers
Luke Kelly and The Dubliners, Come and Join The British Army
Bonus Track:
Ronnie Drew and the Dubliners, Johnny McGory
Can't leave out a song with lyrics like this:
Up the Gloucester Diamond
Red Biddy on your mind
Not a tosser in your pocket
Not a soul you could remind
The Lord knows you're a darling
You never did give in
Your neck's as hard as concrete
And your laugh's a mortal sin
Labels: Pleasing Tunes
Saint Giles
From The Catholic Encyclopedia:
An Abbot, said to have been born of illustrious Athenian parentage about the middle of the seventh century. Early in life he devoted himself exclusively to spiritual things, but, finding his noble birth and high repute for sanctity in his native land an obstacle to his perfection, he passed over to Gaul, where he established himself first in a wilderness near the mouth of the Rhone and later by the River Gard. But here again the fame of his sanctity drew multitudes to him, so he withdrew to a dense forest near Nîmes, where in the greatest solitude he spent many years, his sole companion being a hind. This last retreat was finally discovered by the king's hunters, who had pursued the hind to its place of refuge. The king [who according to the legend was Wamba (or Flavius?), King of the Visigoths, but who must have been a Frank, since the Franks had expelled the Visigoths from the neighbourhood of Nîmes almost a century and a half earlier] conceived a high esteem for solitary, and would have heaped every honour upon him; but the humility of the saint was proof against all temptations. He consented, however, to receive thenceforth some disciples, and built a monastery in his valley, which he placed under the rule of St. Benedict. Here he died in the early part of the eighth century, with the highest repute for sanctity and miracles.
His cult spread rapidly far and wide throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, as is witnessed by the numberless churches and monasteries dedicated to him in France, Germany, Poland, Hungary, and the British Isles; by the numerous manuscripts in prose and verse commemorating his virtues and miracles; and especially by the vast concourse of pilgrims who from all Europe flocked to his shrine. In 1562 the relics of the saint were secretly transferred to Toulouse to save them from the hideous excesses of the Huguenots who were then ravaging France, and the pilgrimage in consequence declined. With the restoration of a great part of the relics to the church of St. Giles in 1862, and the discovery of his former tomb there in 1865, the pilgrimages have recommenced. Besides the city of St-Gilles, which sprang up around the abbey, nineteen other cities bear his name, St-Gilles, Toulouse, and a multitude of French cities, Antwerp, Bridges, and Tournai in Belgium, Cologne and Bamberg, in Germany, Prague and Gran in Austria-Hungary, Rome and Bologna in Italy, possess celebrated relics of St. Giles. In medieval art he is a frequent subject, being always depicted with his symbol, the hind. His feast is kept on 1 September. On this day there are also commemorated another St. Giles, an Italian hermit of the tenth century (Acta SS., XLI, 305), and a Blessed Giles, d. about 1203, a Cistercian abbot of Castaneda in the Diocese of Astorga, Spain (op. cit. XLI, 308).
Labels: Our Saintly Brethern
September 2010
Apples ready for picking at Brooksby Farm, Peabody, MA
The month of September is dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows, the feast being on September 15th.
Important feasts celebrated during September include:
1. St. Giles
2. St. Stephen King of Hungary
3. St. Pope Pius X
5. Bl. Mother Theresa of Calcutta
8. Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
9. St. Peter Claver (USA)
12. Most Holy Name of Mary
13. St. John Chrysostom
14. Exaltation of the True Cross
15. Our Lady of Sorrows
16. SS. Cornelius and Cyprian
17. St. Robert Bellarmine and Bl. Hildegard von Bingen
19. St. Januarius
21. St. Matthew
22. Martyrs of Valencia
23. St. Pio of Pietrelcina
24. Our Lady of Mercy and Our Lady of Walshingham
26. SS. Cosmas and Damian
27. St. Vincent de Paul
28. St. Wenceslaus
29. Michaelmas
30. St. Jerome
September is entirely in the Season After Pentecost (Ordinary Time for those using the 1970 Ordo).
The First Friday of September is Friday, September 3rd.
The First Saturday of September is Saturday, September 4th.
The Michaelmas Embertide takes place on Wednesday, September 22nd, Friday, September 24th, and Saturday, September 25th.
Monday, September 6th is the secular US holiday of Labor Day.
Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI's published prayer intentions for the month of September, 2010 are:
General:
That in less developed parts of the world the proclamation of the Word of God may renew people’s hearts, encouraging them to work actively toward authentic social progress.
Missionary:
That by opening our hearts to love we may put an end to the numerous wars and conflicts which continue to bloody our world.
Labels: First Of the Month Almanac
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Saint Raymond Nonnatus
He was "not born," in that he was delivered essentially by Caesarian Section.
Saint Raymond Nonnatus, please pray for us!
Labels: Our Saintly Brethern
Monday, August 30, 2010
Saint Rose Of Lima
Sunday, August 29, 2010
The Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost
From The Liturgical Year, by Abbot Prosper Gueranger, OSB:
In the western Church this Sunday is called that of the two masters, because of the Gospel which is read upon it.
The Greeks give it the name of the Sunday of the invited to the marriage-feast, or, the
fourteenth of St. Matthew, unless the feast of the Exaltation of the holy Cross (September 14) happen to fall during the ensuing week. In this latter case this and the following Sunday are called ‘of the Exaltation,’ and take for their Gospels the first from St. John, the second from St. Mark. After this, follow the Sundays called ‘of St. Luke,’ which go on till Lent, in the manner already described for St. Matthew.
MASS
Behold, O God, our protector! and look on the face of thy Christ! Thus begins the Church, as she advances towards the altar, whereon the holy sacrifice is going to be offered up. The Church is the bride of the Man-God; she is, as the apostle says, His glory; but the Spouse, according to the same St. Paul, is both the image and the glory of God, and the head of His bride.3 In all truth, then, and with full confidence that she will be graciously heard, the Church, in presenting her petitions to the Most High, begs of Him look on the face of His Christ, who is also hers.
GOSPEL
The supernatural life can never be healthy in men’s souls, unless it triumph over the three enemies, which St. John calls concupiscence of the flesh, concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life. As to the first of these, our Epistle has been instructing us upon the obstacle it raises against the action of the holy Spirit, and on the means we are to adopt for surmounting it. Pride of life is overcome by humility, on which the Church has several times spoken to us during the previous Sundays. The Gospel which has just been read to us is the condemnation of the concupiscence of the eyes--that is, attachment to the goods of this world which, of themselves, are goods but in name and appearance.
No man, says our Lord, can serve two masters; and these two masters are, God and mammon. Mammon means riches. Riches are not, of their own nature, bad. When lawfully acquired, and used agreeably to the designs of God, riches help the possessor to gain true goods for his soul; he stores up for himself, in the kingdom of his eternal home, treasures, which neither thieves nor rust can reach, Ever since the Incarnation, wherein the divine Word espoused poverty to Himself, it is the poor that are heaven’s nobility.
And yet, the mission of the rich man is a grand one: he is permitted to be rich in order that he may be God’s minister to make all the several portions of material creation turn to their Creator’s glory. God graciously vouchsafes to entrust into his hands the feeding and supporting of the dearest of His children, that is, the poor, the indigent and suffering members of His Christ. He calls him to uphold the interests of His Church, and be the promoter of works connected with the salvation of men. He confides to him the keeping up of the beauty of His temples.
Happy that man, and worthy of all praise, who thus directly brings back to the glory of their Maker the fruits of the earth, and the precious metals she yields from her bosom!
Let not such a man fear: it is not of him that Jesus speaks those anathemas uttered so frequently by Him against the rich ones of this world. He has but one Master--the Father who is in heaven, whose steward he humbly and gladly acknowledges himself to be. Mammon does not domineer over him; on the contrary, he makes her his servant, and obliges her to minister to his zeal in all good works. The solicitude he takes in spending his wealth in acts of justice and charity, is not that which our Gospel here blames; for, in all such solicitude, he is but following our Lord’s precept, of seeking first the kingdom of God; and the riches which pass through his hands in the furtherance of good works, do not distract his thoughts from that heaven where his heart is, because his true treasure is there.
It is quite otherwise when riches, instead of being regarded as a simple means, become the very end of a man’s existence, and that to such an extent as to make him neglect, yea, and sometimes forget, his last end.‘The ways of every covetous man,’ says the Scripture, ‘destroy the souls of the possessors.’ The apostle explains this by saying that the love of money drives a man into temptation and the snares of the devil, by the countless unprofitable and hurtful desires it excites within him; it drowns men in destruction and perdition, making them even barter away theirfaith. And yet, the more an avaricious man gets, the less he spends. To nurse his treasure, to gaze upon it, to be thinking of it all day and night long, when obliged to go from home--that is what he lives for; and his money becomes at last his idol. Yes, mammon is not merely his master, whose commands are obeyed before all others, but it is his god, before which he sacrifices friends, relatives, country, and himself, for he devotes, and, as it is said in Ecclesiasticus, throws away his whole soul and body to his idol.
Let us not be astonished at our Gospel declaring that God and mammon are irreconcilable enemies; for, who was it but mammon that had our Lord Jesus sacrificed on its hateful altar, for thirty pieces of silver? Of all the devils in hell, is there one whose hideous guilt is deeper than the fallen angel who prompted Judas to sell the Son of God to His executioners? It is the avaricious who alone can boast of deicide! The vile love of money, which the postledefines as the root of all evils, can lay claim to having produced the greatest crime that was ever perpetrated!
In the western Church this Sunday is called that of the two masters, because of the Gospel which is read upon it.
The Greeks give it the name of the Sunday of the invited to the marriage-feast, or, the
fourteenth of St. Matthew, unless the feast of the Exaltation of the holy Cross (September 14) happen to fall during the ensuing week. In this latter case this and the following Sunday are called ‘of the Exaltation,’ and take for their Gospels the first from St. John, the second from St. Mark. After this, follow the Sundays called ‘of St. Luke,’ which go on till Lent, in the manner already described for St. Matthew.
MASS
Behold, O God, our protector! and look on the face of thy Christ! Thus begins the Church, as she advances towards the altar, whereon the holy sacrifice is going to be offered up. The Church is the bride of the Man-God; she is, as the apostle says, His glory; but the Spouse, according to the same St. Paul, is both the image and the glory of God, and the head of His bride.3 In all truth, then, and with full confidence that she will be graciously heard, the Church, in presenting her petitions to the Most High, begs of Him look on the face of His Christ, who is also hers.
GOSPEL
The supernatural life can never be healthy in men’s souls, unless it triumph over the three enemies, which St. John calls concupiscence of the flesh, concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life. As to the first of these, our Epistle has been instructing us upon the obstacle it raises against the action of the holy Spirit, and on the means we are to adopt for surmounting it. Pride of life is overcome by humility, on which the Church has several times spoken to us during the previous Sundays. The Gospel which has just been read to us is the condemnation of the concupiscence of the eyes--that is, attachment to the goods of this world which, of themselves, are goods but in name and appearance.
No man, says our Lord, can serve two masters; and these two masters are, God and mammon. Mammon means riches. Riches are not, of their own nature, bad. When lawfully acquired, and used agreeably to the designs of God, riches help the possessor to gain true goods for his soul; he stores up for himself, in the kingdom of his eternal home, treasures, which neither thieves nor rust can reach, Ever since the Incarnation, wherein the divine Word espoused poverty to Himself, it is the poor that are heaven’s nobility.
And yet, the mission of the rich man is a grand one: he is permitted to be rich in order that he may be God’s minister to make all the several portions of material creation turn to their Creator’s glory. God graciously vouchsafes to entrust into his hands the feeding and supporting of the dearest of His children, that is, the poor, the indigent and suffering members of His Christ. He calls him to uphold the interests of His Church, and be the promoter of works connected with the salvation of men. He confides to him the keeping up of the beauty of His temples.
Happy that man, and worthy of all praise, who thus directly brings back to the glory of their Maker the fruits of the earth, and the precious metals she yields from her bosom!
Let not such a man fear: it is not of him that Jesus speaks those anathemas uttered so frequently by Him against the rich ones of this world. He has but one Master--the Father who is in heaven, whose steward he humbly and gladly acknowledges himself to be. Mammon does not domineer over him; on the contrary, he makes her his servant, and obliges her to minister to his zeal in all good works. The solicitude he takes in spending his wealth in acts of justice and charity, is not that which our Gospel here blames; for, in all such solicitude, he is but following our Lord’s precept, of seeking first the kingdom of God; and the riches which pass through his hands in the furtherance of good works, do not distract his thoughts from that heaven where his heart is, because his true treasure is there.
It is quite otherwise when riches, instead of being regarded as a simple means, become the very end of a man’s existence, and that to such an extent as to make him neglect, yea, and sometimes forget, his last end.‘The ways of every covetous man,’ says the Scripture, ‘destroy the souls of the possessors.’ The apostle explains this by saying that the love of money drives a man into temptation and the snares of the devil, by the countless unprofitable and hurtful desires it excites within him; it drowns men in destruction and perdition, making them even barter away theirfaith. And yet, the more an avaricious man gets, the less he spends. To nurse his treasure, to gaze upon it, to be thinking of it all day and night long, when obliged to go from home--that is what he lives for; and his money becomes at last his idol. Yes, mammon is not merely his master, whose commands are obeyed before all others, but it is his god, before which he sacrifices friends, relatives, country, and himself, for he devotes, and, as it is said in Ecclesiasticus, throws away his whole soul and body to his idol.
Let us not be astonished at our Gospel declaring that God and mammon are irreconcilable enemies; for, who was it but mammon that had our Lord Jesus sacrificed on its hateful altar, for thirty pieces of silver? Of all the devils in hell, is there one whose hideous guilt is deeper than the fallen angel who prompted Judas to sell the Son of God to His executioners? It is the avaricious who alone can boast of deicide! The vile love of money, which the postledefines as the root of all evils, can lay claim to having produced the greatest crime that was ever perpetrated!
Labels: The Liturgical Year
If Today Were Not A Sunday...
...It would be liturgically observed as the Beheading Of Saint John the Baptist.
"I must decrease, as He must increase."
Caravaggio's 1609 Salome with the Head of John the Baptist
Benozzo Gozolli, c. 1461-62
"I must decrease, as He must increase."
Caravaggio's 1609 Salome with the Head of John the Baptist
Benozzo Gozolli, c. 1461-62
Labels: Our Saintly Brethern
