Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke ordained 6 deacons to the Holy Priesthood this morning here in Florence. Of your charity, please keep ....... Canon Scott SMITH Canon Bertrand SIGROS Canon Jean-Guillaume de LA CROCHAIS Canon Jonathon FEHRENBACHER Canon Christian MAHLBERG Canon Benoît BELIGNÉ ......... in your prayers. There would have been photographs of today's ordinations. However, someone acquired my camera either honestly thinking it was abandoned or perhaps otherwise. The memory card with all the photos has gone with it! Perhaps say a prayer for the finder. UPDATE: I have obtained two photographs from priestly ordination day (credit: P Russell to whom I am thankful). Photo 1 shows the newly ordained priests immediately after their ordination on the steps of Chiesa dei Santi Michele e Gaetano Florence. Photo 2 shows Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury processing from the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception at the ICKSP seminary at Gricigliano after the singing of a Te Deum in thanks giving for the new priests. Cardinal Burke can just be seen in the right of the photograph. Today was the third day of the ICKSP Ordinations in Italy.
Archbishop Guido Pozzo, Secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei and Titular Archbishop of Bagnoregio conferred the order of sub deacon and deacon upon future priests of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest at the church of Santi Michele e Gaetano in central Florence. Bishop Davies of Shrewsbury sat in choir. The newly ordained sub deacons are: Abbé Ryan POST Abbé Edward TURNER Abbé Miguel Angel CAÑADAS Abbé Jorge VELA MARTÍN Abbé Ross BOURGEOIS and the those ordained Deacon were: Deacon Peter HEIDENREICH Deacon Fernando FERNANDES DE ALMEIDA Deacon Luke ZIGNEGO Deacon Matthew WEAVER Deacon Baudouin CHAPTAL de CHANTELOUP Deacon Pablo PIAGGIO KOKOT Deacon Paul d’AUBIGNY Deacon Joseph HEPPELLE Please do pray for all these young men. Today in Florence, day two of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest ceremonies of ordination week took place.
For those in England and Wales, the bishop conferring the tonsure and minor orders needs no introduction. The good Bishop of Shrewsbury, the Rt. Rev Mark Davies presided and so for traditionalism in here yet another milestone was reached in 2017! Bishop Davies was assisted by Canon Poucin de Wouilt (sub deacon) and Canon Monjean as deacon. Canon Paul Antoine Lefèvre was assistant priest. I am out in Tuscany at the moment for the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest ceremonies and liturgies of ordination. Tomorrow, the minor orders and tonsures will take place and the Bishop of Shrewsbury, the Rt. Rev Mark Davies will preside.
Today, seminarians at the end of their first year received the cassock. Mgr. Gilles Wach, Prior General of the ICKSP after having blessed the cassocks later went on to celebrate a High Mass. UK men, Liam Dodd, Stuart Campbell & Michael McCowen are henceforth known as Abbé Dodd, Abbé Campbell and Abbé McCowen. They are amongst 12 future priests - thanks be to God! More photos can be viewed here. On Sunday last, the LMS annual pilgrimage to Holywell took place and pilgrims from most parts of England and Wales were represented in good number.
Father James Mawdsley FSSP, Assistant Priest at St Mary's, Warrington was celebrant. He was assisted by Father Simon Henry as deacon and Father Sean Riley as sub deacon. MC was Mr. Phillip Russell and music was provided by the choir of St Mary's, Warrington. A full report will appear in the next Mass of Ages, but in the meantime, some splendid photography by John Aron. Improbable as it is for snow to fall during August, history tells of a snowfall that seemed more impossible, namely in Rome, Italy. August 5, 352, snow fell during the night in Rome.
There lived in the Eternal City a nobleman, John and his childless wife, who had been blessed with much of this world’s goods. They chose the Mother of God as the heir to their fortune, and at the suggestion of Pope Liberius, prayed that she might make known to them how to do this by a particular sign. In answer, the Virgin Mother during the night of August 5, appeared to John and his wife and also to the Holy Father, Pope Liberius, directing them to build a church in her honour on the crown of the Esquiline Hill. And what would be the sign that John and his wife had requested? “Snow will cover the crest of the hill.” Snow rarely falls in Rome, but the flakes fell silently during that night, blanketing the peak of the historic hill. In the morning the news quickly spread and crowds gathered to throng up the hill and behold the white splendour. The snow had fallen in a particular pattern, showing the outline of the future church. When it became known that the snow was a sign from Mary, the people spontaneously added another to her long list of titles, Our Lady of the Snows. Two ideas dominate the liturgy of today’s Mass: great confidence in God and an acute awareness of human misery and insufficiency. These two ideas are closely connected, for it is the consciousness of our nothingness which leads us to put all our confidence in God, and the greater this confidence becomes in us, the more convinced we are of our nothingness.
The Mass begins with a cry of unshakable hope “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” The Lord is with me in the Blessed Sacrament of the altar, the Lord comes to me in Holy Communion. What can separate me from Him? What can make me fear? Yet I know my weakness; I have ever before my eyes the remembrance of my failures and infidelities. How great, then, is my need to humbly repeat the beautiful prayer of the Gradual: “Save us, O Lord, and pardon our sins... Help us, O God, our Saviour, for the glory of Your Name.” Yes, in spite of the continual help of divine grace, in spite of so many confessions and communions, I have to acknowledge new failures every day; daily, I must begin anew. The struggle is arduous and painful, but in today’s Epistle, St. Paul reminds us that “the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come that shall be revealed in us.” This thought is one of consolation, hope and confidence; it does not, however, prevent us from longing for freedom and complete redemption. This is what the Apostle experienced when he said: “We also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of the sons of God, the redemption of our body in Christ Jesus.” The more we suffer because of our wretchedness, the more we should run to Jesus, with full confidence in the power of His Redemption. Today’s Gospel is a practical demonstration of the words of Jesus: “Without Me, you can do nothing.” Simon and his companions had been fishing all night and had caught nothing; that is all they had been able to do by themselves. If we have had some little experience in the spiritual life, we will recognise that this is often our situation too. How many efforts we have made to rid ourself of this or that attachment, to forget injuries, to adapt ourself to our neighbour’s way of doing things, to subject our will to another’s! And yet, after all these attempts, we find our hands empty, like Peter’s nets. Let us not be discouraged; if we can humbly acknowledge our failure instead of feeling annoyance because of it, the failure itself will turn into victory. So it happened to Peter after he had admitted publicly that he had “taken nothing.” St. Therese of the Child Jesus comments: “Had the Apostle caught some small fish, perhaps our divine Master would not have worked a miracle; but he had caught nothing, and so through the power and goodness of God his nets were soon filled with great fishes. Such is Our Lord’s way. He gives as God, with divine generosity, but He insists on humility of heart.” In spite of our good will to advance in virtue, our Lord will not permit us to have any success until He sees that we are thoroughly convinced of our own weakness and inability; to give us this conviction, He lets us, as He let Peter, “work all night without catching anything.” But afterwards, as He sees our growing awareness of our poverty and our willingness to admit it openly, He will come to our aid. We must, then, have great faith in Him, never allowing ourselves to give up through lack of success. Every day, relying “on His word,” we must begin anew. If we have learned not to trust in our own strength, we must also learn to have complete confidence in the divine aid. If we have caught nothing until now, perhaps it is our lack of unshakable confidence that is the cause, and this deficiency, besides being displeasing to Jesus, paralyzes our spiritual life. Then let us repeat with Peter in a similar cry of confidence: “in verbo tuo laxabo rete,” Lord, at Thy word, I will let down the net. And let us repeat it every day, every moment, without ever growing weary. (Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, Divine Intimacy) |
Oremus pro Pontifice nostro Francisco: Dominus conservet eum, et vivificet eum, et beatum faciat eum in terra, et non tradat eum in animam inimicorum eius.
Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui facis mirabilia magna solus: praetende super famulos tuos, et super congregationes illis commissas, spiritum gratiae salutaris; et, ut in veritate tibi complaceant, perpetuum eis rorem tuae benedictionis infunde.
Any views expressed neither represent those of the Latin Mass Society or the Diocese of Wrexham.
Archives
August 2022
|