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This Sunday's Mass introduces the theme of Petition. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week are known as Rogation, or Petition Days, asking Christ's blessing upon Springtime planting, in the fields and in our souls, before He ascends into Heaven that he might become our advocate with the Father.
In the Gospel Jesus shows the necessity of prayer, how we should pray "in His Name," yet as we pray we should ask only for those things that keep us on the Christian road where Jesus points to His and our sign post, "I go to the Father." The Epistle warns us against the dangerous detour of false prayer since man's religion is vain unless he be a "doer" and not a "hearer" only. "Religion clean and undefiled" is the interior life of keeping "unspotted" and the social life of the spiritual and corporal works of mercy to all "in their tribulation." The 22nd May is the Feast Day of St. Rita of Cascia, one of the holiest Saints of the Augustinian Order. In the Augustinian Missale a proper Mass of the Saint is found with Augustinian blessing of the Roses in honour of St. Rita. The roses are an important sacramental and when sick, a person might drop a rose petal into tea and consume it, with faith that the Saint can intercede. It is well known that St. Rita was an Augustinian Sister for 40 years, having entered the convent at Cascia upon the death of her husband. Devoted to the sufferings of Our Lord, St. Rita asked to share in His Sufferings and received a wound, similar to the Crown of Thorns, on her head, painful and bloody for the last 15 years of her life. St. Rita is known as the Patron Saint of desperate Causes and families having problems ask for her intercession. The last 5 years of her life, St. Rita was largely bedridden and subsisted almost entirely only on the Holy Eucharist. Her monastery of St. Mary Magdalene at Cascia is a highly attended tourist attraction with waves of pilgrims daily visiting the convent and the church, where her body lies in a glass sarcophagus, immaculate and beautifully preserved. The wound on her forehead disappeared upon her death. Pray today especially to St. Rita to help our families, help our country, to find a way when there seems to be no way. Although not commemorated in the Mass on Sunday, using the 1960 rubrics, pray to the Saint to help us in our time of need. In this Mass is set forth the theme of "justice," interior and social. Notice its frequent mention in the principal parts. For the realisation of this "justice" (Gospel), Jesus tells us it is necessary for the Divine Spirit to enter into human affairs against "the prince of this world" to "convince it of justice." Hence, the Introit bids us sing a "new" canticle for God "hath revealed His 'justice'."
The Prayer evidently referring to social justice, makes us realize that only God can "make all of one will." The Epistle and Offertory extol the gifts of interior justice that come from the Father. One verse of the Gospel intimates how grieved was Jesus when none asked Him, "Whither goest Thou?" The world cares not, but it is essential that he go and ask the Spirit to come for the sake of "justice." Otherwise, we shall be left to the fate of our own injustice. The 15th May is Feast of St. John Baptist de La Salle C., founder of the Christian Brothers, dedicated to education of poor children. Although not commemorated in the Mass today using the 1960 rubrics, pray for a revival of true Catholic education. The Introit realises the cause of this joy because Jesus has completed the plan of redeeming us if we cooperate by words of praise (Offertory) and "works" of truth, before friends and "enemies" alike, for whom we pray (Prayer) as Christians bearing the very Name of Christ.
The Alleluia describes the joy of redemption as a plan of "cross before crown," a mystery indeed, had not Jesus lived it out for us. In the Gospel Jesus explains how an unbelieving world persecutes because it regards Him as dead and gone; yet our conquering joy which no man can take away, comes from our vision of Him through the wide-open eyes of faith; although (Communion) Jesus also predicts that our joy can never be perfect here, especially during persecution, since the cross of His apparent absence is the prelude to the glory of His eternal Presence. The Epistle alludes to the first Gentile and Jewish persecutors with their usual weapons of violence and calumny, yet shows how "you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men." "Going to the Father" each day (Communion) in morning and evening prayer, "desiring things" of God (Secret) in our daily actions, receiving Sacraments (Post-Communion) are the guarantee of true joy now and forever. Christianity is a religion of joy! Today marks the former Feast of the Apparition of St. Michael the Archangel who appeared in 492 at Monte Gargano and asked that a church be raised at this location in his honour to the memory of both himself and all the angels. Pope St. Gregory the Great reflected that the angels rejoice in the Resurrection during the Easter Season for Heaven was open to us making up for the losses in the angelic ranks. These days, with so much evil in the world, it seems a good time to ask for the intercession of St. Michael to turn evil back into hell where it belongs! The First Class Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, Spouse of the BVM is a wonderful opportunity to help turn back the forces of evil throughout the world as communism was turned back in Italy due to the intercession of St. Joseph.
The second Sunday After Easter is commemorated in the Mass. When Pope Pius XII established the Feast in 1955, it appeared Italy, perhaps all of Europe, would turn communist. After establishment of the Feast Day, the threat just faded away. People could identify with St. Joseph as representing the working person rather than the communists. At one time on the third Sunday After Easter the Feast of the Patronage of St. Joseph was celebrated. St. Joseph was head of the Holy Family. Holy Scripture gives us reason to suppose Jesus and Mary obeyed him strictly. He is looked upon as protector of those holy Catholic families who desire to invoke him as their guide and follow the laws conforming to the Will of God. St. Joseph took charge of the education of Jesus. He was overjoyed to see Our Lord increase in age and wisdom before God and before mankind. St. Joseph is special protector over children and those whose job it is to educate the young. Teachers should look to St. Joseph to help them con-form to God’s Teachings in their work. “Bring here thy finger, and see My hands; and bring here thy hand, and put it into My side; and be not unbelieving but believing” (Gospel). Be a witness to the Divinity of Jesus Christ! Thus did the ancient Church speak to the newly baptised on this Sunday.
Since their Baptism on Holy Saturday these converts wore white robes. Now in their everyday dress they must go out as witnesses that “Christ is the Truth” (Epistle). God the “Father” bore “witness” to this at Christ’s Baptism by “water.” God the “Word” became our “Blood” witness on the Cross. God the “Spirit” gave witness when by Him Jesus was conceived in the womb of Mary. Yes, this is the triple “testimony of God” which we, too, must witness unto others—that “Jesus is God” (Epistle). To the “doubting Thomases” of all future ages, Jesus gave a new proof of His Divinity in today’s Gospel, “written that you may believe...and that believing you may have life.” Today is Feast of St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen M., a Capuchin Friar Minor, who was sent to Grisons, Switzerland, was killed by Protestant soldiers who feared his Catholic influence might turn persons back to the Catholic Church. Although not commemorated in the Sunday Mass, pray to the Saint for strength to face an evil world.
As at Christmas, the station is made at Saint Mary Major, on this greatest feast of the whole year. The Church never separates Jesus and Mary, and today, in one and the same triumph, she honours the Mother and the Son. Before all else, the Risen Christ offers the homage of His gratitude to His Father in Heaven (Introit). In her turn the Church gives thanks to God inasmuch as by the victory of His Son, He has reopened the way to Heaven, and implores Him to assist us that we may attain this, our final goal (Collect). For this, Saint Paul tells us, just as the Jews eat the Paschal Lamb with unleavened bread, so we must feast on the Lamb of God, with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth (Epistle and Communion), that is free from the leaven of sin. In the Gospel and the Offertory we read of the coming of the holy women to the sepulchre to embalm our Lord. They find an empty tomb but an angel proclaims to them the great mystery of the Resurrection. Let us joyfully keep this day on which our Lord has restored life to us in His own rising from the dead (Easter Preface), and affirm with the Church that "the Lord is risen indeed", and like Him, make our Easter a passing to an entirely new way of life. (Psalm 138, from the Introit of Mass)
Source: Dom Gaspar Lefebvre, OSB, 1945, adapted and abridged. This evening, in faith, we have accompanied Jesus as he takes the final steps of his earthly journey, the most painful steps, the steps that lead to Calvary. We have heard the cries of the crowd, the words of condemnation, the insults of the soldiers, the lamentation of the Virgin Mary and of the women. Now we are immersed in the silence of this night, in the silence of the cross, the silence of death. It is a silence pregnant with the burden of pain borne by a man rejected, oppressed, downtrodden, the burden of sin which mars his face, the burden of evil. Tonight we have re-lived, deep within our hearts, the drama of Jesus, weighed down by pain, by evil, by human sin.
What remains now before our eyes? It is a crucified man, a cross raised on Golgotha, a cross which seems a sign of the final defeat of the One who brought light to those immersed in darkness, the One who spoke of the power of forgiveness and of mercy, the One who asked us to believe in God’s infinite love for each human person. Despised and rejected by men, there stands before us “a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity, one from whom others hide their faces” (Is 53:3). But let us look more closely at that man crucified between earth and heaven. Let us contemplate him more intently, and we will realize that the cross is not the banner of the victory of death, sin and evil, but rather the luminous sign of love, of God’s immense love, of something that we could never have asked, imagined or expected: God bent down over us, he lowered himself, even to the darkest corner of our lives, in order to stretch out his hand and draw us to himself, to bring us all the way to himself. The cross speaks to us of the supreme love of God and invites, today, to renew our faith in the power of that love, and to believe that in every situation of our lives, our history and our world, God is able to vanquish death, sin and evil, and to give us new, risen life. In the Son of God’s death on the cross, we find the seed of new hope for life, like the seed which dies within the earth. This night full of silence, full of hope, echoes God’s call to us as found in the words of Saint Augustine: “Have faith! You will come to me and you will taste the good things of my table, even as I did not disdain to taste the evil things of your table... I have promised you my own life. As a pledge of this, I have given you my death, as if to say: Look! I am inviting you to share in my life. It is a life where no one dies, a life which is truly blessed, which offers an incorruptible food, the food which refreshes and never fails. The goal to which I invite you … is friendship with the Father and the Holy Spirit, it is the eternal supper, it is communion with me … It is a share in my own life (cf. Sermo 231, 5). Let us gaze on the crucified Jesus, and let us ask in prayer: Enlighten our hearts, Lord, that we may follow you along the way of the cross. Put to death in us the “old man” bound by selfishness, evil and sin. Make us “new men”, men and women of holiness, transformed and enlivened by your love. Homily given at the Colosseum, 2011. At Jerusalem, in the fourth century, on the very spot where the Palm procession took place, the Gospel narrative was read in which we see Christ, hailed as King of Israel and taking possession of His capital, Jerusalem, which is really no more than the type of Jerusalem above. After this, a bishop, mounted on an ass, rode up to the Church of the Resurrection surrounded by a multitude carrying palms and singing anthems and hymns.
The Church of Rome, it would seem, adopted this practice about the ninth century and added to it the rite for the Blessing of the Palms. In this benediction the Church prays for health of mind and body for those who dwell in houses where the palms are preserved. This procession is composed of the faithful, who with palm in hand and songs of Hosanna on their lips, proclaim Christ's Kingship every year, throughout the whole world and in all generations. At the Easter Feast they will be united to this glorious Victor through the Sacraments. It is this that is represented by the procession when it stops at the door of the Church, into which some members of the choir have already found their way. They chant alternately with the clergy, hailing the King of Glory each in his turn. Soon the door opens after the cross has knocked on it three times and the procession enters the church; so does the Cross of Christ open heaven to us and so will the elect one day enter with their Lord into eternal glory. We should keep a blessed palm carefully in our home. It is a sacramental which will obtain for us graces in virtue of the Church's prayer and strengthen our faith in Christ, who full of mercy, symbolised by the olive branch whose oil soothes our wounds, has conquered sin, death and the devil in a victory of which these sacred palms are the type. Source: Dom Gaspar Lefebvre, OSB, 1945, adapted and abridged. The Crucifix over the main altar is veiled today. Think it over in amazement! Jesus is obliged to hide Himself when “humanity” ‘stones” ‘Divinity” (Gospel).
The Jewish synagogue makes its final decision to ignore the miracles, the doctrine and the sinless of Christ, even though all these were prophesied in their own Old Testament. Due to stiff-necked pride and hard-hearted materialism, their part of the covenant had become a dead letter. Jesus makes a terrifying analysis of them: “You are not of God.” In the Epistle St. Paul indicates how the High Priest of the Old Testament offered the blood sacrifices of victim goats, an offering which acknowledged that man deserves to be done away with for trying to do away with God by sinful rebellion. He now beholds the Altar of Calvary where Jesus, Eternal High Priest, sheds His Precious Blood to “cleanse our conscience” and “to serve the Living God.” Let us not “stone” Christ or cause Him to hide Himself. The Church begins today on Passion Sunday the most penitential time of the year. During these final two weeks leading up to the holy festival of Easter, we are reminded of the penance of the season by the covering of the statues and images in our churches and in our homes. Additionally, in the Traditional Mass we will notice the further omission of several prayers at the beginning of Mass during the Prayers at the foot of the altar in addition to the Glory Be (known in Latin as the Gloria Patri). The Gloria Patri is omitted in the Mass and in parts of the Divine Office. Concerning the Divine Office, it is suppressed during the responsories in the Office though kept for most of Passiontide at the end of the Psalms. However, starting with Matins of Holy Thursday said on the night of Spy Wednesday it disappears completely. The day draws close at hand when the whole Church will mourn the Lord's Passion and Death. Jesus then took the loaves and...distributed them to those reclining...as much as they wished” (Gospel). We all “wish” to be fed with joy, now and forever. The discipline of Lent may sadden our poor frail nature, and so the Church analyses the causes of true joy on this “Rejoice” or Laetare Sunday (Introit).
The first cause of genuine “joy” is a sincere Easter Confession. It emancipates us from the slavery of sin. We now enjoy the “freedom” of Christ’s Gospel of love because we have been freed from the “bondage” of that fear which prevailed in the days before Christ (Epistle). The second source of genuine “joy” is a fruitful Easter Communion for which preparation and thanksgiving have been made. The soul’s instinctive hunger is satisfied by this personal communing with God. The Host and Chalice of the Blessed Sacrament are open to all men regardless of race or nationality. Humanity fed with Divinity is joyously united in a real social and mystical union. Men will then ideally work for one another in “a city which is compact together” (Communion Verse). Rose Vestments How did the custom of rose coloured vestments become established in the Church? It goes back to the IV Century when the Roman Empress, wife of Constantine the Great, St. Helena, presented roses of pure gold to the heads of allied countries and important persons which were especially blessed by the Pope on this day. This became known as the Sunday of the Roses. The custom arose of wearing rose coloured vestments and was extended to the whole Church although the custom of giving golden roses died out. Today Our Lord exposes the devils and their evil ways. The Jews have questioned His veracity and suggest that He is casting out devils by the power of devils and not the power of God.
After Jesus exposes just how ridiculous a claim that is, He teaches something of the ways of the devils. The Jews when they were in Egypt participated in many of the pagan Egyptian practices. They were brought out from this and had this devil driven out from them by sacrificing a lamb and sprinkling its blood (symbolic of Christ’s sacrifice). The Jews were then given the Law to follow so that they would be preserved from falling into this same misfortune again. While they were pretending to follow the letter of the law, they allowed the spirit of the law to be neglected. The one devil that was cast out of them then returned with seven others worse than him. There are now eight (a number of fullness or completeness) so that they are worse off now than they were before. So now these poor souls that are completely possessed make bold to accuse Christ (God Himself) of using the power of the devils. Their blasphemy could not get any worse. These devils promote such a hatred for God that we see them constantly plotting of how to destroy Jesus. In their plotting they do manage to coerce the Roman authority to crucify Jesus but they boldly take all the responsibility upon themselves – “His blood be upon us and our children.” What a frightening curse they have called upon themselves and their children! This could only be done by those who are truly and completely possessed by evil spirits. This hatred for Christ could only come from Hell. This curse could only have come from Hell. It is not a plea for the mercy of God, but is rather a mockery and ridicule of God. They consider Christ to be of no account and therefore they consider His murder of no account and with great boldness think nothing of taking full responsibility for it. The fullness of demonic possession is what has led them to do this and continues to this day to fill them with such hatred for the Catholic Church (The Mystical Body of Christ). They have set out in many different fields their attacks upon Christ and His Church. We find them influencing many heresies and sects; supporting directly or indirectly false religions that are in opposition to the One True Church. We find them wielding great influence in: the economy, politics, education, and even the entertainment industry. In countless ways Christ, His Church, and God’s Laws and morality are everywhere ridiculed, derided, and insulted, both directly and indirectly. This is not the work of mere mortals, but is rather the work of mere mortals possessed to the fullest by evil spirits. We are reminded once again that our fight is not with flesh and blood, but with powers and principalities (fallen angels). While this power and influence may be within human beings it is not from them but from Hell. The same misfortune awaits each of us individually if we allow ourselves to fall into the same trap as the Jewish people fell into. We have had one demon chased out of us when we were baptized. If we let down our guard, or fill ourselves with a foolish pride and vanity thinking that we are safe because we have been baptised, we are open for many more devils to enter into us. Our only safeguard is in humble obedience to God. We must love God more than anything else in this world. The measure of our love of God is in our obedience in keeping His Word. We need to strive every day to love God more and more, and to manifest this increasing love with increasing humility and service to Him. In this way the Holy Ghost will come and dwell within us in an ever-increasing manner. We are temples of the Holy Ghost and our goal is to reach the fullness of this love and dwelling in God. This was God’s plan for us from the beginning of time. The devils seek possession of souls in a poor imitation of the union of God with His creatures that love Him. Let us flee from the evil spirits and run to God. Last Sunday the liturgy led us into a low desert where we beheld Jesus in His Human Nature.
Today, we are led up to a high mountain where we are allowed to catch a faint glimpse of Jesus in His Divine Nature (Gospel). By this vision of Divinity on Thabor, Jesus wished to prepare the Apostles and us for the daily crucifixion of our humanity on the Calvary of Life. This lesson is our incentive against discouragement or failure. The Epistle indicates that the Christian life is not so much a series of commandments. Rather, it is a walking in the presence of God. “Your sanctification” is interior, “possessing the vessel” of your soul and body free from pride and lust. It is social too to the extent of helping one’s neighbour, for “The Lord is the avenger” of deception among men. With the holy season of Lent, which we commenced last Wednesday, it is the same as with the harvest time; laborers who are indolent find no pleasure in it, because it requires a great deal of exertion in the surmounting of many difficulties. Those on the contrary, who love to labour are glad that harvest time is coming round, for they know that the rich blessings of the harvest are worth a few days’ exertion and trouble. In like manner the holy time of fasting is a sad time for worldly minded people, because all worldly amusements are forbidden and exercises of mortification are prescribed. To he who is penetrated by the true spiritual fervour, the time of Lent is desirable, for he considers it a spiritual harvest, in which he can reap rich food for his soul.
Ukrainian Churches and community organisations have united to work with accredited and registered Ukrainian charities to provide medicines, food and critical services to support the most vulnerable to overcome the consequences and trauma of war. Read more here.
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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.
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