The Holloway Outreach

A personal initiative of feeding the poor and homeless in New Haven has got med thinking what to call the group. A name illustrates charism and demonstrates horizon. It references influence and the serious nature of a work. An ongoing charitable work like feeding people begs for a name. My giving a name to this work done monthly by a least three maybe four groups of people and institutions (to date) shows partnership for a worthy cause. The Holloway Outreach is a group of people of concerned with feeding the poor and homeless in our area. Our focus is on those who relate to Amistad Catholic Worker (New Haven, CT).

This charitable work is a group of friends, new and old sometimes just acquaintances, who collaborate with groups like Communion and Liberation, the Order of Malta and others who want to join in caring for, that is, feeding New Haven’s poor and homeless connected principally with Amistad Catholic Worker (New Haven). Our charitable work is a monthly adventure. It is funded by these friends of mine. If you want to join the work, let me know. We are inspired by one another’s desire to help others and to be a friend to those in need. The witness we give to one another focuses our attention on the meaningful reality of how people live.

We are inspired by the basic idea of wanting to do good. The human desire to make sure others have food. We are inspired by Matthew 25, Benedictine aspiration of hospitality, the work of Fr. Luigi Giussani and Communion and Liberation and Blessed Gerard and the Order of Malta and countless others like Blessed Andrey Sheptytsky, the Servant of God Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin.

Margaret Holloway was known as “The Shakespeare Lady,” died at 68 in 2020 as a result of COVID-19. She was a woman of great humanity, she had dignity, and lived as best she could. I think we all try to do the best we can to live well.

Holloway was a graduate of Bennington College and Yale’s School of Drama. She was frequently homeless and she lived with mental illness. I would see Margaret on Friday evenings most often on State Street. The Shakespeare Lady was a delight and I am sad she died.

Please join me in praying for the eternal peace of The Shakespeare Lady; I will have a Mass celebrated for her soon. Nevertheless, she’s been on my mind recently and I have wanted to remember her in a meaningful way and I think naming a group of friends who work for the dignity others for Margaret Holloway is fitting. The Holloway Outreach is here to serve the dignity of men and women.

Read more on Margaret Holloway, she’s really inspiring.

Blessed Bartolo Longo slated to be canonized

Great news!

​Yesterday, 24 February, during ​an audience g​iven to ​the Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin and Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, Substitute for General Affairs of the Secretariat of State, the Holy Fathe​r, Pope Francis authorized the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints to promulgate the decree​ that Blessed Bartolo Longo, Knight of the Holy Sepulchre​, will be canonized.

Blessed Bartolo is the first layman and member of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem to be canonized.

He was a lawyer, ex-Satanist, Dominican tertiary, and founder of the Shrine of Our Lady of Pompei.

Blessed Bartolo, pray for us.

913 years of the Order of Malta

Today, February 15, 1113 (yes, 912 years ago): Pope Paschal II issues “Pie Postulatio Voluntatis” (English: The Most Pious Request), recognizing the Order of Hospitallers. (Order of Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem).

The entities generally considered to maintain historical continuity with the Knights are the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, based in Rome, the Bailiwick of Brandenburg of the Chivalric Order of Saint John of the hospital at Jerusalem, Johanniter Orde in Nederland, Order of Saint John in Sweden, and the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem.

May Our Lady, St Joseph, and Blessed Gerard , intercede for us.

Dom Paschal fell asleep in the Lord

Yesterday, January 15, 2025, R. Dom Paschal Scotti was called by the Lord of Life to Himself. Dom Paschal was born in 1962 and died during Vespers. Father Matthew anointed Dom Paschal and prayed the Apostolic Pardon. The funeral rites will be Tuesday, January 21 at the Abbey.

Fr. Paschal and I have been friends for 20+ years and have relied on his friendship and guidance  these many years. When visited the Abbey we always seem to catch up especially around the question, “so what are you reading?”

May Father Paschal’s memory be eternal.

May Our Lady, Queen of Peace and St. Gregory the Great intercede for Reverend Dom Paschal Scotti.

Order of the Holy Sepulchre in CT opens Holy Door in Norwich

Members of the Connecticut Section of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem met earlier today at the Cathedral of St. Patrick, Norwich, CT, to open the Holy Door for the Jubilee year very recently inaugurated by Pope Francis.

The Most Reverend Juan Miguel Betancourt celebrated and preached the Mass.

The witness of the EOHSJ brings alive the fact of the Lord’s Resurrection and one’s new life in the Lord. The jubilee year is meant to convey and to put into practice in the Christian life the reality of the Paschal Mystery: the Life, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of the Lord Jesus.

St Stephen –archdeacon

The Martyrdom of St. Stephen the Archdeacon

This day marks the martyrdom of St. Stephen, the Archdeacon and the first martyr (protomartyr). St. Luke testified about him in the Acts of the Apostles saying, “Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and signs among the people” (Acts 6:8). The Jews envied him and seized him and brought him to the Council. They also set up false witnesses who said, “This man does not cease to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law; for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs which Moses delivered to us” (Acts 6:12-13). And all who sat in the Council, looking steadfastly at him, saw his face as the face of an angel (Acts 6:13).

Then the high priest said, “Are these things so?” St. Stephen answered with convincing words and told them the history from Abraham to Moses. The coming out of Abraham from Haran, the birth and the circumcision of Isaac, Jacob and his sons and their selling of Joseph, and how Joseph revealed himself to his brothers. St. Stephen continued to narrate to them all the events until the building of the temple. He concluded by saying, “You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of Whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers; who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it” (Acts 7:51-53).

When they heard these things they were cut to their hearts, and they gnashed at him with their teeth. But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and said, “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”

Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran toward him with one accord; and they cast him out of the city and stoned him.

They stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, “Lord Jesus receive my Spirit.” Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin.” And when he said this, he fell asleep (Acts 7:51-60). Devout men carried St. Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him.

May his prayers be with us. Amen.

(Coptic Synaxarion)

O Antiphons

Oh, come, oh, come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!

The outline for the entire hymn dates back to a thousand years ago. A week before Christmas, Monks would chant poetic verses to commemorate the arrival of Jesus. In the 1800s John Neal took those chants, turned them into a song and called it “Oh, Come, Oh, Come, Emmanuel.” The significance of the Gregorian chants are their names for Jesus: wisdom, Adonai (Hebrew name for God), root of Jesse, key of David, dayspring, King of the Gentiles, and Emmanuel.

If you take the first letter of these words in Latin, and read them backward, they spell “ero cras,” a Latin phrase meaning, “I will be present tomorrow.”

That’s the point of Christmas. Christmas is a promise that God will be present tomorrow. Belief that God will be present in all of our tomorrows makes today more bearable. We worry about tomorrow. We fret over the unknown. What if you had a choice: you could either know all of your tomorrows or you could have God with you in all of your tomorrows. You couldn’t handle knowing all your tomorrows at once. The weight of the suffering and the anticipation of the joy would overwhelm you. Having God with you through all of them–that enables you to enjoy today and anticipate tomorrow.

For today, thank God that He is the God of tomorrow.

Jesus has a genealogy

Who are you? Where do you come from? Who are your parents? Where did they come from, and who are they related to by blood? These questions are frequently  asked and explored by us. We want to know more than the superficial facts of a person’s life.

Today in the Byzantine Church we hear the gospel addressing Jesus’ family tree, a sequence of who makes up his lineage. Uniquely called, today is The Sunday Before Christmas: Matthew 1:1-25. While it may seem tedious and painful to hear since many can’t pronounce the names, but what the pericope demonstrates is that God uses the unlikely to bring into human history His work of salvation. God is not elitist; the Eternal Word of God has a “rough trade” family history.

The genealogy of Matthew’s gospel is a journey in human history –the good, the bad, the rough around the edges. It’s a journey by which we are meant to be informed, one person at a time, but not dismissed. The proclamation of Jesus’ genealogy in the wisdom of the Church shows us that the carriers of the Messianic promise are imperfect according to the world’s standards. If you idealize Jesus, a trap for certain, then you will need to think more deeply about what constitutes the line of communion with the Divine Majesty. We are reminded of this in the epistle reading from Hebrews which has a great line to ponder: God has a better plan for us. What prevails is that all people have a place in the plan of God, all of a role to play in the plan of salvation. The crooked line of our lives and witness matter –and this good news. Jesus demonstrates this fact.

Gaudete Sunday Vespers

The Dominican nuns of Our Lady of Grace Monastery welcomed the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, the Order of Malta – Connecticut North East Area and the Fraternity of St. Dominic for Solemn Vespers for Gaudete Sunday.

Chaplains to the two Orders, Fr Peter J. Langevin and Fr Joe MacNeill sat in choir.

Fr Brian Mulchay, OP, presided and preached.