Paul Zalonski – Page 490

St Stanislaus Church (New Haven, CT) receives St. Gregory Society

This afternoon the first Mass celebrated by priests associated with the Saint Gregory Society was offered at Saint Stanislaus Church, New Haven, CT. Having attended Mass at the Church since the mid-1970s I am elated that this has transpired, as I mentioned earlier on this blog. The beauty of the architecture coupled with the beauty of the sacred Liturgy is a wonderful convergence.

What a happy day for the SGS and for Saint Stanislaus!

Saint John Chrysostom

O blest teacher, light of holy Church, blessed John Chrysostom, thou lover of God’s law, plead with the Son of God for us.

We beseech Thee, O Lord, may heavenly grace enrich Thy Church which Thou hast willed to enlighten by the glorious merits and teaching of blessed John Chrysostom, Thy bishop and confessor.

Holy Name of Mary

You have been blessed, O Virgin Mary, above all other women on earth by the Lord, the Most High God, for God has so exalted your name that human lips will never cease to praise you.

Lord our God, when Your Son was dying on the altar of the cross, he gave us as our mother the one he had chosen to be His own mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary; grant that we who call upon the holy name of Mary, our mother, with confidence in her protection may receive strength and comfort in all our needs.

This feast was restored an optional memorial in our sacred Liturgy by the Servant of God Pope John Paul II when he published the 2002 Roman Missal (the translation is due out this century). The Preface of today’s Mass is worth adding to our examination of conscience today and I highly recommend using the liturgical texts to assist us here. In part the Preface reads:

“… But by Your loving providence the name of the Virgin Mary also should echo and re-echo on the lips of the faithful people who turn to her with confidence as their star of hope, call on her as their mother in time of danger, and seek her protection in their hour of need.”

The sentiments expressed by the Church’s Liturgy ought to call to mind the venerable prayer of the Memorare in which we ask Mary in confidence to be at our side at all times. Those who remain close to Mary, the Mother of God are always helped.

September 11: in prayerful remembrance 8 years later

We mark the 8th anniversary of 9/11 today. And so we pray,

Almighty and merciful God, in your forgiving love look upon our sufferings. Lighten your children’s burden and strengthen their faith in such a way that they may always trust unhesitatingly in your fatherly providence.

Saint Peter Claver

O God, You made Saint Peter Claver a slave of the slaves and strengthened him with marvelous and patient love in their service. Grant through his intercession that we may seek the things that are of Christ, and love our neighbor both in deed and in truth.

Good question: What Happened at Medjugorje?

A fitting look into a Marian apparition on the Feast of the Nativity of Mary at First Things, “What Happened at Medjugorje?” It’s amazing that this “apparition” of the Blessed Virgin is getting a lot of press these days.

Saint Anselm’s prayer for the Birth of Our Lady

In Honor of Our Lady’s Nativity

Saint Anselm of Canterbury

Vouchsafe
that I may praise thee, O sacred Virgin; give me strength against thine
enemies, and against the enemy of the whole human race. Give me strength humbly
to pray to thee. Give me strength to praise thee in prayer with all my powers,
through the merits of thy most sacred nativity, which for the entire Christian
world was a birth of joy, the hope and solace of its life.

When thou wast born,
O most holy Virgin, then was the world made light. Happy is thy stock, holy thy
root, and blessed thy fruit, for thou alone as a virgin, filled with the Holy
Spirit, didst merit to conceive thy God, as a virgin to bear Thy God, as a
virgin to bring Him forth, and after His birth to remain a virgin.

Have mercy
therefore upon me a sinner, and give me aid, O Lady, so that just as thy
nativity, glorious from the seed of Abraham, sprung from the tribe of Juda,
illustrious from the stock of David, didst announce joy to the entire world, so
may it fill me with true joy and cleanse me from every sin.

Pray for me, O
Virgin most prudent, that the gladsome joys of thy most helpful nativity may
put a cloak over all my sins. O holy Mother of God, flowering as the lily, pray
to thy sweet Son for me, a wretched sinner. Amen.

Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

It is the nativity of the glorious Virgin Mary, sprung from the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Juda, of the renowned family of David.

We beseech Thee, O Lord, grant to Thy servants the gift of Thy heavenly grace, that as the childbearing of the Blessed Virgin was the beginning of salvation, so the joyful festival of her nativity may bring us an increase of peace.

Today is one three days on the liturgical calendar that the church celebrates someone’s birth; the other two are Jesus and John the Baptist. What we know of the birth of Mary comes from the extra-canonical gospels: The Gospel of the Nativity of Mary and the Proto-evangelium of Saint James. This is one of those feasts that came from Eastern Church, likely in Syria in the 6th century. It gained popularity that in the 7th century it was added to liturgical calendar of the Church of Rome (It was Pope Sergius I who wrote a Litany and organized a procession for the feast.) and the collects are found in various missals. Various dioceses may have some type of observance beginning in the 8th to the 10th centuries. That said, in some parts of the Church where the missals included the collects of the Assumption, this feast of Nativity of Mary is absent.

7 New Deacons of the Archdiocese of New York

Bishop Sullivan exhorted the new deacons to be concerned for matters of charity, the Word of God and the Altar. To intercede for the Church in prayer and in action. Model life on Christ and the example of Saint John Mary Vianney.

Ted Kennedy: mercy or damnation? What do real Christians think?

In the week since the obsequies for Edward Kennedy, Senator, not a few self-appointed ministers of God’s justice and mercy have rendered their judgement: the Senator should not have been buried using the rites of the Catholic Church. Interesting.

The sacred Liturgy tells us what we who are baptized believe: we are sinners and God’s mercy is in abundance. Sinners need and want mercy from God almighty. I want and need His forgiveness and His tender embrace. I am sure Ted Kennedy wanted the same. Since I was not at his bedside when he was sick, nor did I hear the Senator’s confession and nor was I present when his priest gave him the Sacrament of the Sick, Viaticum and the Apostolic Pardon. Presumably he received these sacred rites before his death. In short, I don’t know the state of his soul. I do know that he wrote to the Holy Father and a kind reply was received.

Cardinal Sean O’Malley has been criticized for being a pastor of souls; he explains as much on his blog this week. The bishop of Madison, WI, Robert Morlino, has a wonderful piece on this subject and I highly recommend your reading it. Use it for you lectio. Bishop Morlino’s reflection is found here.

Is a lack of mercy to a sinner the demonstration of Christianity’s decay? What virtues are being taught and lived when Christians so violently pontificate that mercy is not possible for the sinner, even such a public sinner? Does Christianity have any real meaning left? If we break mercy from the Christian life then we no longer have a Christian religion that leads one to salvation in Christ. To whom do we witness: Christ or the self?