Earlier this evening I traveled to St Anthony of the Desert Maronite Church (Fall River, MA) where we served the Melkite Divine Liturgy served by Bishop François Beyrouti, Bishop of Diocese of Newton for the Melkite Catholic Church in the United States and the local Melkite clergy. The Liturgy highlighted the presence of a relic of Blessed Carlo Acutis –soon to be canonized– who had the mission for Eucharistic revival. The organizers also curated 150 panels of the Eucharistic miracles around the world.
CT EOHSJ Mass for St Pius X
Mass for the liturgical memorial of St Pius X, pope and former grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.
Several members of the EOHSJ in Connecticut met for Mass and dinner.
Father Robert Turner, pastor of St Ambrose Parish (North Branford, CT) and a Knight Chaplain offered Mass and preached.
Happy New Year –Byzantine Style –7533
Happy New Year, Byzantium! It’s New Year’s for Greek Catholic and Orthodox Christians New Calendar!
May God bless you abundantly tonight with His love and grace through the prayers of His most pure Mother and of all the Saints and save you from the Evil One. Happy New Year!
Blessed Ildephonsus Schuster
Today is the feast day of Blessed Ildephonsus Schuster, OSB, Archbishop of Milan and a great liturgical scholar, who was invested a Bailiff of the Order of Malta in 1933.
In his writings, the Cardinal emphasized the cosmological importance of the Sacred Liturgy. Not just a earthly ceremony of ‘togetherness’, as some would have it, but rather “the very source of the holiness of the Church is wholly comprised in Her Liturgy, so that without the Divine Sacraments, the Passion of the Savior, in the present economy instituted by God, would not have any efficacy for us, due to the lack of instruments able to transmit its treasures to us.”
This is why we must have a great care for the solemn, careful and devout celebration of Holy Mass, the other Sacraments, and the Divine Office, for without these we will lack the grace we need to serve properly our Lords the Sick and the Poor, in whom we serve our Crucified and Risen Lord.
A few days before his death seventy years ago, Cardinal Schuster bade farewell to his seminarians: “You want something to remember me by,” he said. “All I can leave you is an invitation to holiness.”
Blessed Ildephonsus – pray for us.
Summer picnic 2024
Our annual Order of Malta picnic, old and new friends.
Indifference vs. Samaritan virtues
St Ignatius of Loyola
“God freely created us so that we might know, love, and serve him in this life and be happy with him forever. God’s purpose in creating us is to draw forth from us a response of love and service here on earth, so that we may attain our goal of everlasting happiness with him in heaven. All the things in this world are gifts of God, created for us, to be the means by which we can come to know him better, love him more surely, and serve him more faithfully.”
—St. Ignatius Loyola
Blessing of Cars 2024
Today, in honor of Saint Elia (Elijah), the Holy Prophet, Fr. Dennis blessed cars and the riding lawnmower. The blessing has become an annual event to honor the Holy Prophet.
Why do we bless cars and various modes of transportation? We bless modes of transportation for several reasons:
~to protect you and also to help others
~to remind ourselves that we are to be courteous drivers and giving into road aggression
~to not be reckless in driving, especially being distracted
~since the Middle Ages priests blessed horses, wagons, boats
with the rise of pilgrimage, the Church asked for divine protection upon for pilgrims to the Holy Land or to Canterbury, or to Santiago de Compostela due to the arduous adventure fighting disease and criminals.
So, prayer seeks a blessing, it expresses gratitude for the material gift of vehicles, and it asks for a defense against evil with the help of God. Our seeking divine protection over material things and actions, we express our dependence upon the Creator who gives and sustains us.
Greek Catholics, like we Melkites, invoke the intercession of Saint Elias and Saint Nicholas while the Latin Catholics invoke the intercession of Saint Frances of Rome, Saint Michael and Saint Christopher.
The prayer reads:
O Master, Lord our God, hearken unto the prayer which we now send up to You and bless these vehicles with your holy right hand + ; send down upon it they guardian Angel, that all who desire to journey therein may be safely preserved and shielded from every end; and as the Ethiopian, riding in the chariot and reading your holy prophecy, was granted faith and grace through your Apostle Philip.
So do you now manifest the path of salvation who shall travel in this conveyance, that with your helping grace they may be vouchsafed everlasting joy in your heavenly Kingdom. For yours is the might, and the Kingdom, and the power, and unto you do we send up glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to Holy Spirit, both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
May Christ our true God, through the intercession of His all-pure Mother, through the protection of the bodily powers, of the holy, glorious and all praise-worthy Apostles, and Saint Nicholas, the Holy Prophet Elias and all the saints, have mercy on and save us, as He is good and loves mankind.
(Sprinkling each of the vehicles with holy water, says:)
The car is blessed in the name of the Father +, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Church of the Holy Sepulchre anniversary of dedication
Today is the Feast of the Dedication of the Holy Sepulchre Church in AD 1149. For obvious reasons, to is a special day for the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.
Prayers for the Order and for the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.
A happy bishop in Australia
Bishop Columba Macbeth-Green OSPPE, ordained priest for the Pauline Fathers, is celebrating 10 years of service as bishop of the Diocese of Wilcannia-Forbes. This diocese is 160,000 square miles in its territory, and the largest diocese in New South Wales.
Prayers for Bishop Columba.