I recommend to your prayers the peaceful repose of the soul of Father Thomas Dubay, SM, who died yesterday morning in Washington, DC. Father Dubay has been ill for some time.
An announcement may be read here.
Saint Vincent de Paul
In honoring Saint Vincent de Paul today let’s call to mind the myriad of ways he and his spiritual sons and daughters have served, and continue to serve, the Gospel by serving the poor and uneducated. Have you got your copy of the video “Charity’s Saint: St Vincent de Paul“? I pray in thanksgiving for the Vincentian priests in New Haven who were my spiritual guides as a child.
With glowing light sent from above,
O Vincent, how you guide our way!
Your virtues and example pure
Show us the path to heaven’s day.
With self-effacing modesty,
You made yourself of little state;
Your gentleness and simple life
Made you revered by small and great.
Amidst the graces of your life
Your charity sheds brightest fire:
How many of the poor it fed,
Filled many hearts with Christ’s desire.
Urged on by zeal and charity,
You preached in town and countryside,
Proclaiming all God’s mysteries
To poor and rich, both far and wide.
Beneath your wings you gathered those
Who longed to share both work and strife.
By word and deed you taught them well;
You formed and taught them by your life.
To God, the holy Three-in-One,
All praise and glory be addressed,
Whose life divine is best reward,
And light eternal for the blessed.
J. Michael Thompson
Copyright © 2009, World Library Publications
LM; WINCHESTER NEW, HAMBURG, ST. VINCENT
Recent pic
At a profession of first vows of my friend Gabriel as a Conventual Franciscan.
Br Kieran of St Mary’s Abbey (NJ), friar Gabriel Mary and Z
Friends in New Jersey, September 26, 2010
Meeting the new rector at the Pontifical Oriental Institute
In May, the announcement of a new rector was made that the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, a Jesuit work for the universal Church, Jesuit Father James McCann. The new rector is a member of the Chicago Province of Jesuits, is 61 years old and was ordained a priest in 1979.
The PIO was founded in 1917 and entrusted to the Society of Jesus in 1922.
Check the website noted above for the new norms governing studies.
Watch a brief interview with Father McCann.
Don Bosco’s relic comes to New York City
A relic of Saint John Bosco, patron of youth, is visiting New York City on Friday, October 1. The relic’s pilgrimage is in preparation for the saint’s 200th anniversary of birth. Being in the USA is only one of 130 nations that the relic is visiting.
Don Bosco’s relic will be at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, NYC. Veneration of the relic will be 10 am until 11 pm. Mass will be celebrated by Archbishop Timothy Dolan at 7 pm.
More info can be found here (this is an excellent website!)
Saint John Bosco
born 1815
died 1888
canonized a saint 1934
the Salesians of Don Bosco, the religious order founded by the saint can be seen here.
Wuerl named delegate for Anglicans entering full communion with the Catholic Church by CDF
The Archbishop of Washington, Donald W. Wuerl, STD, 70, has been delegated by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to be the principal guide for those Anglican/Episcopalian clergyman seeking full communion with the Catholic Church, and ordination as a priest.
The USCCB announcement is posted here.
The committee headed by Archbishop Wuerl will include their Excellencies, The Most Reverends Kevin Vann, JCD (Fort Worth, TX) and Robert McManus, STD (Worcester, MA). They will be assisted by Father Scott Hurd, himself a convert to Catholicism. The committee will facilitate the implementation of Anglicanorum coetibus in the USA and assess the need for an ordinariate in the USA.
The Pope’s Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus can be read here.
Saint Pio of Pietrelcina’s relics to be at the Attleboro Shrine
An email friend, Patty in CT, just told me that Saint Pio’s relics will be at the National Shrine of Our Lady of LaSalette, Attleboro, MA.
St Padre Pio Pilgrimage Day
Saturday, September 25
the day begins at 10:00 am, there are 2 talks, lunch, confessions, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. The day concludes with a 4:30 pm Mass & veneration of Saint Pio’s relics.
register by calling 508-222-5410
Thanks Patty!
Conception of Saint the Baptist
Rejoice, O
barren one, who had not given birth; for the behold you have conceived clearly
the one who is the dawn of eh Sun Who was about illuminate the whole universe,
blighted with sightlessness. Shout in joy, O Zachary, crying in favor, truly,
the one to be born is a Prophet of the High. (Troparion, 4th tone)
On the
Byzantine liturgical calendar, today is the feast of the Conception of Saint
John the Baptist. The Eastern Church, at least the Churches with a Greek
origin, keeps three conception feasts: Our Lord (March 25), Our Lady
(December 9) and the Baptist (September 23). The Latin Church only keeps two.
Calendar study will tell you that
only the Savior has a perfect 9-month gestation period; Our Lady is a day under
(September 8) and the Baptist, a day under (June 24). The liturgical calendar of
the Latin Church places the conception of Mary on December 8, the feast of the
Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The theology for today’s feast is rooted in the biblical
narrative of Zachary and Elizabeth, a couple who had no children and therefore
in the eyes of the world plagued by divine disfavor. All of their lives Zachary
and Elizabeth begged God to send them a son. Providence heard their prayer and in His plan and mercy for
all, ordained that the dawn of salvation would be effected by the birth of John
through the agency of the barren Elizabeth. The Church calls John the Prophet
and Forerunner of Jesus, the Savior of the world.
Other significant divinely merciful
births to barren women who are a significant part of the Divine Plan of Salvation are Isaac son of Sarah and Samson born to the wife
of Manoah (Samson’s mother is not named in Scripture).
Saint Pio of Pietrelcina
The Church honors the life and ministry of Saint “Padre” Pio today. Immediate memories of the saint bring me back to my youth when Clara and Joe Tomaso, the backbone of the morning Mass community at Our Lady of Pompeii Church (East Haven, CT), would passionately speak of Pio and gifts. These many years later a devotion to Saint Pio has grown in my heart, and perhaps you can relate. He’s been a true spiritual father.
Earlier this spring I was taken by the recent film on Padre Pio because of the spiritual battle against evil, personally and for the Church. Plus, I’ve always been wonderfully (and sometime fearfully) surprised by his ability to read souls. Imagine going to confession to Padre Pio thinking you’ve made a good examination of conscience and being told that there are even more sins on your soul than you are aware of or even you’ve dismissed as inconsequential. Padre Pio as a servant of the Lord as a priest is keenly aware of how hard our hearts are hardened by sin. NOTHING beats a good and holy confession of sins. Confession of sin is a matter of true humanity and the healthy heart. The mere thought of Padre Pio makes me want to run to confession.
All saints have spiritual fathers who form the heart and mind. Padre Pio was no exception. His spiritual father Father Benedict said this to Pio on the desire for sanctity:
“It is one thing to say ‘I am a saint’ and another to say ‘I want to become a saint.’ You can tell everyone that you want to become a saint without fear of pride because, after all, holiness is nothing else but divine love and the love of God is a sacred, absolute and essential duty ordered to everyone and required from all. Where is pride when protesting to observe a principal and elementary duty? Humility consists in being persuaded that one does not have this love to an eminent degree or even sufficiently, but humility does not prevent one from aspiring to it.”
How much do you think Pio took these words to heart? Probably he lived them with all his strength. What you and me?
Last year’s post –with the Mass prayer– on Saint Pio is still helpful, see it here.
Visit the Padre Pio Foundation of America and the official site for Saint Pio here.
40 Days for Life –get involved NOW!
The pro-life campaign 40 Days for Life begins today, Get involved to save an unborn life.
Being a part of the 40 day campaign is about prayer and fasting, keeping vigil at an abortion clinic and education in the community.
The use of the number 40 is a biblical metaphor: think of Noah, Moses, Jesus, who either spent 40 year days or years doing something for God the Father.
The 40 Days campaign runs until October 31.