May 1st: St. Joseph the Worker

Ven. Pius XII instituted the memorial of St. Joseph the Worker to Christianize labor.  It also serves as a counter to the communist May Day.   Pitted against St. Joseph, the Reds never had a chance.

Prayer to St. Joseph the Worker

We speak to you, O blessed Joseph, our protector on earth, as one who knows the value of work and the response of our calling. We address you through your holy spouse, the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God, and knowing the fatherly affection with which you embraced Our Lord Jesus, ask that you may assist us in our needs, and strengthen us in our labors.

By our promise to do worthily our daily tasks, keep us from failure, from a greedy mind, and from a corrupt heart. Be our watchful guardian in our work, our defender and strength against injustice and errors. As we look to your example and seek your assistance, support us in our every effort, that we may come to everlasting rest with you in the blessedness of heaven. Amen. 

Easter

It behooved Christ to rise again, for five reasons. First of all; for the commendation of Divine Justice, to which it belongs to exalt them who humble themselves for God's sake, according to Lk. 1:52: "He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble." Consequently, because Christ humbled Himself even to the death of the Cross, from love and obedience to God, it behooved Him to be uplifted by God to a glorious resurrection; hence it is said in His Person (Psalm 138:2): "Thou hast known," i.e. approved, "my sitting down," i.e. My humiliation and Passion, "and my rising up," i.e. My glorification in the resurrection; as the gloss expounds.

Secondly, for our instruction in the faith, since our belief in Christ's Godhead is confirmed by His rising again, because, according to 2 Cor. 13:4, "although He was crucified through weakness, yet He liveth by the power of God." And therefore it is written (1 Corinthians 15:14): "If Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching vain, and our [Vulg.: 'your'] faith is also vain": and (Psalm 29:10): "What profit is there in my blood?" that is, in the shedding of My blood, "while I go down," as by various degrees of evils, "into corruption?" As though He were to answer: "None. 'For if I do not at once rise again but My body be corrupted, I shall preach to no one, I shall gain no one,'" as the gloss expounds.

Thirdly, for the raising of our hope, since through seeing Christ, who is our head, rise again, we hope that we likewise shall rise again. Hence it is written (1 Corinthians 15:12): "Now if Christ be preached that He rose from the dead, how do some among you say, that there is no resurrection of the dead?" And (Job 19:25,27): "I know," that is with certainty of faith, "that my Redeemer," i.e. Christ, "liveth," having risen from the dead; "and" therefore "in the last day I shall rise out of the earth . . . this my hope is laid up in my bosom."

Fourthly, to set in order the lives of the faithful: according to Rm. 6:4: "As Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life": and further on; "Christ rising from the dead dieth now no more; so do you also reckon that you are dead to sin, but alive to God."

Fifthly, in order to complete the work of our salvation: because, just as for this reason did He endure evil things in dying that He might deliver us from evil, so was He glorified in rising again in order to advance us towards good things; according to Rm. 4:25: "He was delivered up for our sins, and rose again for our justification."

Summa Theologica, III, Q. 53, Art. 1

Holy Saturday: The Harrowing of Hell

I will deliver them out of the hand of death. I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy death; O hell, I will be thy bite... 

Osee 13:14 (Douay-Rhiems)

Because Christ also died once for our sins, the just for the unjust: that He might offer us to God, being put to death indeed in the flesh, but enlivened in the spirit, in which also coming He preached to those spirits that were in prison: which had been some time incredulous, when they waited for the patience of God in the days of Noe, when the ark was a building: wherein a few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water. 

1 Peter 3:18-20 (Douay-Rheims)

Blessed Is the Wood by Which Righteousness Comes

Borrowed from Fr. Powell, O.P., who borrowed it from Taylor Marshall:

Seven Reasons Why Christ Died on a Wooden Cross

First, Augustine observed that crucifixion is not only painful, it is painful and public. The public nature of Christ's death inspires us to face death heroically.

Second, Augustine observed that since Adam brought death through a tree, it was fitting that the New Adam destroy death by hanging on a tree.

Third, John Chrysostom and Theophylact observed that by being lifted up on the cross, Christ sanctified the air.

Fourth, Athanasius observed that by being lifted up on the cross, Christ shows that He has prepared the ascent into Heaven.

Fifth, Gregory of Nyssa observed that the shape of the cross was fitting for because it extends in the four directions and is therefore universal. Also, Athanasius wrote that the one outstretched arm sanctified the those in the past and the other arm as outstretched to the future. So we have both a spacial and temporal universality signified in the crucifixion.

Sixth, Augustine says the parts of the cross signifies the following:

* Breadth – This pertains to Christ’s hands and thus "good works"
* Length – This pertains to the upright nature of a tree and thus "longanimity".
* Height – This pertains to the top and Christ’s head and "the good hope" of the faithful.
* Base – The base is the root and it is hidden, thus it signifies "grace".

Seventh, Augustine observes that wood is salutary in the Old Covenant. Wood saved Noah in the Flood. Moses divided the sea with a wooden rod; purified water with wood, and brought forth water with his wooden rod. Also, the Ark of the Covenant was made of wood.

It is Thy will that works of Thy wisdom should not be without effect; therefore men trust their lives even to the smallest piece of wood, and passing through the billows on a raft they come safely to land.  For even in the beginning, when arrogant giants were perishing, the hope of the world took refuge on a raft, and guided by thy hand left to the world the seed of a new generation.  For blessed is the wood by which righteousness comes.

Wisdom 14:5-7

Memorial: Bl. Jacinta Marto

Today is the 90th anniversary of her death.

There are a number of child saints, but most of them are martyrs.   Until the pontificate of St. Pius X, children had been considered incapable of heroic virtue.  Bl. Jacinta and her brother, Bl. Francisco, may (if I am not mistaken) be the first children to be raised to the altar on the basis of heroic virtue since Ven. Pius XII canonized St. Dominic Savio in 1954.   

January 1st: Solemnity of the Mother of God

BEEN TO MASS YET???

December 28th: Feast of the Holy Innocents

From today's Office of Readings: excerpt of a sermon by Bishop St Quodvultdeus.

A tiny Child is born, who is a great King. Wise men are led to Him from afar. They come to adore One who lies in a manger and yet reigns in heaven and on earth. When they tell of One who is born a King, Herod is disturbed. To save his kingdom he resolves to kill Him, though if he would have faith in the Child, he himself would reign in peace in this life and for ever in the life to come.

Why are you afraid, Herod, when you hear of the birth of a king? He does not come to drive you out, but to conquer the devil. But because you do not understand this you are disturbed and in a rage. To destroy one Child whom you seek, you show your cruelty in the death of so many children.

You are not restrained by the love of weeping mothers and fathers mourning the deaths of their sons, nor by the cries and sobs of the children. You destroy those who are tiny in body because fear is destroying your heart. You imagine that if you accomplish your desire you can prolong you own life, though you are seeking to kill Life Himself.

Yet your throne is threatened by the Source of grace -- so small, yet so great -- Who is lying in the manger. He is using you, all unaware of it, to work out His own purposes freeing souls from captivity to the devil. He has taken up the sons of the enemy into the ranks of God's adopted children.

The children die for Christ, though they do not know it. The parents mourn for the death of martyrs. The Christ Child makes of those as yet unable to speak fit witnesses to Himself. See the kind of kingdom that is His, coming as He did in order to be this kind of King. See how the Deliverer is already working deliverance, the Savior already working salvation.

But you, Herod, do not know this and are disturbed and furious. While you vent your fury against the Child, you are already paying Him homage, and do not know it.

How great a gift of grace is here! To what merits of their own do the children owe this kind of victory? They cannot speak, yet they bear witness to Christ. They cannot use their limbs to engage in battle, yet already they bear off the palm of victory.

December 27th: Feast of the Holy Family

Don't know why I didn't think of posting this before...

This is the Holy Family window at St. John's Cathedral, Boise.

December 26th: Feast of St. Stephen the Martyr

Impetum Fecerunt Unanimes, by John Sheppard (1515-1559), who was 24 when St. Thomas More was put to death.

H/T Gillibrand at Catholic Church Conservation.

Merry Christmas!

Gerard van Honthorst, Adoration of the Shepherds (1622).  Do you think St. Joseph would be using that ox's head as a handrest if he were not so gloriously preoccupied?

By the way...

BEEN TO MASS YET???

December 9th: St. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin

In 1474, Cuauhtlatoatzin ("Talking Eagle") was born a member of the Chichimeca people and a subject of the Aztecs in what is now part of Mexico City, during an epoch that was destined very soon to end. When he was 18, Christopher Columbus landed in the New World. By the time he was 47, Spain had conquered the advanced yet blood-soaked Aztec Empire. However, within a decade, the Indians were laboring under crushing oppression at the hands of corrupt Spanish officials. The first Bishop of Mexico, the Franciscan Juan de Zumárraga, struggled vainly to defend his new spiritual charges, who were close to rebellion. The harried bishop begged the Blessed Mother for her aid.

It was in this turbulent time, less than five years after the conquest of the Aztecs, that the Talking Eagle encountered the religion of the Spaniards. Even as a pagan, he appears to have led a life of penance and contemplation that no doubt laid the groundwork for what was to come to him in later life. The Talking Eagle became one of the earliest indigenous converts to the Catholic faith, accepting Baptism together with his wife and taking the name of Juan Diego in about 1524. Every Saturday and Sunday, a barefoot Juan Diego walked 14 miles to Tenochtitlan to attend Mass and receive religious instruction. After the death of his wife in 1529, Juan Diego moved in with an uncle, Juan Bernardino, which left him with only nine miles to travel to pursue his faith.

It was during one of these journeys in 1531 that the veil between heaven and earth was drawn aside for the humble farmer and mat-weaver. The 16th-century native scholar Antonio Valeriano describes what happened on that day in the Nahuatl-language Nican Mopohua (1556), the oldest and most authoritative account of the Guadalupe apparitions:

On a Saturday just before dawn, he was on his way to pursue divine worship and to engage in his own errands. As he reached the base of the hill known as Tepeyac, came the break of day, and he heard singing atop the hill, resembling singing of varied beautiful birds.

Occasionally the voices of the songsters would cease, and it appeared as if the mount responded. The song, very mellow and delightful, excelled that of the coyoltototl and the tzinizcan and of other pretty singing birds. Juan Diego stopped to look and said to himself: “By fortune, am I worthy of what I hear? Maybe I dream? Am I awakening? Where am I? Perhaps I am now in the terrestrial paradise which our elders had told us about? Perhaps I am now in heaven?” He was looking toward the east, on top of the mound, from whence came the precious celestial chant; and then it suddenly ceased and there was silence. He then heard a voice from above the mount saying to him: “Juanito, Juan Dieguito.” Then he ventured and went to where he was called. He was not frightened in the least; on the contrary, overjoyed.

Then he climbed the hill, to see from were he was being called. When he reached the summit, he saw a Lady, who was standing there and told him to come hither. Approaching her presence, he marveled greatly at her superhuman grandeur; her garments were shining like the sun; the cliff where she rested her feet, pierced with glitter, resembling an anklet of precious stones, and the earth sparkled like the rainbow. The mezquites, nopales, and other different weeds, which grow there, appeared like emeralds, their foliage like turquoise, and their branches and thorns glistened like gold. He bowed before her and herd her word, tender and courteous, like someone who charms and steems you highly.

She said: “Juanito, the most humble of my sons, where are you going?” He replied: “My Lady and Child, I have to reach your church in Mexico, Tlatilolco, to pursue things divine, taught and given to us by our priests, delegates of Our Lord.” She then spoke to him: “Know and understand well, you the most humble of my sons, that I am the ever virgin Holy Mary, Mother of the True God for whom we live, of the Creator of all things, Lord of heaven and the earth. I wish that a temple be erected here quickly, so I may therein exhibit and give all my love, compassion, help, and protection, because I am your merciful mother, to you, and to all the inhabitants on this land and all the rest who love me, invoke and confide in me; listen there to their lamentations, and remedy all their miseries, afflictions and sorrows. And to accomplish what my clemency pretends, go to the palace of the bishop of Mexico, and you will say to him that I manifest my great desire, that here on this plain a temple be built to me; you will accurately relate all you have seen and admired, and what you have heard. Be assured that I will be most grateful and will reward you, because I will make you happy and worthy of recompense for the effort and fatigue in what you will obtain of what I have entrusted. Behold, you have heard my mandate, my humble son; go and put forth all your effort.”

At this point he bowed before her and said: “My Lady, I am going to comply with your mandate; now I must part from you, I, your humble servant.” Then he descended to go to comply with the errand, and went by the avenue which runs directly into Mexico City.

To Juan Diego's great disappointment, Bishop Zumárraga, who had kept him waiting a very long time before granting him an audience, would not believe him. Dejected, he went back to the Lady on Tepeyac Hill and told her how he had been rebuffed. "For which I exceedingly beg, Lady and my Child," he said,

that you entrust the delivery of your message to someone of importance, well known, respected, and esteemed, so that they may believe in him; because I am a nobody, I am a small rope, a tiny ladder, the tail end, a leaf, and you, my Child, the least of my children, my Lady, you send me to a place where I never visit nor repose. Please excuse the great unpleasantness and let not fretfulness befall, my Lady and my All.

However, the Lady insisted that this important mission was for Juan Diego alone, and ordered him to go back and try again. He obeyed, and this time the bishop questioned him closely regarding what he had seen and heard, and told him to ask the Lady for a sign. When he returned to Tepeyac Hill after this second interview, the Lady told him to come back the next day, and then he would receive the sign that would convince the bishop to comply with her request.

But in the meantime, Juan Diego's uncle, Bernardino, became so ill that his life was despaired of, and Bernardino sent his nephew to fetch a priest. Knowing that the Lady would be waiting for him on Tepeyac Hill, Juan Diego avoided the place so that he would not be diverted from his urgent errand. But the Lady accosted him and asked him where he was going. When he told her, she said:

Hear me and understand well, my son the least, that nothing should frighten or grieve you. Let not your heart be disturbed. Do not fear that sickness, nor any other sickness or anguish. Am I not here, who am your Mother? Are you not under my protection? Am I not your health? Are you not happily within my embrace? What else do you wish? Do not grieve nor be disturbed by anything. Do not be afflicted by the illness of your uncle, who will not die now of it. Be assured that he is now cured.

She then told Juan Diego to climb to the top of the hill, where he found a variety of choice Castillian roses growing out of season and on a barren patch of land. He gathered them and brought them back to the Lady, who arranged them herself in his frail cactus-fiber tilma and told him to present them to the bishop. When, after yet another long wait, he finally saw the bishop, he unfolded the tilma, and the roses fell out; and as the roses scattered on the floor, the image of Our Lady as Juan Diego had seen her on Tepeyac Hill appeared on the tilma. This put an end to Bishop Zumárraga's doubts and convinced him that this was Our Lady's answer to his prayers.

In obedience to the Blessed Mother's request, a shrine was built at the foot of Tepeyac Hill, and the miraculous tilma was housed in the chapel. Juan Diego gave everything he owned to his uncle -- who had indeed been cured and had also seen the Lady at the very moment she told his nephew about his cure -- and moved into a small dwelling at the shrine, devoting himself to prayer, virtue, and the care of the shrine and the pilgrims who came to visit it. He received the then-extraordinary privilege of receiving Holy Communion three times a week, and died in the odor of sanctity on May 30, 1548 at the age of 74. Meanwhile, by means of the miraculous image -- not to mention the humility and obedience of her servant, Juan Diego -- the Blessed Mother won millions of souls for the Church, and averted the bloody rebellion that had loomed on the horizon in Mexico.

A footnote. Servant of God Fulton J. Sheen was a great devotee of the Blessed Mother, and remarked that he prayed for the following intentions regarding his death: (1) that he "drop dead" at the age of 80; (2) that he die on a Saturday in honor of Our Lady, or (3) that he die on one of her feast days. In fact, he died in 1979 at the age of 84; on a Sunday; and not on a feast of Our Lady. He was disappointed on every count.

Or was he? The date of Fulton Sheen's death -- December 9th -- was the anniversary of the first apparition on Tepeyac Hill, and is now the feast of St. Juan Diego, whom Pope John Paul II canonized at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 2002.

December 8th: Feast of the Immaculate Conception

From Ineffabilis Deus (Bl. Pius IX, 1854):

The Fathers and writers of the Church, well versed in the heavenly Scriptures, had nothing more at heart than to vie with one another in preaching and teaching in many wonderful ways the Virgin's supreme sanctity, dignity, and immunity from all stain of sin, and her renowned victory over the most foul enemy of the human race. This they did in the books they wrote to explain the Scriptures, to vindicate the dogmas, and to instruct the faithful. These ecclesiastical writers in quoting the words by which at the beginning of the world God announced His merciful remedies prepared for the regeneration of mankind -- words by which He crushed the audacity of the deceitful serpent and wondrously raised up the hope of our race, saying, "I will put enmities between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed" [Genesis 3:15] -- taught that by this divine prophecy the merciful Redeemer of mankind, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, was clearly foretold: That His most Blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary, was prophetically indicated; and, at the same time, the very enmity of both against the evil one was significantly expressed. Hence, just as Christ, the Mediator between God and man, assumed human nature, blotted the handwriting of the decree that stood against us, and fastened it triumphantly to the cross, so the most holy Virgin, united with Him by a most intimate and indissoluble bond, was, with Him and through Him, eternally at enmity with the evil serpent, and most completely triumphed over him, and thus crushed his head with her immaculate foot.

This sublime and singular privilege of the Blessed Virgin, together with her most excellent innocence, purity, holiness and freedom from every stain of sin, as well as the unspeakable abundance and greatness of all heavenly graces, virtues and privileges -- these the Fathers beheld in that ark of Noah, which was built by divine command and escaped entirely safe and sound from the common shipwreck of the whole world;[cf. Genesis 6:9] in the ladder which Jacob saw reaching from the earth to heaven, by whose rungs the angels of God ascended and descended, and on whose top the Lord himself leaned [cf. Genesis 28:12] in that bush which Moses saw in the holy place burning on all sides, which was not consumed or injured in any way but grew green and blossomed beautifully; [cf. Exodus 3:2] in that impregnable tower before the enemy, from which hung a thousand bucklers and all the armor of the strong; [cf. Song of Songs 4:4] in that garden enclosed on all sides, which cannot be violated or corrupted by any deceitful plots; [cf. Song of Songs 4:12] as in that resplendent city of God, which has its foundations on the holy mountains; [cf. Psalm 87:1] in that most august temple of God, which, radiant with divine splendors, is full of the glory of God; [cf. Isaiah 6:1-4] and in very many other biblical types of this kind. In such allusions the Fathers taught that the exalted dignity of the Mother of God, her spotless innocence and her sanctity unstained by any fault, had been prophesied in a wonderful manner.

In like manner did they use the words of the prophets to describe this wondrous abundance of divine gifts and the original innocence of the Virgin of whom Jesus was born. They celebrated the august Virgin as the spotless dove, as the holy Jerusalem, as the exalted throne of God, as the ark and house of holiness which Eternal Wisdom built, and as that Queen who, abounding in delights and leaning on her Beloved, came forth from the mouth of the Most High, entirely perfect, beautiful, most dear to God and never stained with the least blemish.

When the Fathers and writers of the Church meditated on the fact that the most Blessed Virgin was, in the name and by order of God Himself, proclaimed full of grace [cf. Luke 1:28] by the Angel Gabriel when he announced her most sublime dignity of Mother of God, they thought that this singular and solemn salutation, never heard before, showed that the Mother of God is the seat of all divine graces and is adorned with all gifts of the Holy Spirit. To them Mary is an almost infinite treasury, an inexhaustible abyss of these gifts, to such an extent that she was never subject to the curse and was, together with her Son, the only partaker of perpetual benediction. Hence she was worthy to hear Elizabeth, inspired by the Holy Spirit, exclaim: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb."[Luke 1:42]

...

Accordingly, the Fathers have never ceased to call the Mother of God the lily among thorns, the land entirely intact, the Virgin undefiled, immaculate, ever blessed, and free from all contagion of sin, she from whom was formed the new Adam, the flawless, brightest, and most beautiful paradise of innocence, immortality and delights planted by God Himself and protected against all the snares of the poisonous serpent, the incorruptible wood that the worm of sin had never corrupted, the fountain ever clear and sealed with the power of the Holy Spirit, the most holy temple, the treasure of immortality, the one and only daughter of life -- not of death -- the plant not of anger but of grace, through the singular providence of God growing ever green contrary to the common law, coming as it does from a corrupted and tainted root.

As if these splendid eulogies and tributes were not sufficient, the Fathers proclaimed with particular and definite statements that when one treats of sin, the holy Virgin Mary is not even to be mentioned; for to her more grace was given than was necessary to conquer sin completely. They also declared that the most glorious Virgin was Reparatrix of the first parents, the giver of life to posterity; that she was chosen before the ages, prepared for Himself by the Most High, foretold by God when He said to the serpent, "I will put enmities between you and the woman."[Genesis 3:15] -- unmistakable evidence that she crushed the poisonous head of the serpent. And hence they affirmed that the Blessed Virgin was, through grace, entirely free from every stain of sin, and from all corruption of body, soul and mind; that she was always united with God and joined to Him by an eternal covenant; that she was never in darkness but always in light; and that, therefore, she was entirely a fit habitation for Christ, not because of the state of her body, but because of her original grace.

...

Wherefore, in humility and fasting, we unceasingly offered our private prayers as well as the public prayers of the Church to God the Father through His Son, that He would deign to direct and strengthen our mind by the power of the Holy Spirit. In like manner did we implore the help of the entire heavenly host as we ardently invoked the Paraclete. Accordingly, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, for the honor of the Holy and undivided Trinity, for the glory and adornment of the Virgin Mother of God, for the exaltation of the Catholic Faith, and for the furtherance of the Catholic religion, by the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own:

We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.

Hence, if anyone shall dare -- which God forbid! -- to think otherwise than as has been defined by us, let him know and understand that he is condemned by his own judgment; that he has suffered shipwreck in the faith; that he has separated from the unity of the Church; and that, furthermore, by his own action he incurs the penalties established by law if he should dare to express in words or writing or by any other outward means the errors he thinks in his heart.

...

Let all the children of the Catholic Church, who are so very dear to us, hear these words of ours. With a still more ardent zeal for piety, religion and love, let them continue to venerate, invoke and pray to the most Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, conceived without original sin. Let them fly with utter confidence to this most sweet Mother of mercy and grace in all dangers, difficulties, needs, doubts and fears. Under her guidance, under her patronage, under her kindness and protection, nothing is to be feared; nothing is hopeless. Because, while bearing toward us a truly motherly affection and having in her care the work of our salvation, she is solicitous about the whole human race. And since she has been appointed by God to be the Queen of heaven and earth, and is exalted above all the choirs of angels and saints, and even stands at the right hand of her only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, she presents our petitions in a most efficacious manner. What she asks, she obtains. Her pleas can never be unheard.

Given at St. Peter's in Rome, the eighth day of December, 1854, in the eighth year of our pontificate.

Pius IX

By the way:

Been to Mass yet???

November 15th: St. Albertus Magnus, O.P.

Today is the feast of St. Albertus Magnus (Albert the Great), Dominican priest, bishop, and one of three Dominican Doctors of the Church. Albertus was a man of wide and deep learning, of whom it might perhaps have been truly said that he knew everything there was to know -- at least everything there was to know in his day, from theology to the sciences.

It was Albertus Magnus who recognized the genius of Thomas Aquinas, whose master he was; so devastated was he by the death of his pupil that it is said his tears flowed at every mention of his name. He died on November 15, 1280 in Cologne; was beatified by Pope Gregory XV in 1622; and canonized and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1931 by Pope Pius XI. His patronage includes scientists, medical technicians and schoolchildren.

Prayer to St. Albertus Magnus

Dear Scientist and Doctor of the Church, natural science always led you to the higher science of God. Though you had an encyclopedic knowledge, it never made you proud, for you regarded it as a gift of God. Inspire scientists to use their gifts well in studying the wonders of creation, thus bettering the lot of the human race and rendering greater glory to God. Amen.

November 2nd: Feast of All Souls

Today is the feast of the Poor Souls in Purgatory. Per the Enchiridion of Indulgences, we can obtain the following indulgences for the Poor Souls on or around this feast day by:

-- Visiting a Cemetery. By devoutly visiting a cemetery and praying for the souls of the departed, we may gain a plenary indulgence applicable only to the Poor Souls from November 1-8. The indulgence is partial on other days.

-- Praying the Requiem Aeternam. We may gain a partial indulgence applicable only to the Poor Souls by praying the following prayer:

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.

-- Visiting a Church on All Souls' Day. We may gain a plenary indulgence applicable only to the Poor Souls by visiting a church or public oratory on the Feast of All Souls and praying the Our Father and Apostle's Creed.

Feast of All Saints

Maybe it will turn out that the greatest saints of all went wholly unnoticed during their lives on earth, and were utterly forgotten after their deaths.

October 1st: The Little Flower

In The Life and Revelations of St. Gertrude the Great, the saint learns that thanking God for the virtues with which He endowed the saints is a way of growing in those same virtues.

Maybe that's why, in 1925, Fr. Putigan, S.J., came up with the idea of saying 24 Glorias in honor of St. Thérèse of Lisieux -- a Glory Be for ever year of her life on earth, to thank God for the graces He bestowed on her during each of those years. A custom arose of making a novena of 24 Glorias from the 9th to the 17th of each month.

However, since this is the Feast of the Little Flower, it couldn't hurt to say the 24 Glorias today!

Ave Rosa sine Spinis

Ave Rosa sine Spinis
Thomas Tallis (1505-1585)

AVE rosa sine spinis,
Te quam Pater in divinis
Majestate sublimavit,
Et ab omni vae servavit.
MARIA stella dicta maris,
Tu a Nato illustraris
Luce clara deitatis,
Qua praefulges cunctis datis.
GRATIA PLENA: te perfecit
Spiritus Sanctus dum te fecit
Vas divinae bonitatis
Et totius pietatis.
DOMINUS TECUM: miro pacto
Verbo in te carne facto
Opere trini conditoris:
o quam dulce vas amoris.
BENEDICTA IN MULIERIBUS:
Hoc testatur omnis tribus;
Coeli dicunt te beatam
Et super omnes exaltatam.
ET BENEDICTUS FRUCTUS VENTRIS TUI,
Quo nos semper dona frui
Per praegustum hic aeternum
Et post mortem in aeternum: Amen.

HAIL, rose without thorns,
You whom the heavenly Father
elevated in majesty
and preserved from all suffering.
MARY, known as the star of the sea,
Thanks to your Son, you shine forth
with a clear, godly light
which falls on all creatures.
The Holy Spirit made you FULL OF GRACE
when He transformed you
into a vessel of divine goodness
and boundless mercy.
THE LORD BE WITH YOU: the word became flesh
in you through a wondrous pact
by the action of the Creator who is three in one.
O, how sweet is the vessel of love.
BLESSED ARE YOU AMONG WOMEN:
all peoples bear witness to this.
The heavens call you blessed
and high above all others.
AND BLESSED IS THE FRUIT OF YOUR WOMB
through whom we ever enjoy gifts
as a foretaste here
and after death, eternally. Amen.

August 22nd: Feast of the Queenship of Mary

This is the International Pilgrim Virgin Statue of Our Lady of Fatima, created in 1947 and blessed by Pope Pius XII. My good friend Jim Nourse took this picture when the statue visited St. John's Cathedral in Boise in May of 2007.

My little chant group is currently studying Tota Pulchra Est, a beautiful hymn appropriate for today. Here is a chorus of men singing the version we are working on. Unfortunately, the quality of the sound is not good, and the words do not match the text, which is reproduced below in Latin and in English; but it's the only version of this particular melody that I could find.



Latin

Tota Pulchra es, O Maria, tota pulchra es,
Et macula non est in te.
Quam speciosa, quam suavis in deliciis
Conceptio illibata!

Chorus:
Veni, veni de Libano, veni, veni de Libano, veni, veni, coronaberis.

Tu progrederis ut aurora valde rutilans,
Affers gaudia salutis.
Per te ortus est Christus Deus, sol justitiae,
O fulgida porta lucis. Chorus

Sicut lilium inter spinas: inter filias
sic tu Virgo benedicta.
Tuum refulget vestimentum ut nix candidum,
Sicut sol facies tua. Chorus

In te spes vitae et virtutis, omnis gratia
Et viae et veritatis.
Post te curremus in odorem suavissimum
Trahentium unguentorum. Chorus

Hortus conclusus, fons signatus, Dei Genitrix,
Et gratiae paradisus;
Imber abiit et recessit, hiems transiit,
Jam flores apparuerunt. Chorus

In terra nostra, vox audita, vox dulcissima:
Vox turturis, vox columbae.
Assume pennas, O Columba formosissima!
Surge, propera et veni. Chorus

English

All fair art thou, O Mary, all fair art thou,
And stain does not exist in thee.
How lovely, how sweet in its delights,
Thy conception unstained.

Chorus:
Come, come from Lebannon,
Come, come from Lebannon,
Come, come, thou shalt be crowned!

Thou goest forth like the dawn exceedingly rose-colored,
Thou bringest the joys of salvation,
Through thee risen is Christ our God, the sun of Justice,
O gleaming portal of light. (Chorus)

Like a lily amidst brambles; among the daughters
So are thou, O Virgin blest.
Thy shining raiment like snow is white,
Even as the sun is the face of thee. (Chorus)

In thee is hope of life and virtue, all the grace
Both of our way and of the truth.
After thee we shall run unto the fragrance most sweet
Of thy attractive ointments. (Chorus)

A garden enclosed, a fountain sealed, God's Mother:
And of grace a paradise;
The rain is over and gone, winter is past,
Now flowers have appeared. (Chorus)

In this land of ours, a voice is heard, a voice most sweet,
The voice of the turtledove, the voice of the dove,
Take flight, O fairest Dove!
Arise in haste and come! (Chorus)

Herewith another, and very beautiful version of Tota Pulchra Est, composed by Ola Gjeilo.

St. Philomena: Not Dumb to Pray to Her, After All

St. Philomena is unique among the saints: she is the only one who is venerated solely on account of the proliferation of miracles attributed to her intercession.

In 1802, a tomb containing the remains of a young girl and a glass vessel was discovered in the Catacombs of St. Priscilla in Rome. The tombstones -- found in jumbled order -- contained the inscription "PAX TECUM FILUMENA" and representations of arrows and a palm, a symbol of martyrdom. The glass vessel, thought to have contained the girl's blood, was also a sign of martyrdom. A cultus sprang up, rich in miracles, and the relics were translated to the Sanctuary of Mugnano del Cardinale in 1805. Public devotion to St. Philomena was first authorized by Pope Gregory XVI in 1837. One of her greatests devotees, largely responsible for spreading devotion to her, was the Cure of Ars himself, who built a chapel in her honor and attributed to her intercession many of the miracles otherwise attributed to his.

A century later, however, doubts sprang up about the autenticity of St. Philomena. An archaeologist examining her tomb came to the conclusion that the tombstones had been re-used, and that the tomb had been opened and then re-sealed. Despite the approbation of Philomena's cultus by a succession of Popes, she was removed from the liturgical calendar in 1961, during the reign of Bl. John XXIII. In 2001, she was omitted from the revised Roman Martyrology. However, she has not been stricken from the rolls of the saints, and popular devotion to her continues.

And is apparently justified by the evidence. In an attempt to resolve the Philomena controversy once and for all, Msgr. Giovanni Braschi, rector of the Sanctuary of Mugnano del Cardinale, commissioned a scientific study. The findings, which were announced in 2005, were, in sum:

-- St. Philomena's tombstones were not re-used.

-- St. Philomena's tomb actually dates back to the beginning of the third century, placing her earlier than was previously thought.

-- The glass vessel found in her tomb contained not only blood, but also a fragment of bone, indicating that the saint did indeed die a violent death.

Bottom line: the many popes who approved her cultus, the many saints and blesseds who witnessed to the power of her intercession, and the many faithful who had a devotion to her, were RIGHT.

Keep praying to St. Philomena!

H/T The Hermeneutic of Continuity via WDTPRS.

August 11th: St. Alexander the Charcoal Burner

My job requires me to interact closely with a lot of people, many of whom are...well...dirty and smelly. So when I took a look at the saints for today, I was struck by the story of St. Alexander the Charcoal Burner, who was known for being exceptionally filthy.

St. Alexander was a good-looking and highly learned young man of the mid-3rd century who converted to Christianity. In order to separate himself completely from his pagan roots, hide from the world and escape the occasions of sin, Alexander moved away from home to the town of Comana in Pontus, Asia Minor, and worked as a charcoal-burner. He was looked upon as being of no account because of his lowly occupation, which earned him just enough to eke out a meager living, and because he was always ragged and dirty.

Meanwhile, the Christians of Comana arrived at the point where they needed a bishop, so they appealed to St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, Bishop of Neocaesarea, to send them a shepherd. St. Gregory came to Comana and advised the people to choose as their bishop a man of virtue, regardless of outward appearances. The worldly-minded townspeople laughingly brought forward ragged Alexander as a candidate for the bishopric. Alexander tried unsuccessfully to get out of being chosen, but St. Gregory, seeing through the dirt and the rags, ordered Alexander to be bathed and clothed in Gregory's own episcopal robes. He made a good and wise bishop, beloved by his flock, and was martyred during the persecutions of Diocletian in 275.

May St. Alexander the Charcoal Burner intercede on behalf of me and all my clients, and obtain for us cleanliness of heart (if not of body).

Hymn in Praise of St. Alexander the Charcoal Burner

Men look upon clothes and the face,
But God looks at the soul and the heart.
Glorious Alexander, a charcoal-burner, was,
With the charcoal-burner, the body is blackened
And from soot, which water cleanses,
In the sinner, the heart is darkened
Which only the fire of faith can cleanse
The fire of faith and the cry of repentance.
It is easier to cleanse the skin of a charcoal-burner
Than the blackened heart of a sinner.
Alexander, with humility, covered
In a cave concealed, as a hidden flame
For laughter, to the gullible world, he was.
The world did not see; Gregory saw,
With an acute spirit, the charcoal-burner discerned
And in him, found a saint,
In the dark cave, a beautiful flame,
Beneath the mask of insanity, great wisdom,
Beneath the dirty soot, a pure heart,
A royal soul in decayed rags.
That the light be hidden, the Lord does not permit,
At the appropriate time, the light proclaims,
For the benefit and salvation of men.
All is wonderful, what God judges.