Prayer Is The Answer

Dedication of the Basilica of Our Savior 2025

Pope St. Martin I is the pope for our times.  He chose to endure the greatest indignities and even martyrdom rather than compromise with the enemies of the Church.

Catholic parents will pay a heavy price if they do not train their children to pray for the Holy Souls in Purgatory.  Prayer is the remedy that we have all been prescribed.  “It is a good and wholesome thought to pray for the dead,” this is the instruction we receive right from God’s mouth.  Despite the title of “Co-redemptrix” being attacked, holy popes like St. Pius X promoted this appellation of the Blessed Mother without hesitation.  The Basilica of Our Savior was the very first church to be consecrated 1,701 years ago.  This church is considered the Mother Church of the world.  Every stone which makes up the church represents each practicing Catholic.  All the persecution which led to this day of triumph was worth it.
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Thou Art Just, O Lord

Sermon From
17th Sunday After Pentecost 2025
The people of the world do not care for our eternal welfare.  If only one of us hears the message of Our Lord and takes it to heart, he will lift up everyone with him.  At this Mass we ask that God protect us from the defilements of the devil.  When we fall into sin the two consequences are guilt and punishment.  We are freed from guilt through the sacrament of Penance.  The debt of punishment may be removed through good works such as prayer, alms, fasting, as well as the indulgences granted by the Church.  We ask God to help us despise the things of this Earth, so we may rejoice in His heavenly gifts.  We must pray for the enemies of Christ especially during the month dedicated to the Holy Rosary.
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The Doctrine of Indulgences

Conference – September 2025

When we commit a sin, we accrue the debt of guilt as well as the debt of punishment.  The guilt may be removed through the sacrament of Penance or perfect contrition.  For those sins forgiven but not yet satisfied, God’s justice demands that the debt of punishment must be removed through the sufferings of Purgatory after death.  However, we may also remove this temporal punishment through the sacraments as well as the application of indulgences.  Indulgences are not an invention of the Church, but rather the application of the Power of the Keys.  An indulgence is the extra-sacramental removal of temporal punishment for sins already forgiven.  They are based on the economy of salvation, which includes the infinite merits of Our Lord’s sacrifice on the Cross, the superabundant merits of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the merits of the saints.  Plenary indulgences remit the entire debt of punishment, while partial indulgences remit only part of the temporal punishment due to sin.  The origin of the practice of indulgences demonstrates how close we are to one another and how we may assist our neighbor through our meritorious works.  How beautiful it is that we may bear each other’s burdens in this way.
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The Holy Family Provides

Feast of the Holy Family 2025
The Blessed Mother kept the mysteries of Our Lord’s life in her heart, and we should invoke her help whenever we meditate on those mysteries.  Holy Scripture shows St. Joseph to be the clear head of the Holy Family, not by his words but by his actions.  The event recorded in the Gospel took place when Christ was twelve years old, at the time when He became a “Son of the Law.”  By His words Christ makes it evident to the whole world that He knew He was God at every moment of His life.  St. Paul tells us in his Epistle the virtues of the Holy Family which we must imitate and use in examining our consciences.  The father is the head of the family and must be the example of the virtue of religion.  The mother is the heart of the family, who keeps all the spiritual and material needs of the children in her heart.  God has given us parents to assist us in attaining Heaven, and children are called to submit to their parents in holy obedience.  Nothing bad will ever happen to us but that which our loving Father allows.
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How We Save the World

20th Sunday after Pentecost 2024
Rosary Conference – There are many sacramentals used by the Church, but none seem to be as favored by Our Lady as the Dominican Rosary.  It is a prayer to Our Lord with the Virgin Mary, and after the Holy Mass and Divine Office, it is the most powerful prayer a Catholic can make.  There is no request that is beyond its power.  In this world of secularism, religious indifference, and apostasy, we have one thing left – the Holy Rosary.  It originated as a replacement for the psalms for certain illiterate monks in the monasteries and was later used to assist the preaching of St. Dominic.  This spiritual weapon has led to many military victories throughout Church history.  It supplies in some way for what the faithful of today are being deprived of in the liturgy.  The Rosary offers lessons in the practice of virtue, helps us forget our fears and troubles as we are plunged into the Divine Heart of Christ, and disposes us to receive the gift of passive, infused contemplation.
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Pray For Their Rest

All Souls Day 2023
The Mass of the dead is really the Mass of life.  Virtually nobody prays for the dead, which is a great injustice.  Although Purgatory is not formally denied, it is simply never mentioned.  We must pray for the priests and religious who held fast to the true traditions of our Faith, and all the faithful who were buried from our Chapel.  When we die, we are incapable of making any more choices, and are unable to merit or demerit.  Nothing sullied can be in the presence of God, and the justice of God demands that we make up for our sins.  Few people in this life make satisfaction for their temporal punishment so God in his mercy offers them Purgatory.  It is a place of great joy and great longing.  God has ennobled our prayers so that what we pray can affect our neighbor.  God will grant mercy to the Holy Souls on the condition that we ask.
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Our Hand In Hers

First Friday October 2023
There have been many sacramentals in honor of the Blessed Virgin, but the Dominican Rosary seems to be favored above all others.  The Rosary is the sign of a true Catholic.  It is a beautiful prayer, but it is difficult and is often neglected because it requires effort.  The Rosary is particularly a gift for our modern times because it is a weapon against secularism, religious indifferentism, and the other heresies which abound.  It disposes a person for infused contemplation.  This is what we pray for when we ask that we “may imitate what [the mysteries of the Rosary] contain and obtain what they promise.”
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Lent Is A Season Of Joy

Ash Wednesday 2022
Septuagesima season has prepared us for this time of removing sin from our lives.  This should comfort us as we begin this time of penance.  When examining our conscience we should not look at self but at Our Lord crucified to realize the effects of our evil on Him.  Lent is the bond of unity in the Church when we all struggle together. By  Penance we understand different things.  It is the sacrament, a moral virtue and the acts flowing from it.  Ashes are given today because they are one of the three major sacramentals in the Church and remind us powerfully of death which is the consequence of Adam’s sin.  Finally, practical suggestions are given to help us choose and practice spiritual exercises which will make Lent truly beneficial for us.
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Remember Death

All Souls Day, Evening 2021
The ancient pagan art in Rome often had death as its theme.  We too should meditate on death but Christianize it by seeing the goal as God in heaven.  Some of our brethren have not achieved the goal yet and are in Purgatory.  We can assist them by praying for them and teaching others, especially our children, to pray for them.  By taking a moment to help the Holy Souls we will be gaining friends for eternity.
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All Souls Day Conference

All Souls Day 2021
Having a day to pray for the souls of the faithful departed began in the monasteries where the deceased monks were remembered in Masses, the Divine Office and by reciting 150 Our Fathers.  Souls in Purgatory are often permitted to visit family, friends and the altars where they assisted at Mass.  At death a person’s soul leaves his body and is judged instantly.  His decision at that time can never change because without his body to provide new information the soul’s choice at the moment of death is irrevocable.  Those in grace but not yet perfect are purified in Purgatory where the fires purify their souls by humbling their pride.  There is peace and joy there also because the Holy Souls know that they are saved and will see God.  We should pray, fast and give alms to assist them.
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