The Church’s Glorious Crown

All Saints Day 2025
By instituting this Holy Day of Obligation, Pope Urban IV wished to supply for any deficiencies in the honor offered to the saints throughout the year.  Christ the King, Who has made all the saints, is celebrated immediately before the Church Triumphant.  This beautiful Mass is like entering the courts of Heaven.  The Epistle for this Mass is frightening, but those who strive to follow God throughout their lives have nothing to fear.  The eight beatitudes are the qualities of those who truly love Our Lord.  We have them inscribed on the walls of the chapel along with many statues of the saints to inspire and encourage us.  On this day, we participate in the Communion of Saints by praying to our friends in Heaven.  Our struggles in this life only last a moment, and they will be replaced by the rewards of a joyful eternity.
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We Will Serve!

Feast of Saint Michael 2025
This feast was originally celebrated in honor of St. Michael and all the angels.  We do not know the details of the test given to the angels, but we know that St. Michael stood as “First Champion of the Kingdom of Christ” in opposition to Lucifer’s rebellion.  Today we remember the dedication of a place of worship.  How fitting this is for the Archangel who chose to serve God at His altar.  During the Requiem Mass, we call upon St. Michael to carry our souls to Heaven after death.  In the Epistle of this Mass, we are given a glimpse of Heaven and the future.  We are told that the angels serve as God’s messengers, but more importantly, they remain before Him, praising Him for all eternity.  In the final days, St Michael will wage a battle against the Antichrist.  The Prince of the Heavenly Hosts will cast the Dragon into Hell in the end.
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No Longer Slaves of the World

9th Sunday after Pentecost 2025
When St. Lawrence was commanded to turn over all the treasures of the Church to the Roman rulers, the holy deacon brought all the poor among the Christian faithful before the Roman prefect. St. Lawrence desired to show them that the true treasures of the Church are to be found in the poor and humble. He was martyred by being burned alive, and his heroic endurance of this torture showed his complete union with Christ in prayer.

The theme of the Epistle for this Mass is conversion of life. St. Paul reminds the Corinthians not to fall back into sin, particularly sins of the flesh. He uses examples from the Old Testament to warn us about the punishments in store for those who turn away from God. Although, as Christians we remain ever hopeful, let us never presume we are safe in our spiritual life. Souls holier than we have fallen.
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No Longer Servants But Friends

Feast of Saints Peter & Paul 2025

Priestly Ordinations

During the ordination ceremony, it is as if Heaven is opening as our Divine Savior unites with the ordinands and fuses them to His priestly Nature.  From that moment, the new priests are able to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, to renew all the divine mysteries of the Faith through the liturgy, to forgive sin, to govern, to teach, to baptize, to bring souls to Heaven.  The priest is called Father because he provides life to the people and spiritually nourishes them.  The Laity should look at the priest and see the likeness of Christ.  By the physical transformation of the soul through Holy Orders, for all eternity, the priest is now a relative – a brother – of Our Lord.
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The Support of the Church

4th Sunday after Easter 2025

The Church would not be able to distribute its spiritual blessings to us without our support.  A Mass stipend is not a payment for the Mass, but merely a gesture of gratitude and a donation for the daily sustenance of the priest.

This week we recall the lives of Saints Bernadine of Siena and Rita of Cascia.  St. Bernadine fought tirelessly against the vice of gambling, as well as witchcraft and sins of impurity, while St. Rita lived a life of heroic virtue as a wife, mother, widow, and Augustinian nun.  She is the saint invoked for impossible causes.

In the Epistle for today’s Mass, St. James speaks of the source of our consolation and reminds us that we are the greatest creation of the Holy Trinity.  We must remain pure and meek as we cast out all evil from our lives.
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Necessary Obedience

3rd Sunday after Easter 2025

On Mother’s Day we must call to mind the Mother of all of us – the Blessed Mother.  From the instant of the Immaculate Conception, she loved the Blessed Trinity more than all the angels and saints, and that love and holiness increased every moment of her life.

Today, on their feast day, we must recall the details of the lives of the great Saints and Apostles Philip and James.

We cannot be saved without the virtue of obedience. We must first of all be obedient to the will of God and to true principles. This is a time of great joy for all Catholics, because we spend this time in the company of the risen Christ.
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The Protector of His People

Feast of St. Joseph 2025
We have absolute confidence in our Father, St. Joseph, and we know that he will protect his people just as he protected the Holy Family.  The devotion to St. Joseph has been practiced from the early days of the Church, and later St. Pius V established the feast day more permanently.  He helped facilitate the Incarnation, and because of this he is tied closely to the Hypostatic Union.  We see in him an example of the semi-contemplative life of prayer and work.  His heart always remained in Heaven, even in the busyness of his profession.  St. Joseph is the greatest of all the saints, after the Virgin Mary.  He is the Protector of the Holy Church and patron of the dying.  The saints tell us that there is nothing that he cannot obtain for us if we ask.
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Our Day of Celebration

All Saints Day 2024 – Evening
This is the feast day on which our heavenly victory will be celebrated one day.  Many of us personally know saints in Heaven – the baptized infants who have died.  The sign which marks the saved on their forehead is that sign given to us in Baptism.  Every time we come to Mass the liturgy is training us how to get to Heaven.  We can see this in the word “labor,” which is sung over a long melisma during the Mass.  This is to encourage us to persevere with diligence in this life.  A priest, who lived near a religious community dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, once remarked how often he was called to give a dying religious Extreme Unction on Friday nights.  There is little doubt that this was because Our Lady desired to take them to Heaven on Saturday, the day dedicated to her.
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Your Steps To Sanctity

All Saints Day 2024
This feast has a twofold purpose: firstly, to give honor to all the saints, especially those unknown saints in Heaven; and secondly, to remind us of our ultimate goal.  We are given great encouragement to follow their example in the pursuit of holiness, knowing that if they could achieve sanctity in this life, so can we.  Our Lord began His public teaching with His instruction on the beatitudes – the summit of Christian perfection.  Like a fruit that has not yet ripened, the practice of virtue in its early stages is hard, bitter, and distasteful, but with continual practice virtue ripens into the Fruits of the Holy Ghost, which make the service of God sweet, easy, and enjoyable.  If we steadfastly follow the example of the saints, this will be our feast as well someday.
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St. Francis’ Knowledge and God’s ‘Little Ones’

1st Friday Conference, October 2024
St. Francis of Assisi is greatly misunderstood and mistakenly viewed as the saint of the ecologists.  He composed a poem, which he gave to the members of his order, and this “Song of the Sun” demonstrates St. Francis’ love of nature – not for its own sake but because of its Creator.  The gift of knowledge gives one a better appreciation of God’s attributes through the beauty of the natural world.  This makes us desire the happiness of Heaven and earnestly pray that we may possess it.

The hallmark of the life of St. Therese of Lisieux is the doctrine of spiritual childhood.  In the Gospels, Our Lord not only spoke of the necessity of spiritual childhood for salvation, but warned against giving scandal to the innocent “little ones.”  St. Therese made the appreciation of her helplessness and complete trust in God the foundation of her spiritual life.  She spent her life doing little things with great love, and if we do the same, we too will be safe.
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