Archbishop Burke offers 1st Tridentine High Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica in 40 years

Wonderful news!

Archbishop Raymond Burke, prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, has offered the first solemn High Mass in the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite in St. Peter’s Basilica since the promulgation of the ordinary form four decades ago. The Pontifical Mass took place in the Chapel of the Most Holy Sacrament...

Read more at Catholic Culture here

Story of the First Weekly TLM in Fitchburg, Massachusetts

The first weekly Mass in the Extraordinary Form (Traditional Latin Mass) at Immaculate Conception Church in Fitchburg was held on Sunday, June 28^th.  The Missa Cantata was very well attended by people of all ages.  The superb acoustics in the large  Romanesque Church accentuated the Latin prayers intoned by the celebrant, Reverend Father David Phillipson, as well as the traditional Gregorian chants and motets sung by the choir directed by Sam Schmitt, an organist, singer, conductor and composer who holds a Doctorate in musicology and other graduate degrees in liturgical music and music history.   The seven altar boys in attendance added much to the reverent and transcendent atmosphere of the Solemn Liturgy: the incense from the thurible, the candlelight from the torches carried by the boys, and the sound of the bells rung at key points.

 

The following impressions from one of the attendees are typical of the responses expressed:

 

        "I think it's fair to call this the beginning of the restoration of the immemorial Holy Mass codified by St. Pius V to the church of the Immaculate Conception. I'm glad to say that our (my family's) hopes were high, but we were entirely unprepared for the palpably sacred ambience that persisted in the church throughout the sacred liturgy and  which accompanied us right out the door and into the church hall (where I spent most of my time talking about the Mass, I think). It brought back a flood of memories of the best days I'd seen when I was a boy and the blessed years we had the privilege of going to Mass at Holy Trinity in Boston (where our two girls were baptized). I had the distinct impression that Father, the altar servers, and the choir were actually praying (not acting out roles) as they solemnly carried out their offices with unaffected reverence. I trust that everyone could plainly see how beautiful the church is with its French blue and gold, especially in the magnificent statue of Our Lady, and the organ filling every corner, at times with sounds of reflection, at others with those of majesty; but even now when I recall the ensemble of those impressions, I'm overwhelmed.  I think one cannot really overestimate the beguiling power of the truly sacred.

    "My family thanks you and all those who worked so long, so hard, and with such loving devotion to bring the truly extraordinary Holy Mass back to Immaculate Conception Church.  May Our Lord and His holy Mother and ours bless you abundantly with their most excellent graces here on Earth and forever in Heaven. 

With gratitude in Jesus and Mary, John and Connie Mick and family."

 

All are invited to experience worship in this Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite which will be offered every Sunday at 8AM as a Sung High Mass when possible (or else as a Low Mass).   The Sacrament of Confession takes place before the Mass from 7:15 to 7:50AM, and the Rosary is recited at 7:30AM.    For more information, visit the website which is under construction at www.immaculateconceptionfitchburg.com.   

 

Father David Phillipson was trained to offer the Ancient Roman Rite by the Fraternity of St. Peter and has worked in traditional parishes for several years.  Father will also hold spiritual conferences and traditional devotions, and administer the Sacraments according to the Extraordinary Form.  "Together with the Latin Mass Community, I wish to thank Bishop McManus and Father Thien for making available the celebration of Mass in the Ancient Rite in this beautiful Church.  I look forward to serving the community and invite all to attend and experience Mass in the Ancient Usage.  I am happy to help anyone to learn to follow the missal or to answer any questions they may have.  Any priests who would like assistance in learning this rite are welcome to contact me:  frdavidphil4@gmail.com."

 

Contributions to help with the start up costs for this endeavor are very welcome and may be sent to the Church at 59 Walnut Street in Fitchburg 01420.  Please make your tax deductible donation to Immaculate Conception Church EF  (EF designating the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite).

 

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Submitted by (and a Special Thanks to) Todd Tabbaa of Leominster, MA

Vatican decree lifts excommunication of SSPX bishops

Vatican, Jan. 24, 2009 (CWNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) has lifted the excommunications of the bishops who lead the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X (SSPX).

In a decree dated January 21, and released to the public on January 24, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re (bio - news), the prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, announces that the excommunications imposed on July 1, 1988-- after the four bishops were ordained by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in defiance of Vatican orders-- are no longer in effect....

Warriors with Our Eyes Fixed on Heaven (Bishop Finn's Column)

Last Saturday I had the privilege of consecrating the restored church of Old St. Patrick. This is the oldest existing Catholic church in Kansas City. It will serve as the Oratory for the Latin Mass community which first began here under Bishop John Sullivan, and for many years has shared the parish of Our Lady of Sorrows.

One of the beauties of the Traditional Latin High Mass that I celebrated is that it highlights a most profound aspect of the Mass, namely our participation with the Communion of Saints.

The high altar, multiple candles, incense and Gregorian chant, collectively give us a striking image of the Heavenly Jerusalem which is our ultimate home. Every Mass celebrates this reality, but I must admit that the traditional Mass captured this magnificent expression of the ultimate hope and goal of Christians in a powerful way. We should reflect on this often, because the ultimate goal of everything we do is to get ourselves to heaven and bring with us as many as we can....

...let us resolve to be warriors of the Church militant; warriors with our eyes fixed on heaven. Let us ask God's mercy and strength to persevere in our call - individual and collective - to holiness. Mary, Mother of the Church, Pray for us!

Our Lady of Ransom

I thought I would share something I received this evening from CatholicCulture:

Sometimes I'm genuinely astonished by the richness of the resources on CatholicCulture.org, particularly by the ways these resources deepen our understanding of the Catholic tradition.

For example, in looking at our liturgical year materials for this week, I note that in the old calendar, tomorrow is the feast of Our Lady of Ransom. Take a look: This has to do with a Marian apparition about freeing Christian captives from the Moors.

Also, a new addition to our library reinforces our understanding of Catholic architecture. Back in 1925, Fr. P. F. McCaffrey, OCC wrote an excellent essay on this often-overlooked subject, covering the period from from the beginning through the flowering of the Gothic. We have it for you: The Development of Christian Architecture.

Or how about going back to the Missal of 1962 to deepen our understanding of the sacred liturgy? A new web site, just reviewed, provides excellent resources for those who wish to learn how to celebrate the extraordinary form of the Roman rite, or simply to grow in appreciation for the mysteries of the Mass: Sancta Missa.

Then there's St. Paul. You may have forgotten this year is devoted to the Apostle to the Gentiles. If you haven't yet taken advantage of the opportunity to learn more about Paul and the apostolic tradition, you can do so now by reviewing a new Fides dossier: Saint Paul: The Greatest Missionary of All Times.

For your reading pleasure - enjoy!

Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost, The Wedding Garment

By The Rev. H. G. Hughes
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"Friend, how camest thou in hither, not having on a wedding garment?" - Matt. xxii, 12.

Dear Brethren in Jesus Christ. - The parable which we have just heard read in the Holy Gospel for today, and from which my text is taken, is one of those which our divine Saviour spoke on the closing day of His public teaching.

Early in the morning of that day, which was the Tuesday in Holy Week, He had gone forth to preach for the last time in the Temple at Jerusalem. He went there to offer to the hard hearts' of the priests and rulers, the Scribes and Pharisees, one more opportunity of repentance and conversion. He went there to utter His last words of warning against the terrible act of Apostasy they were soon about to commit in rejecting Him, their King and their Lord, who was ready, if they willed it, to be their Saviour also.

This "parable" of the wedding of the king's son is one of those warning words which Divine love drew from our blessed Lord that day; and though it was spoken so long ago to the Scribes and Pharisees, and the people of the Jews, it has, nevertheless, like every word that fell from those sacred lips, lessons of the highest import for us today, and for the men of all times. Some of these lessons, with the help of God, we will briefly consider.

"The Kingdom of Heaven," our Lord said, "is likened to a king, who made a marriage," that is to say a marriage, a feast, for his son. That kingdom which is here likened to a marriage feast, is Christ's holy Catholic Church, which He came on earth to found, and of which He said, " My Kingdom is not of this world"; for though the Church of God is in the world, it is not of the world.

The king who made the marriage feast for his son is the Eternal God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, King and Lord of heaven and earth. The marriage, as St. Gregory the Great tells us, is that union of the Only-begotten Son of God with His immaculate bride, the holy Church, which He entered into by means of the Incarnation. To the marriage feast of the good things plentifully set out in His Church, God first invited His own chosen people, the Jews; sending to them His servants, the prophets of old. But "they refused" and "would not come." Afterwards, when the King's Son Himself had come, had lived and died, had set up His Kingdom the Church, and made ready therein the feast of the Gospel blessings, the invitation was repeated to them by the Apostles and Apostolic men; and these are those other servants of whom we read "and again He sent other servants, saying, 'All things are now ready; come ye to the marriage.'" "Twice," says St. Gregory, "did the King send His servants to invite by the prophets the Incarnation of His Son, and announcing it by the Apostles after it had come to pass."

How, then, did the subjects of the King receive His royal invitation? With nothing else than ungrateful and rebellious contempt. Ungrateful because of the benefits He wished to bestow upon them; rebellious, because an invitation from the King was nothing less than a command. As the holy Gospel describes it, "They went their ways; one to his farm, another to his merchandise." Others even carried their rebellion so far as to ill-use and put to death the servants of the royal household who came to bid them to the marriage. By this figure our blessed Lord describes the death which some of the prophets had undergone at the hands of the perfidious children of Israel~ meriting His sad rebuke, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent to thee, how often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest not." By this also He foretold the martyrs' death that so many of His Apostles and disciples were afterwards to meet with at the hands of the same unfaithful and unbelieving generation. "But when the King heard of it, He was angry; and sending his armies, He destroyed those murderers, and burnt their city.'" Even so Jerusalem, that fair and favored city of God, whose beauty had moved the Son of Man to tears, not many years after was utterly overthrown by the Roman armies; and thus was fulfilled the warning of our Lord, and the curse which its inhabitants had called down on their own heads: "His Blood be upon us and upon our children."

Coming back to the parable, we read that the King next sent His servants into the highways to call to the marriage as many as they should find; and they gathered together all they found, and in this way the marriage was filled with guests. The goodness and generosity of God are not foiled; though the chosen people have rejected His word, and, as St. Paul and St. Barnabas declared to the Jews of Antioch, judging themselves unworthy of eternal life, have been cast .out, the servants of the King have gone out into the highways of the world, and have preached the Gospel to every nation, and the Gentiles have been gathered into God's holy Church. The invitation of the King has come to us, and, thank God, we have accepted it. We have entered, by God's mercy we have been brought, into His Church, to take part in the marriage feast of God's Son; to participate in the good things there only to be found-the Holy Mass, the Seven Sacraments, the Word of Salvation,. the intercession and patronage of the holy Mother of God and of the Blessed with whom we are united in the Communion of Saints, and all the other means of grace and of blessing so abundantly poured out upon us in the holy Catholic Church.

There are still, alas, many who will not come to this marriage feast, although the invitation is constantly repeated to them by the Gospel messengers, the ministers of God's Church, not once or twice, but many times, "Come, for all things are now ready; come ye to the marriage." But "they neglect, and go their ways, to their merchandise, or to their farm"; they will not even listen, but remain outside the church in the exterior darkness of heresy, indifference, or unbelief. It seems strange to us, who know the force of the claims of the Catholic Church, that men can refuse their assent to her authority and her teaching. It is all so plain to us. Sometimes we get discouraged and wonder whether it is any good going on, with our efforts to bring the Church before our countrymen; whether it were not better to concentrate our endeavors upon the perfection of our own organization and the increased effectiveness of our work among Catholics. But the Church of Christ is and must be a missionary Church. Christ has said to lIer: "Go, teach all nations; preach the Gospel to every creature."

If we neglect this work, our own interior organization and the effectiveness of our work among our own people must suffer. Yet at times we are apt to be discouraged at the poor reception which our missionary efforts meet with. And the worst, most chilling element in that reception comes from the utter indifference to all religious truth and sentiment which is so widespread in the modem world, and especially in countries like our own where the great Protestant tradition gained a footing, and has logically led to religious indifference and free thought, so that the "farm" and the "merchandise," worldly things and worldly objects of ambition, wealth, position, enjoyment, success in business, occupy entirely" the thoughts and the hopes of so many. But we must not despair, and we must not slacken our efforts. Still the King sends out His messengers, and in the highways and byways, in the most unexpected places, souls are touched by God's grace, and hear the invitation, and accept, and come in to the marriage feast of the Church. It is for us, by our own faithful Catholic lives, by example at all times, by a word in season where opportunity offers, by showing to the world and forcing the world to realize the high value of Christian Catholic ideals and principles in citizenship, to work towards the breaking down of that fatal indifference and so-called liberality in questions of morality and religion which is so great a bar to the acceptance of the Catholic faith of Jesus Christ. Then, in God's good time, our efforts, our prayers, our sacrifices "and our good example shall be crowned with success, and "the marriage shall be full of guests."

But have we Catholics nothing to learn from this parable concerning ourselves; is there no warning for us who by God's great mercy have been brought in to the marriage feast of God's Son? Indeed, it is not so. There is a warning in this parable, and a terrible warning for us; and should we fail to heed it, we shall find ourselves in a worse plight even than those who have refused to enter in to the feast.

For we read, at the end of the parable, how the King went in to see the guests, and He found there a man who had not on a wedding garment. Giving him an opportunity to explain his negligence, the King said to him, "Friend, how camest thou in hither, not having on a wedding garment?" But he was silent.
It is a well-known custom in Eastern countries, even at the present day, for the giver of a banquet, especially if he be a prince, or a man of high rank, to send to the invited guests rich and splendid robes, which they are expected to wear at the feast. Not to wear them would be a serious insult to the host. It is related by a modem traveler that a courtier invited to a banquet by the Sultan of one of those Eastern lands, having in some way offended the steward who had the distribution of the robes of state, that officer sent him only a plain black garment which the guest refused to wear, fearing that it would be taken by the others as a sign that he was in disgrace at court. The Sultan, coming in and seeing him without the customary garb, took it as a personal insult, and not giving any opportunity of explanation as did the king in the parable, condemned the unhappy guest to death. The sentence was, in fact, carried out. This incident explains what we read in the parable: The King said to the waiters, 'Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into exterior darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Brethren, it is not enough that we have been invited; it is not enough that we have accepted the invitation. We must have on the wedding garment, the garment which consists of sanctifying grace and the Christian virtues. For the King is coming to see the guests, and this word "see" means in the original language more than a passing glance; it signifies an inspection, a close and searching examination. Each of us must undergo that examination; indeed, it is going on now; for by trials and temptations we are constantly being proved, and the all-searching eye of God is ever fixed upon us to see how we carry ourselves-whether we resist or whether we give way, whether we show ourselves to be clothed with the garment of supernatural grace and virtue which He Himself has provided, or only in the poor threadbare garments of our fallen nature; whether, in a word, we have on the wedding garment of true, solid, Christian virtue, which is none else than the very character of our Lord and Saviour Himself-that character which the holy Apostle St. Paul speaks of when he says to us: "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh and its concupiscences" (Rom. xiii, 3).

And we "put on the Lord Jesus Christ" by imitating His virtues, each in our own measure and degree-His humility, His obedience, His patience, His resignation to the will of His heavenly Father, His detachment from the world, His meek and kind behavior to others, and, above all, His charity, His love of God and Man, without which all else is nothing worth.

It is for us to look into our own hearts and to find out, by the light of Christ's law laid down in the holy Gospels, and with the aid of Christ's holy Spirit which He will give to those who ask, whether we are living up to our privileges as Catholics, invited to the wedding feast of the King's Son, and especially whether we are practicing those virtues which belong to our particular state and condition in life. For it would be a great mistake to seek about after something heroic to do, while our daily duties are badly and imperfectly performed. All so-called piety, as St. Francis of Sales remarks, which does not lead to the better performance of our ordinary duties, is a delusion. This, therefore, is the first thing to be looked into, for when the King comes for the last time to inspect the guests, this is the wedding garment He will expect to find-the robe of grace woven in with virtues and the good works which the duties of each day give us the opportunity of performing.

If we are wanting in this, we also, like the guest in the Gospel, shall be silent before Him, we shall have no excuse to make, shame and confusion will make us dumb. It will not avail merely to have come in to the feast-that will be only for our greater shame and condemnation, and we shall be cast out for ever into the exterior darkness.

Take to yourselves, brethren, the warning words of our blessed Lord. Lose no time. Single out at once that fault, that sin which conscience tells you is the one that would most displease the King, should He come to see you now; which makes you, in the words of St. Jude, "a spot upon the banquet," and set to work to root it out without delay. When you have done this, or at least lessened the power of that fault over you, go on to attack another in the same way, and then a third, putting off thus, according to St. Paul's exhortation, "the old man who is corrupted according to the desires of error" and "putting on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth" (Eph. iv, 22 ss.).

Then, at the last and great visit of the King, when, surrounded by the hosts of angels and saints, He shall come to judge the world, you will be translated to that heavenly Banquet of which the angel in the Apocalypse declared, "Blessed are they that are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb…"
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Adapted from Plain Sermons by Practical Preachers, Vol. II(©1916)
Nihil Obstat: Remegius Lafort, S.T.D
Imprimatur: John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost (TLM), Our Individuality before God

By The Rev. T. J. Brennan, S.T.L.
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"And Jesus seeing their thoughts, said: Why do you think evil in your hearts?” - Matt. ix, 4.

My dear friends, the Gospel I have just read for you contains several lessons, this among others: that both we and our actions stand out distinctly in the sight of God. Numbers, however great, do not confuse Him; distance, however remote, does not dim His vision. Whether in the crowded city or in the trackless desert, we are known and noted, with everything that individualizes both ourselves and our conduct. Let us dwell on this thought for a moment.

You know it is very confusing to think of many individuals. The more acquaintances we have the less distinct are they in our minds. We all know, perhaps, twenty or thirty people well, as well as one human being can know another. We know a few hundred to talk with them socially, when we meet them, about the interests of life. And perhaps we know a few thousand by sight. Outside of these there are hundreds of millions living with us on the earth. We may speak of them as a body, yet to us they have no individuality. They are as undistinguished as the trees in the forest, or as the heads of corn in the field. They are always changing, the old ones departing, the young ones arriving; but to us the great mass always remains the same. If you add to these the millions and millions that were, the millions and millions that are to be, the thought becomes positively bewildering, the imagination refuses to act.

And yet every single one of those has a character, a history, an individuality of his own. We may, indeed, divide them off into races or generations, but that does not destroy their individuality. When we think, for example, of the English or Germans or Chinese we take certain types and multiply them by the number in these countries, and that is all. But that is a delusion. The type simply exists in books or in the imagination. When you come down to individuals there is only the faintest likeness to the type; the faintest likeness one to another. You may go into London with its millions, or into China with its hundreds of mi11ions, and there are no two exactly, or even approximately, alike, either in body or in spirit; in disposition or endowments; in passions, temptations or difficulties.

We can realize this best by considering and comparing those we know. Is there anyone among our acquaintances whom we can not distinguish "from another without the slightest difficulty? Even in the same family, born of the same parents and raised in the same surroundings, how easy to tell them apart! Well, it is the same among the mi11ions that now people or have peopled the earth. They are so many mi11ions of individuals; it is only because of our limited powers of apprehension and attention that we think of them as nations or races.

Now this limited power of attention influences us to our injury. For unconsciously we transfer these limitations to God also. We all indeed feel that God looks down on and regards the human race that he has created; that He knows the wants of humankind and sends the rain and the sunshine in season. But then, latent within us is the idea that just as the individual character and doings of the multitude are obscure and vague in our minds; so also that to the mind of God the individual is lost in the teeming mass that moves hither and thither on the face of the earth. Each one of us has the idea that we do not stand out distinctly before God clothed in our individual joys and sorrows, needs and temptations.

When we pray we have the idea that we are disadvantaged by the fact that we are but one among millions that are besieging the throne of God; when we sin or neglect our duties we shelter ourselves under the thought that our sin or neglect is lost in the multitudinous sins and negligences of the race; that though the race may have its prayers granted or its sins punished, yet that my individual prayer is too weak, my individual sin is too insignificant to be noticed by God. Hence we become careless in prayer and good works; we become unscrupulous in doing evil. This, I say, comes from transferring to God our limited power of apprehension and attention.

Now, my dear friends, to correct that evil we have only to remember what God is in Himself, to remember what He has told us about Himself. In the second lesson of the Catechism it is asked: "Does God know all things?" And the answer is: "God knows all things, even our most secret thoughts and actions." That is the simple statement of a truth which we ought to keep constantly in our minds. God being infinite in all things must be infinite in knowledge; there can be no place, no being in creation beyond His vision. To him there is no such thing as near and far off, because He is in all places equally; there is no such thing as clear and obscure, because His light shines on every work of His hands; there can be no such thing as attending well at one time, and attending carelessly at another time, like a child at school, because in Him there is no change nor shadow of alteration.

And however little we may understand it, yet it needs must be that each one of us must stand out individually, distinctly, in all our relations and characteristics before God. Supposing that only one human being existed in the world, and that he had been told, as we have been that God sees and knows all things, how he would have that as a guiding thought before him; how it would serve as an incentive to good, as a check to evil. Well, each one of us is seen and known by God as if no other existed; to imagine it otherwise would be to misunderstand the infinite character of God's knowledge and vision. The single blade of corn in the field receives its plenitude of sun; but not the less fully does it come to the waving millions that grow by its side. So is it with us. God sees the race; but He sees you and me, as if you and I were alone in the world. Reason tells us that it must be so.

Has not our Divine Lord told us the same thing? Nay, He tells us that even the little birds of the air, which flit about so numerously and seemingly so undistinguished, that even these are noted and numbered by the all-seeing eye of God. "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing; and not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father" (Matt. x, 29). He even goes farther, and says: "The very hairs of your head are numbered" (Matt. x, 30). Does not the same appear from the recent Gospel: "There met Him ten men that were lepers." He took pity on their sad condition and He healed them. Only one returned to give thanks. Which of the Apostles, which of the bystanders, do you think, could have told how many more ought to have returned? I doubt if any could.

But there was one who could and did: "Were not ten," He said, "made clean and where are the nine?" Which of those standing by could have told what was the nationality of him who came back to give thanks? Only He who knows all things: "There is no one found to return and give glory to God but this stranger." Number did not confuse Him; nationality did not escape Him; each one of the ten stood before Him marked and noted as if there were but one instead of ten.

That is what we must all remember, and that is what those nine forgot. Of the ten that were cured these nine said, each to himself: "I have indeed received a great favor; but there are nine others, and I leave it to them to return fitting thanks to our kind benefactor." Only one of the ten remembered that there was a personal obligation on himself, which no one only he could fulfill. He remembered the days of aching and sorrow through which he had passed; he remembered the prompt and kind answer of the Nazarene; so "he went back with a loud voice glorifying God; and he fell on his face before His feet giving thanks." It mattered not to him what the others did; his duty was plain and he did it.

And that should be always our principle: To remember that God deals with us individually; to remember our individual rc1ations with God. Neither the good nor the evil that we do is lost before God because of the amount of good or evil in the world. We may be one of ten, or we may be one of a hundred, or we may be one of millions, but we are always individualized in the sight of God. It must have been a revelation to the grateful Samaritan after returning to thank his benefactor to find that to such wonderful power: he added an equally wonderful knowledge: "Were not ten made clean and where are the nine? There is no one found to return and give glory to God except this stranger."
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Adapted from Plain Sermons by Practical Preachers, Vol. II(©1916)
Nihil Obstat: Remegius Lafort, S.T.D
Imprimatur: John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost (TLM), The Presence Of God

By The Rev. Joseph McSorley, C.S.P
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"That Christ may dwell by faith in your hearts." Epistle of the day.

It was the purpose of the Incarnation, dear brethren, to bring God and man together. Magnificently was that purpose fulfilled. Here, in this common world, a man among men, Christ dwelt visibly; He grew and labored, He spoke and suffered. A man among men, He was, at the same time, God among men. Forever, after the sight of Him, there was stamped upon the imagination of the race, an ineffaceable image of perfection. Twisted inextricably into the fibers of the human heart, were cords of strength, and patience, and supernatural holiness. God had come nearer than ever before; and, in consequence, man was to be for the rest of the centuries greater than ever before.

The history of Christian civilization demonstrates this, dear brethren. For all its gloom of shadow and its many streaks of blood, for all its disappointing blindness and hardness, for all its leaden-footed following of heroic leadership and its headlong rush into each new discovered path to fields of gluttony and of lust, -- for all this, Christian society, down through the ages, displays the ever present influence of a divine ideal. It shows the blending of God's thoughts and actions with those of men; it proves that Christ never left the race He undertook to save at any price, -- that He is among us in every time and place, that He is with us here and now.

The best that is recorded in the human story, the finest achievement of civilization, displays, like threads of gold, deeds of divine brightness warped through the dark woof of a carnal-minded race, and making an exquisite pattern of splendid beauty. In and around, up and down, through and about, are winded the shining threads; and to the watchful eye, they reveal the outline of a design fairer than aught the mind of man could imagine in an eternity.

It is a different world, since Christ came here, and a different life, love and marriage are ennobled; birth and death are glorified. The hard tasks that daily fall to labor's lot are softened and sanctified. The care of little ones, the training of the young, the pursuit of knowledge have become divine vocations; they are among the hallowed things that men and women reverence. We gather for common worship about a Sacrificial Altar, and a Table of Wonder, where Christ again is offered up to save from sin, and Christ's Body again is broken like bread for souls to feed upon. All through the ranks of the uncounted millions who have taken to themselves the livery of His name, there is recognized, now clearly and now dimly, yet universally recognized, an ideal of human relationship, which is peculiarly Christian. Bonded by some sort of indescribable fellowship, driven by an unnamed inspiration, men and women accept as an inevitable duty the burden of human service.

It is a conception that dawns gradually and in some respects spreads slowly; generations may deny it and individuals reject it; but in the end it makes itself felt as the necessary consequence of being a Christian. On it goes, widening, deepening the channel of human sympathies, until human love, made pure by the touch of Christ in passing, has flowed into the farthest, murkiest recesses of misery; and lepers, idiots, drunkards and criminals, who have been rescued, rise up and call Him blessed. Yes! it is scarcely to be denied by the patient historian, -- the social order of the Christian world is permeated, illumined, energized, by a force, a light, a power, which in some mysterious, inexplicable way, comes and goes with the coming and going of Christianity. It is the presence of Christ making itself felt in the world.

Though this indeed, has been done; though the traces of His passing are too plain to ignore; though the world is forever different and better now; still, in each individual life, the process of improvement must recommence again; and in many an individual life little yet has been done. What may be hoped for by each, is suggested in the prayer breathed by St. Paul, as he thinks of the needs of his dear Ephesians: "That Christ may dwell by faith in your hearts."

In these words, dear Brethren, St. Paul presents an ideal of what the life of the Christian ought to be. It should be a life spent with God. Every moment and each activity, all thought and endurance, all impulse and determination, the earning of one's daily bread, the strife against recurrent temptation, the grief at great bereavement, physical pain and sorrow and joy, strenuous fighting and exultant victory, tender communion and stern performance of heart-breaking duties, -- none of all these is apart from God. Into the grand harmony of the Christian's whole life, must be introduced the music of Christ's participation, divinely beautiful, strengthening, dominating. In nothing that he does can the Christian be quite as other men.

The fulfillment of this ideal of constant communion and harmonious cooperation with the Divine Presence, dear brethren, is a gift of God; it depends upon a generous grace of His, which we can never do enough to deserve. But it implies another element, too; for the bestowing of the gift is conditioned by the attitude we assume and the response we make. This aspect of the matter needs to be considered very carefully. What is the proper attitude for us to assume, when God draws near? What can be done? What must we do?

St. Paul has hinted the answer in one word of his: "faith." We should have faith. And faith is a gift which we must stretch out our hands to receive; it approaches, like a divine guest whom we must go forth to meet, and strive heartily to entertain. Faith is at the beginning of holiness. It is the root, indispensable to the growing, and the budding and the blossoming of that fair flower whose fragrance should be wafted through the garden of our lives. If Christ is going to dwell at all within us, He will begin to dwell by faith.

Faith, dear brethren, includes, of course, implicitly or explicitly, every single truth that God has ever taught, or will ever teach. There is, however, one particular point of faith which may well be emphasized in connection with the matter now under our consideration.

This is faith in the omnipresence of God. In every nook and comer of this visible world, in the midst of the big and little things that make up the daily lives of men and women, at every moment and in every sort of situation, God is near to us, looking upon us, sounding the depths of our consciousness. He is appealing to us, and he is sensitive to our response, to our good conduct, or our ill doing. This is, indeed, the greatest fact of human life; and constant attention to this fact is the substructure of the greatest possible human holiness. To believe in the constant presence of the God who loves us and, for love's sake, lays a law upon us, -- to believe in this and to act consistently with such belief, is the most practical general rule of holy living that can be devised. The cultivation of faith in God's omnipresence; and the endeavor to behave in a fashion consistent with this faith is, then, the beginning of the preparation for that ideal life of which St. Paul speaks. It and it alone will bring us to that state wherein Christ will dwell in our heart by faith.

To promote this sense of the presence of God, we should make the spirit of reverence habitual. It helps much, if we can bring ourselves always to act in the same temper as we have in church. This is far from saying that we may not rest and relax, laugh and amuse ourselves; but that always under the surface, there will be the subconscious sense that we are in the presence of God. It means that often, or even by mere aspiration, a prayer will be offered to the ever-present God. It means that temptation will acquire something of the horror of a desecration, of a sacrilege. To keep hold of the great fact; to refuse to let ourselves be drawn away by the vain argument and the fallacy of lying appearance which imply that here is no God, -- this is the beginning of the holiness which ensures happiness. Remember the great fact of your life; and the remembrance will prepare your soul for the gift of Faith.

Then again we must strive not only to be aware that God is present; but to act as if His interests were indeed supreme in life. The usual tendency of nature is to put material goods in the first place; and to rank other people after ourselves. We must go straight against this tendency, if we would be a fit habitation for the indwelling Christ.

It is not hard to see how different our lives would soon become, if the central fact of consciousness were the omnipresence of God. It would mean first of all, the possession of a spirit of prayer. Prayer is not confined to spoken communications; it is not limited to one or two of the possible sentiments possible to the human heart. Prayer is well described as conversation with God. How could one be ever conscious of God's presence, and yet refrain from frequent communicating with Him? It might concern the great crises of one's life, or the trifling matters of a common day; it might be a petition for the things we need, or thanksgiving for precious favors already received; it could voice the agonized sense of desolation in a soul terribly tried, or the quiet adoration of one telling God simply, "It is good to be here." But at all times, and all places, the soul would be aware that God is within reach of every creature that cries to him, even in unspoken whispers; and its deep sentiment would be communicated to the closest and dearest Friend, whose sympathy is as certain as His power to help is great.

Nor is it hard to see that, almost inevitably, advertence to this dominating Presence would lead to a transposition of values in our appraisal of things and deeds. The shining baubles of the world look lusterless enough to a man familiar with the radiance of Christ's beauty. Ways of dealing that the world approves of, and that once we ourselves admired, shrivel up into pettiness and meanness beneath our full-grown dignity, if we have just been considering how they look to God. The law which regulates buying and selling in shop and market, seems impossibly barbaric, when we remember that Christ, who erected such different rules of conduct for His disciples, is here present, waiting to see whether we are loyal of heart or base traitors. In one word, if we remember that God is looking at us, we are very apt to behave as God wishes.

This, then, is what our text suggests; that the Incarnation brought God into more intimate companionship with the sons of men than had ever before been possible; and that the subsequent course of human history shows how mightily men have been influenced by that intimacy, even independently of their wishes and despite the willful resistance of many. And the large result is the creation of a different moral and social universe, wherein we find the best traceable to the dominant influence of the ever-present God.

As it has been in the general life of the race, so too it is to be in the individual, who will be lifted and ennobled and who will attain his best development, by means of the ever active influence of the ever-present God. This happy consummation is the outgrowth of a living faith; and that faith can best be cultivated by the man who sets himself to practice internal reverence at every moment of his life, in much the same spirit as he would practice reverence in church; and who tries to act as a faithful disciple of Christ should act under the inspiration of his Master. To the soul that trains itself by this method, we may promise that, sooner or later, it will receive the blessing which Paul invoked upon the Ephesians: "May Christ dwell by faith in your hearts."
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Adapted from Plain Sermons by Practical Preachers, Vol. II(©1916)
Nihil Obstat: Remegius Lafort, S.T.D
Imprimatur: John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

Institute of Christ the King to Celebrate Live Televised Mass

On Sunday, September 14th, members of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest will celebrate a Solemn High Mass at Our Lady of the Angels Monastery of the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration in Hanceville, Alabama. The conventual Mass will be broadcast live by EWTN, the Global Catholic Network, to a worldwide audience of 140 million homes, through TV, radio, and live streaming video online.

September 14th marks the first anniversary of the implementation of Pope Benedict XVI's motu proprio "Summorum Pontificum" [PDF]. The Solemn High Mass will be in commemoration of, and thanksgiving for, this pivotal document of His Holiness, which confirms that the Latin Rite in its ancient form as presented in the 1962 liturgical books of the Roman Catholic Church was never abrogated and is available to all priests and all faithful who desire it.

The live broadcast from Our Lady of the Angels Monastery will take place at 8:00 AM Eastern Time USA [That's 7:00AM for us in St Louis], 14:00 Central European Time, 12:00 UTC.

Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost, The Death Of The Soul

By The Rev. H. G. Hughes
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"He that was dead sat up, and began to speak." Luke vii, 15.

In the country of Galilee, not far from our Blessed Lord's own town of Nazareth, there stood, and still stands, upon the slope of a lofty hill, the little town of Naim, where Christ worked the great miracle of which we read in today's Gospel. In our Lord's own time it was a flourishing place; its name meant “Beautiful"; today it is but a squalid village. Yet it is a spot of the highest interest to the Christian traveller; for he can ascend the very pathway, rocky and steep, leading to the gate of Naim, up which the Saviour of Men was going when He met the sad funeral procession descending from the town to the place of' burial without. That was a great day for Naim and its people. Little did they think, as they set forth that day to lay the widow's son in his last resting-place that they were to meet the Lord arid Master of life and death; the Giver of life, the Conqueror of death. Yet so it was to be.

We can imagine that sad procession. In the midst, the body of the young man, cut down in the flower of his youth. The corpse is embalmed with sweet perfumes, wrapped round with linen bands, carried upon an open bier: in front are the hired minstrels or flute-players; round about the bier are the mourners, also hired, paid to express the grief of the relatives of the dead by noisy demonstrations of sorrow; while close to the lifeless body walks the grief-stricken widowed mother, silent in her sorrow, bitterly weeping for her only son, her pride, her hope, and her support. With her, as we read, was "a great multitude of the city"; some of them friends, others passers-by, who, according to the Jewish custom, had joined the funeral train as they chanced to meet it.

Outside the gate of the city, coming up the steep pathway, there approached another procession: it is the great Prophet and Teacher of their country of Galilee, Jesus of Nazareth, surrounded by disciples whom he had won to Himself, and who were full of joyful hope that He would deliver their country from its oppressors, and set up again the glorious throne of David. The two companies, so different in their thoughts and feelings, meet. The glad faces of the friends and followers of Jesus fall to a sad solemnity, changing to looks of sincere pity as they see the weeping mother and learn her sad story. But their pity is as nothing to that of one Heart there, the all-sympathizing Sacred Heart of Jesus, that can read the hearts of men, and so can fathom our griefs as we never can fathom or understand to its depths the sorrow of our fel1ow-creatures.

Jesus stops before the funeral train: He heeds not the mourners; He puts aside the multitude of friends and feIIow-citizens; He goes straight where He is needed most, straight to the heart-broken mother, true to His own promise, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted" (Luke v, 5), true to the mission ascribed to Him by the prophet Isaias, "to comfort all that mourn" (Is. lxi, 2). He stands before that sorrowful mother, and in tones of indescribable compassion He says to Her words few indeed, but laden with comfort and hope, words that cause her to look wonderingly to His sacred face and to gaze into His eyes, in which she sees the light of a pity all divine. "Whom when the Lord had seen, being moved with mercy toward her, He said to her, weep not" (Luke vii, 13). Then "He came near, and touched the bier. And they that carried it stood still. And He said : Young man, I say unto thee, arise" (ib. 14).

Words of mighty power and efficacy! Words that winged their way even into the dread mysterious realms of death, and found out the spirit in its far-off unknown abode and brought it back to its earthly tenement again; for, at those words, lo, "he that was dead sat up, and began to speak." And then Jesus "delivered him to his mother"; gave him back, whole and sound, thrilling once more with young life and energy, to the embraces of his mother's amazed and rapturous love. "And there came a great fear on them all"; for they felt that they stood in the presence of a Supreme Power, of One Whom death obeyed, of One Who gave life as He willed. "And they glorified God, saying, A great prophet is risen up among us, and God hath visited His people."

There is another death, dear brethren, than the death of the body: a death far more terrible than bodily death. It is a death that means eternal ruin of body and soul; a death hopeless, irremediable, unless the same Lord Who showed His power in this great miracle of mercy at Naim work a still greater miracle in the resurrection of souls to the life of grace. It is the awful death of sin. What is bodily death to that? He Who compassionated the widow, He Who wept at the grave of Lazarus, thought little of bodily death compared with the death of the soul. "Fear ye not," He has told us, "them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both body and soul in hell" (Matt. x, 28).

It was to restore the life of grace to poor sinners that He was born, that He lived and toiled and suffered and gave His very life. And if He pitied that mother who had lost her son by temporal death, and who might hope to be one day reunited to him, what must be His deep pity and compassion for foolish souls who, by an act of wilful self-destruction, have cut themselves off from life and love and happiness, separating themselves by sin from God Who is all these, and apart from Whom true life, true love, true happiness are not?

For in a sinful soul, dear brethren, Christ sees, not the destruction of this earthly tabernacle of flesh, the dissolution of material elements, separation from earthly joys and earthly friends, but He sees the utter ruin of that immortal spirit breathed into man by the very breath of God, the destruction of His own beauteous image and likeness; and, in the future, the eternal misery of bitter self-reproach, the keen anguish of burning desire for happiness never to be gained, a wrecked and wasted existence, everlasting separation from the only good, the only joy, the only possession worth living for-the God Who made us for Himself.

And so, in His infinite compassion and mercy, Jesus comes to meet us when we are dead in sin, when we are already being carried out to be buried in hell, when, not the mourning of friends, but the mocking laugh of demons is ushering us to that last dreadful abode of misery. He comes, and He says to the evil spirits, "laugh not: not yet is this soul your prey. I am the Master of Life, the Giver of Grace." And to the soul dead in sins He says: "Arise: go in peace; thy sins are forgiven thee. Rise to the life of grace; rise to a new life in which sin shall no more have place. Go now, and sin no more."

And Christ has placed this power of restoring to souls the life of grace, won by His own death and resurrection, this power of raising souls from death to life, in a great Sacrament of His Holy Church, who is the mother of our souls. Through that great Sacrament He brings us from death to life, and delivers us to our Mother the Church whole and sound, restored to the life of grace and charity. Of this the miracle at Naim was an image. Learn from that miracle the evil of the death of sin, since He who so compassioned human sorrow for the death of the body, yet made it as nothing in comparison with the death of the soul.

Learn to hope in the power of Him who can raise us not only from bodily, but from spiritual death. Glorify God, as did the people of Naim; glorify and thank Him for that great Sacrament of Spiritual Resurrection that He has given us through the shedding of His Precious Blood. Fly, henceforth, from sin which cost Him so dear, which does to our souls such infinite harm ; and, should passion or human weakness, or the force of strong temptation overcome you, fly quickly to that great means of grace--a humble and sorrowful confession, by which the life of grace can be given you again.

How strange it seems, dear brethren, that with so great a means of pardon, so easy of access as confession is, people will go for months, sometimes for years in their sins. God is very patient, but the time is fixed beyond which we shall not be allowed to go on in sin. The sinner will commit his last mortal sin; and what will happen then? Think of the Rich Fool in our Blessed Lord’s parable. He was content; he had said boastingly to his soul, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years: take thy rest; eat, drink, make good cheer" (Luke xii, 19). That night he goes to his couch. He has but laid him down, and is falling away into the unconsciousness of sleep with his thoughts still running on his future enjoyments, when he starts into sudden wakefulness, a dreadful fear at his heart. An inward voice has spoken to him, the Voice of God; "Fool, this night do they require thy soul of thee" (ib. 20). "Fool! This very night, now, thou art to die."

Brethren, when that dread call comes, as it will come to all of us, there is no refusal, no delay. We cannot expect a miracle to raise us from the grave and give us another opportunity. What would that poor rich fool have given for a few moments only of respite, to collect his bewildered senses, to recall some lesson of early life that would help him now, to breathe one prayer for pardon. But it is too late. Even as he struggles to realize what is happening the hand of Death is upon him, and he is hurried before his Almighty Judge. "What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Mark viii, 36).

Brethren, delay not your true and earnest repentance; come, and come quickly to Jesus, Master of Life and Death, Giver of Grace and pardon. He will restore life to your souls; He will give you new life, new strength, new courage, and, if you will ask Him, often, fervently, perseveringly, He will grant you to continue to the end in the divine life of grace, so that when your time shall come, your bodies will die, indeed, but only to know, at the last great day, a resurrection far more glorious than that of the widow's son at Naim; a resurrection, not to joys of earth, but to the incomparably sweeter joys of heaven, our dear and longed-for home.
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Adapted from Plain Sermons by Practical Preachers, Vol. II(©1916)
Nihil Obstat: Remegius Lafort, S.T.D
Imprimatur: John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

Another Latin Mass (Extraordinary Form) in St Louis!

We have just been informed that the Extraordinary Form of the Holy Mass is now celebrated in another St Louis location on Sunday at 9:00AM at the Shrine of St. Joseph located on 1220 North 11th Street.

This is a beautiful church well worth visiting if you have the opportunity. The web site offers a virtual tour.

HT to KC for the tip!

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Living Up to Our Religion

By The Rev. H. G. Hughes
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"I say then, walk in the spirit." -Epistle of the day.

Men of the world, my dear brethren, take more care about their worldly interests and affairs, and spend more time over them, than do Christians, in many cases, in regard to the things of eternal salvation. The only remedy for this is a firm and constant determination on our part to live up to the teachings of our holy religion, to be, in other words, thoroughly good Catholics; and I shall speak to you therefore to-day on this important subject.

Let us go back to the beginning of the Church's history, and imagine one of the friends and followers of our Divine Saviour standing at the entrance to the empty tomb of Jesus on the morning of His glorious resurrection. Imagine that he has lived, with the rest of Christ's friends, through the sad and terrible hours from the night when Jesus was betrayed to the desolate moment when the sacred lifeless Body was laid in the sepulchre.

Imagine that now, standing before that tenantless grave, he realizes with unutterable joy the truth of the angels' words: "He is risen; He is not here." And suppose that a flash of supernatural light floods his soul, and reveals to him the whole meaning of the life, death, and Resurrection of the Saviour of mankind. Then, if he had wished to sum up that meaning in one short sentence, he could not have done it better or more truly than in the inspired words of the Apostle St. Paul: "He was delivered up for our sins, and rose again for our justification."

In those few words, indeed, is summed up the whole spiritual history of the human race, the whole merciful purpose of God in our redemption. And the mental vision of that disciple whom we have imagined thus enlightened would have to travel backwards and forwards, would have to cover the past and the future, in order to see in its fullness the meaning of the life and death of Jesus summed up in those words: "He was delivered up for our sins, and rose again for our justification." "Sin" and "justification," those are the two reasons for the death and resurrection of God-made Man; the reasons why He became man and died, and rose again the third day. But those two words carry us back to the beginning of man's history upon earth, and on to the end of the world, when the work of God's redeeming Love shall be finished, and the number of the elect made up, and Satan and his followers chained at last and for ever in hell, never to work their mischief again.

Let us now, my brethren, as far as time will allow, imitate what we have imagined that disciple doing at the empty tomb. Let us cast our mental vision back to the beginning of man's history--to his creation by God. As for the future, some of what was future to the disciples of Jesus is present to us; we live in it, and I shall not ask you to go beyond it except by remembering that what Jesus is doing for us now is to have its final and complete effect only after the last great enemy, death, has been destroyed, and the new heavens and the new earth are come.

When God created man He endowed him with wonderful natural powers and faculties, with a wonderful beauty that in themselves made him an image and likeness of his Creator. He gave him an understanding capable of knowing God, a will capable of loving God, many powers of body and soul capable of being ranged in an orderly harmony of subjection to man's reason and will and brought into play in that which would have been in any case man's highest end0--the loving service of his Creator.

If God had left man in this natural condition, with simply his natural powers, and if man had served God with these natural powers, knowing God in the mirror of creation, loving God with a natural love proportioned to that knowledge, then man's reward would have been for eternity a very perfect, yet merely natural, knowledge of God through the study and contemplation of the works of His Hands, and a very great, but merely natural love of God corresponding to that study and contemplation.

There was no necessity for God to do more than this; no necessity for Him to call His creature to any higher destiny.

But God did not leave man with only his natural powers; He did call him to a higher destiny. When we open the New Testament, especially the Epistles of St. Paul and other Apostles, we find that we are called by God to a destiny so high and wonderful that even with our Christian faith to help us we can form a faint idea only of its nobility.

It is nothing less than the face to face sight of God in heaven, with all that this includes. And this means a direct knowledge of God--seeing Him, not in the mirror of created things, but "as He is." It means being adopted into the Divine Family of the Blessed Trinity; having God for our close, intimate Friend and Companion forever, sharing in God's own blessedness and happiness, sharing, by knowledge and love, the Divine Life itself.

But God would not bring man to this glorious end without some cooperation on man's own part; or, to put it another way, God willed to put it into man's power to earn this heavenly reward by loving service. Yet no service of man, not the best actions of man have any power in themselves to deserve a reward so high; and besides this, man has no natural power or faculty in his soul by which He could see God face to face, or know Him as He is.

That man himself should be raised to the capability and power of seeing God face to face, knowing Him as He is, loving Him with a love so intimate that the affection of lovers is but a faint image of it, and that man's actions during his earthly life should be raised to the capability of leading to this heavenly consummation, a supernatural gift was necessary, raising man's soul to a higher state, putting his actions upon a higher, supernatural plane.

That supernatural gift God gave to man at his creation; He gave it to Adam and Eve, our first parents. By that gift a heavenly gift poured out in their souls by the Holy Spirit Himself; they were made holy with holiness from God; they were made God­like, their actions supernaturalized and made worthy of the eternal recompense of the Beatific Vision; they themselves made not merely servants, but loved children of their heavenly Father; and Divine charity, supreme love of God filled their hearts. It was the gift of GRACE.

Brethren, you know the sad history of how all that was lost, for them and for us. It was lost by sin. Because of that sin we are born into the world deprived of sanctifying grace with its right to heaven, with its sonship of God. That sad lack of grace, with the deformity of soul which is the consequence, is what we mean by original sin. I need not dwell on the other consequences of the sin of Adam, on the perversity of will, the inclination to evil, the personal sins which these things lead us into, the physical evil and woe, and death itself that came into the world through sin; its worst consequence is the one I wish to dwell on now, the loss of sanctifying grace, and with that the loss of heaven and of God.

Brethren, St. Paul tells us how sin brought death into this world. Had it brought only bodily death, that would have been a small thing. But it brought the death of souls, spiritual death; the death of supernatural goodness and holiness in men's hearts; the death of supernatural knowledge of God; the impossibility of reaching that high and noble destiny for which we were made by God: it closed the gates of the heavenly life to men, and opened the gates of death and hell; it tore man from God, his Father, and made him the slave of sin and Satan.

But "He was delivered up for our sins." By His death Christ Jesus our Lord made atonement for all our sins, won back for us the lost gift of grace; gave us, too, in giving us grace, the gift of Divine charity, pardon of our sins, and the power of casting off sin and of winning heaven, made possible and more than possible for us the attainment of our sublime destiny--the blessed sight and possession of our God when this poor life is over.

And all this, dear brethren, is what we mean by justification. When these effects are found in a man's soul, brought into that soul by the out­pouring within it by the Holy Ghost, of the Divine gift and influence of sanctifying grace, we say that that man is justified. And this justification was won for all of us by the passion and death of our Redeemer.

But, my brethren, you may ask, and not unnaturally, "If the death of Jesus won our justification, how are the words of St. Paul true: 'He rose again for our justification'"?

Brethren, I reply that, while the death of Christ merited of itse1f all the blessings that we have as Christians, yet those fruits of the Passion have to be applied to each individual soul throughout the ages. They might have been applied to us, brought into our souls-­pardon, grace, charity, holiness might have been acquired had God so willed it, by a simple act of faith in the past.

But God has not chosen that they should be acquired regularly in that way. He has chosen a more wonderful way. He has chosen that the risen Christ should dwell and work among men now and always; that there should be on earth, and all over the earth, sacred places to which men can point and say: "Here dwells our risen Lord; there He works; there He may be found; there I can come to Him and there find His pardon, His grace and justification."

More than this, God has chosen that we should be brought into close and intimate touch and connection with our risen Lord, so that from the ocean of grace that is in Him, which flows from the Godhead into His sacred humanity, streams of grace should flow from Him into us.

Brethren, this is a reality. Christ said of Himself and us: "I am the Vine, you are the branches"; and as the sap flows from the main trunk into the furthest tendrils that are putting forth their young life, so the grace of Christ flows from Him to the least of His members. Members, I say, for so again we are, members of Him who is our Head. Again and again St. Paul uses this comparison of the human body to teach us this doctrine of the close union of redeemed souls with our Incarnate Lord. We are members, he says, of Christ; Christ is the Head. But members and a Head make up a Body--and, says the Apostle, "so also is Christ." Christ has a Body, and we are members of that Body; and St. Paul tells us again what that Body is. "Christ," he says, "is the Head of the Body, the Church.

The living, risen Christ, has a body, then, on earth, animated by His spirit; and from Him grace and charity and all spiritual gifts flow throughout the body to each member; that body is the Catholic Church--the Church of which the Apostle says that Christ purchased her to Himself upon the Cross.

Thus, then, is it true that Christ rose again for our justification. He rose, indeed, because the gate of death could not confine the Lord of Life; He rose that the humanity in which He suffered might receive the reward of glory; He rose to prove that His message was true; He rose that it might be known that when He claimed to be God He did not deceive us; He rose to give us the pledge of a future resurrection; but He rose also to live on in His holy Church, to gather unto Himself living members till the end of time.

And so that disciple whom we imagined at the beginning, looking forward would have seen what we see now--the glorious Church of God, with her holy Sacraments instituted by Jesus when He was on earth, as the means of conveying grace and pardon to us. Her Holy Sacrifice wherein day by day Christ is offered up and His merits put into our hands to plead for us here below; the Church, Christ's Body, His means of carrying on still the life of the Incarnation among us, of working His work of salvation and preaching the truths of life through His consecrated ministers. He was delivered up for our sins; but He rose again for our justification, and in His Church on earth for our justification He lives His risen Life.

Brethren, I beseech you to walk worthy of the vocation with which you are called. Children of light, children of the Catholic Church, members of Christ's Body, cast not away your glorious privileges by sin, by carelessness, by indifference. Be not less wise in your generation, that is, in heavenly things, than the children of the world in theirs. Oh, if all Catholics realized what it is to be a Catholic there would be no necessity to go and beg people to come to Mass, to receive the Sacraments, to listen to God's truth which only in the Catholic Church is fully known and taught. A Catholic can miss the blessings of Catholic life; by sin, by mortal sin, we can stop the channels by which Divine grace should flow into our souls.

Let it not be so with any of us, but rather let us drink in those blessings to the full, and cherish as our dearest possession that Divine grace that flows to us in the Church from Jesus, and will bring us to the sight and love of God in heaven.
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Adapted from Plain Sermons by Practical Preachers, Vol. II(©1916)
Nihil Obstat: Remegius Lafort, S.T.D
Imprimatur: John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost, Leprosy, Sin And Death

By The Rev. J. J. Hurst
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"And as He entered into a certain town there met Him ten men that were lepers, who stood afar off, and lifted up their voice, saying: 'Jesus, Master! Have mercy on us.' Whom, when He saw, He said: 'Go, show yourselves to the Priests.' And it came to pass, that as they went, they were made dean. And one of them, when he saw that he was made dean, went back, with a loud voice, glorifying God. And he fell on his face before His feet, giving thanks; and he was a Samaritan."--Luke, xvii, 12-16.


Leprosy was a disease prevalent in Palestine at the time of Christ. Biblical leprosy, the type which afflicted the Jews, was virulent and progressive and baffled all medical skill to cure or arrest, so that it usual1y terminated in the death of its victim. It was generally believed to be hereditary and contagious and, in some instances, to be a signal proof of Divine punishment for sin. Hence it was regarded with the greatest horror and loathing and con­sidered to be the cause of legal and religious defilement.

The utmost precautions were taken to prevent the spread of the disease by segregating the infected and by subjecting those suspected of the contamination to a quarantine, till the priests who were the properly constituted judges in the matter could pronounce the latter clean or unclean, according to prescribed rules.

For a picture of human misery intensified by evils calculated to increase and embitter the burden of life and rob it of every support and solace, we have only to contemplate the fate of the leper; condemned to dwell in seclusion, away from the habitations of the healthy, his clothes hanging loose, his head bared, his mouth covered, he was obliged to add to his own self-abasement by crying out to passers-by the fateful words: "Unclean, unclean."

Neither position nor age nor sex served to defer or mitigate this harsh sentence. Some of the most pathetic scenes ever witnessed or pictured by mortals took place in the home of the leper. The father might sigh and groan for his misfortune, but the leprous father had to abandon his family, and as their head they knew him no more. The mother might melt into tears at a parting so cruel, but her place in the home had to be vacated, and the leprous mother went forth without a farewell embrace from the dear ones she loved. The child might plead for pity and cling to its mother for protection, but the unclean child and the distracted mother parted forever. The maiden in the pride of her beauty, or radiant with dreams of domestic bliss, showing the slightest but certain marks of the contagion, was compelled to fly the paternal roof and to wander forth, with her disfigurement her only shield. The young man had to forego his prospects and ambitions, and ere yet the disease had sapped his strength or impaired his vitality he became the associate of helpless outcasts. Oh, the bitter and sad fate of the leper!

But who can describe the mental anguish of the sufferer as the disease by slow degrees consumed his members and ate its way into his very vitals? For it is a strange fact that in the case of leprosy the mind retains its wonted vigor, while the body becomes a victim to its full ravages. Who can tell of the dreary days and cheerless nights passed by the pool whither he had crawled to slake his burning thirst, or of the hours spent wistfully gazing in the direction of the home he was destined never again to enter? And who can depict the isolation of the death scene away from home and friends?

Shunned from the day of his parting, he was left to pay nature's last debt without a kindly word, a pitying tear, or a friendly hand of those he cherished to sooth the agony of his dying moments. Truly may leprosy be spoken of as the first born of death, the name by which it is referred to in the Book of Job.

Leprosy is a figure of sin. As leprosy defiles the body and makes it an object of fear and loathing in the eyes of men, so sin defiles the soul and makes it hideous and hateful in the sight of God.

There is nothing outside the court of heaven with which to compare a soul regenerated in the saving waters of baptism. It is pleasing to God the Father as His adopted child and heir to His eternal Kingdom; it is pleasing to God the Son as His brother and co-heir; it is pleasing to God the Holy Ghost as His living temple and the object of His gifts and graces. Infused with the virtues of faith, hope and charity, it approximates the picture of blissful innocence and supernatural perfection in which the Creator had made man unto His own image and likeness. The adornments of the soul remain as long as it is untouched by the foul breath of leprosy. Let it receive but the slightest taint and its beauty is tarnished, its innocence and its sanctity lessened.

In the case of the leper it was the first symptom that aroused suspicion, spread alarm and ultimately lead to his condemnation. It did not forthwith make him an outcast, but it presaged his fate.

In the case of the sinner the stain that at first only dimmed the luster of the soul did not deprive him of sanctifying grace, but it robbed him of many degrees of merit, weakened his powers of resistance and disposed him to mortal sin.

Sin, like leprosy, is corrosive. "He who contemneth small things shall fall little by little." Every sin, however venial, darkens the understanding, impairs the will and sears the conscience, so that the multiplication of venial sins indicates the proximity of mortal sin; for once the habit of venial sin is formed the descent to mortal sin is sudden. When one has the misfortune to incur its guilt, he has reached the fatal stage of leprosy from which only the intervention of Providence can rescue him.

Leprosy affected only the body; sin imparts death to the soul. The former causes only a temporary affliction, the latter exposes to eternal torments. In the transition from innocence to guilt, what a mantle of misery falls on the soul of the sinner! Fallen from his high estate, his dignity forfeited, his innocence, beauty and sanctity lost, he who was privileged to banquet on the Bread of angels feeds on the husks of swine. The child of God, the brother of Jesus Christ, the temple of the Holy Ghost is a slave to his passions, a pervert to Satan and the habitation of uncleanliness. And should he depart life in his forlorn condition, no words that a mortal ever spoke or penned can depict the dreadfulness of the scene that shall take place after the angel has summoned mankind to judgment.

He may be the father of a family. Pathetic, indeed, was the parting of the leprous father from his family, but there remained a hope of being reunited with them hereafter. Hope for the leper is turned into despair for the sinner, and at the command of the angry Judge he is forever separated from those he loved. It seemed cruel to banish a mother from her children while on earth, but unutterable woe if a mother has to be banished from her children for eternity! It was heart­rending to see the maiden go forth from home, alone and unprotected. The taint of leprosy disfigured her beauty and the law was inexorable. The young woman that dies tainted with mortal sin shall never reach her destined home. She forfeited her right to heaven, the home of the pure and the angels, and she is condemned forever to hell, the home of the wicked and demons. It was hard for the young man to have his ambitions thwarted, his hopes extinguished and his prospects ruined, and to be obliged to associate with outcasts. What an awful prospect for the young man who must herd with howling mobs where ambition is vain and hope abandoned forever!

Terrible, indeed, is the condition of the sinner and fearful the. consequence of his sins. But amid the darkness that encircles him there is a path by which he can retrace his steps. The poor leper looked for no solace, but the grave. What a revelation and what a manifestation of supernatural power it was to him to be healed of so foul and fatal a disease by a word only! How joyfully he heard the monition: "Go, show yourself to the Priest." Yet He who by a word restored to health and happiness the victim of a disease beyond all human power to remedy has instituted a means whereby the diseases and disorders that defile and disfigure the souls of men can be treated and cured.

The condition imposed on the lepers of showing themselves to the priests did not imply that the priests of the Old Law had power over diseases. It was merely a ceremonial in accordance with the Mosaic Law, and in the case of leprosy consisted in their pronouncing on the validity of a cure that had already been effected. How different with the priests of the New Law who are not only constituted judges but also physicians! What tremendous power they wield, power that transcends that of the angels, aye, even that of the Mother of God herself! And what a merciful dispensation God has given in it for fallen man!

The sinner, touched by grace, awakes to his condition. The words of Christ ring in his ears: "Go, show yourself to the priest." He harkens to their appeal. He approaches the tribunal, carrying a corpse--his own dead soul. He makes an humble confession of his sins. The priest listens, raises his hand in absolution, and then occurs what St. Augustine calls a miracle greater than the creation of another world--the soul that was dead is raised to life and becomes once more the child of God, the brother of Jesus Christ, and the dwelling place of the Holy Ghost.

Leprosy was common in Palestine in the time of Christ. Sin, the disease of which it is a figure, is common throughout the world at all times. It affects every state and condition and extends its dominion over every period, from childhood to old age. Leprosy excites the contempt and horror of men; sin, the greatest misfortune that can befall them, does not evoke surprise, and sometimes does not awaken remorse.

Nay, men make an open confession of their conquests in evil and there are many to condone them. Years ago there was a case of leprosy, or rather what appeared to be leprosy, in a city in the United States. It was a city comprising upwards of two millions of souls. The presence of a leper in that vast community was made a subject of the most sensational interest. How many moral lepers there were in that same city whose disease was not made a matter of comment, and how many were thrown into consternation by the report of leprosy who felt no alarm for their own diseased and repulsive state!

We live in an age when the nations are forgetting God, and faith is decaying among the children of men, when time-honored principles are becoming as shifty as the ripples on the surface of the deep, and the Ten Commandments themselves are looked upon as so much spectacular rhetoric, when the old pagan traffic in the lusts of the flesh is being revived and the silver-tongued prophets of pleasure preach from the house-tops their sensuous philosophy: "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may die."

This lamentable condition is due mainly to the internal dissolution of Protestantism, but in this country it is accentuated by the well­meant but fatal remedy of banishing religion from the public schools. Describing the utter loneliness he felt at the loss of God thus banished from the minds of young Americans, a distinguished professor, now dead, said: "We have seen the Spring sun shine out of an empty heaven upon a souIless earth."

Religious indifference and skepticism and the consequent increase of. crime and immorality which are seen to flow from a system of Godless education are sufficient evidence that the new order is the fruitful source of vice and sin, destructive alike of religion and of the best interests of government.

The only salvation for society, amid present-day disruptions, chaos and infidelity is to allow itself to be schooled in the Church of Christ which alone is sufficient to teach that morality does not consist in outward conformity to law or custom, but in the inner rectitude of the will; that aesthetic culture is of less consequence than purity of heart, and that charity and not expediency is the only true form of relationship, human and Divine.

One would think that a being healed of so vile and virulent a disease as leprosy, rescued from horrible death, and restored to the society of the healthy, to friends, family and home, would never cease to thank the author of the cure, especially since it could not be effected by any other agency, yet we learn from the Gospel that of the ten lepers whom Christ made whole, only one returned to thank Him, and he was a stranger--a Samaritan; the Jews looked upon the Samaritans not only as aliens, but also as enemies.

There was a racial and religious antagonism between them. The hatred of the Jew for the Samaritan was proverbial. When the Pharisees wished to malign Christ, they spoke of Him as a Samaritan: "Thou art a Samaritan and hast a devil." The contrast between the conduct of the stranger and the nine Jews is therefore all the more striking and illustrates what frequently happens, viz., that the slave of error condemns by his conduct the disciple of truth.

Ingratitude is the trait of character that deserves the censure of all right-minded men. It is a relic of barbarism and an unerring mark of a selfish, ungenerous nature. It is an insult to one's benefactor in as much as it discloses a lack of appreciation for favors conferred. To avoid this suspicion of being considered ingrates people generally are at pains to express thanks for favors and courtesies, however trifling. To do so is expedient and proper, but the mere expression of thanks without a corresponding sense of gratitude is only a disguised effort to avoid a term of reproach from which men instinctively shrink. It is a misnomer to call that gratitude which lives to find expression in words only.

Gratitude has its roots deep in the heart and its seat in the memory, and out­lives the desire or expediency to translate it to words. Such was the gratitude of the Samaritan who returned to give glory to God for his cure and who as a reward was cleansed of the disease of his soul.

Though men affect to regard ingratitude with greater abhorrence than "any taint of vice whose strong corruption inhabits our frail blood," it is an offence of the commonest occurrence. To be conscious of this one has but to examine the lives and actions of men in their dealings and intercourse. He will find in every circle of society, in every phase of commerce, and in almost every department of life gratitude outraged to an extent saddening to contemplate, and what is still more lamentable, he will find few on whose hearts the stain of ingratitude is not more or less deeply impressed. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the percentage of thankless lepers is not greater than the percentage of ungrateful members of the race.

We emerge from childhood with sacred and solemn obligations of the natural and supernatural order upon us, but few endeavor to discharge them, while many fail to appreciate them, or completely ignore them. Of all God's creatures there are none born in such a helpless state of dependency as man, and there is no other that needs so many external aids to support life and so much constant vigilance and sympathetic care to ward off illness and to keep the body in a healthful condition.

Indifferent treatment of the infantile body will engender diseases which may be the forerunner of a life of suffering or premature death. The same is true of the mind. It awakes to conscious hungering for food and dependence on others for the serving.

Parents are the instruments in God's hands for the sustenance, conservation and training of their children. The father provides the means and the mother supplements her duties with lavish affection and solicitude. There is nothing in nature so close, so sacred, and so abiding as the love of a mother for her child. It follows and clings to the child through every vicissitude of life, in good fortune and evil, in honor and dishonor, in joy and sorrow, and it survives every incentive to destroy it. But is the mother's love always repaid? Alas, no. The world teems with ungrateful children. Many a broken-hearted mother who sacrificed herself for her children and looked forward hopefully and joyfully to the time when they would gratefully acknowledge and repay her services and sacrifices, has lived to witness their undutiful and unnatural conduct and to die of a broken heart.

Ingratitude causes man to ignore the sacred ties and claims of humanity, and also the more serious, solemn obligations to God.

The contemplation of God in His works of creation, philosophers tell us, constitutes the highest satisfaction of which the human mind is capable; and truly man in contemplating the perfections of God and the grandeur and majesty of His work is impressed with a true sense of his own imperfections and utter dependence.

When Descartes reached what he conceived the sublime heights of philosophy, he says he thought it proper to remain there for some time in the contemplation of God himself, in order to ponder at leisure the sublime grandeur of His attributes and to admire and adore the beauty of the light so unspeakably great. When one reflects that he owes his existence to this Supreme Being, like unto His image, little less than the angels, and destined for an eternity of bliss, boundless gratitude ought to fill his heart and evoke his praises: "Be ye filled with the Holy Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual canticles, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things" (St. Paul, Ep. v, 18).

But how do men respond to this solemn obligation of serving, honoring and thanking God? Some deny Him, others disregard Him, and many mention His name only to profane it. Men of the world are too busy with temporal affairs or so steeped in sensuality as to have little time and less inclination to glorify God for the grandeur and majesty of His creations and to thank Him for His goodness and mercy.

The Saviour had occasion to complain of the nine lepers of Israel, but ingratitude to Him did not perish with the synagogue. It has lived through every age of Christianity and it manifests itself in every form of injury and insult. When we consider His claims to our love and gratitude, His mission on earth, His love of poverty and humiliation, His sufferings and death, the institution of the Sacraments, the power He has given the priests of His Church to remit sin, and the undying pledge of His love He has left us in His own Sacramental presence, we are not at a loss to say whether the thankless lepers or offending Christians are the more deserving of condemnation.
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Adapted from Plain Sermons by Practical Preachers, Vol. II(©1916)
Nihil Obstat: Remegius Lafort, S.T.D
Imprimatur: John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

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