Posted on August 12, 2018 View all news
Laudetur Jesus Christus! Gelobt sei Jesus Christus!
Sia lodato Gesù Cristo! Praised be Jesus Christ!
Just a reminder that this coming Wednesday is a Holy Day of Obligation, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven. The Holy Day Mass schedule for both parishes is in effect. Please see the Mass Schedule on the preceding pages.
The Assumption is an important Feast for Catholics, as this represents the culmination of Mary’s earthly life. All of the privileges that she had, whether it was her Immaculate Conception, Mediatrix of Grace, or her Assumption, all stem from her Divine Motherhood. Because she was the Mother of God, God bestowed these special graces upon her. She is truly our model and our queen, someone that we should implore her intercession and also aspire. Her prayers, above all of the saints, are the most powerful because she is the closet of beings to God. May Mary continue to lead us closer to her son!
I would like to thank all those who were involved or assisted in any way with the Schola Retreat and Pontifical Masses this past week. So much planning and time went into pulling this off. We began planning for this well over a year ago. I would like to personally thank John Schauble for his vision and dedication in pulling this off. He was tireless in ensuring that this happened so that choirs and scholas learn why they do what they do, and can give greater glory to God. I also thank Bishop Slattery for giving of his time and for being so patient with us. Finally, I thank Msgr. Andrew Wadsworth, from the Oratory-in-Formation in Washington D.C. Msgr. Wadsworth served as the retreat mater. Monsignor is the Director of the International Committee for English in the Liturgy and is responsible for the new translations to the Mass and the Sacraments that we have begun using over the past few years. Finally, thank you to all the presenters, volunteers, and anyone who helped in any way! Without so many pulling together, this would not have been possible.
To conclude, and for reflection this upcoming week with the Assumption, please find this reflection from Archbishop Fulton Sheen. Have a blessed week ahead!
“God never does anything without exceeding preparation. The two great masterpieces of God are Creation of man and Re-creation or Redemption of man. Creation was made for unfallen men; His Mystical Body, for fallen men. Before making man, God made a garden of delights—as God alone knows how to make a garden beautiful. In that Paradise of Creation there were celebrated the first nuptials of man and woman. But man willed not to have blessings, except according to his lower nature. Not only did he lose his happiness; he even wounded his own mind and will.
Then God planned the remaking or redeeming of man. But before doing so, he would make another Garden. This new one would be not of earth but of flesh; it would be a Garden over whose portals the name of sin would never be written—a Garden in which there would grow no weeds of rebellion to choke the growth of the flowers of grace a Garden from which there would flow four rivers of redemption to the four corners of the earth—a Garden so pure that the Heavenly Father would not blush at sending His Own Son into it—and this “flesh-girt Paradise to be gardened by the Adam new” was Our Blessed Mother. As Eden was the Paradise of Creation, Mary is the Paradise of the Incarnation, and in her as a Garden were celebrated the first nuptials of God and man. The closer one gets to fire, the greater the heat; the closer one is to God, the greater the purity. But since no one was ever closer to God than the woman whose human portals He threw open to walk this earth, then no one could have been more pure than she.” – Archbishop Fulton Sheen