Posted on March 31, 2019 View all news
Laudetur Jesus Christus! Gelobt sei Jesus Christus!
Sia lodato Gesù Cristo! Praised be Jesus Christ!
I would first of all like to congratulate both Bro. Brent & Bro. Henry for their reception of the Ministry of Acolyte on March 25. This is the final step that they will make before their Ordination to the Diaconate next year. Please remember them in your prayers!
I also want to thank all who helped in any way with our reception after Mass on March 25, which also served as the Old St. Mary’s Parish Feast Day. I would like to thank in a particular way Joanne Hull who did a great job at organizing everyone. Thank you!!
As we move closer to Holy Week, we now begin to forcus not just on our own sins and self-denial, but what Christ ultimately suffered for us. Please be sure to look at the Holy Week schedule and plan ahead now! Below is a sermon from Cardinal Newman, an Oratorian, who will soon be a saint. Mediate upon it this week. Please find the link to the full sermon below. Have a blessed week ahead!
“As time goes on, and Easter draws nearer, we are called upon not only to mourn over our sins, but especially over the various sufferings which Christ our Lord and Saviour underwent on account of them. Why is it, my brethren, that we have so little feeling on the matter as we commonly have? Why is it that we are used to let the season come and go just like any other season, not thinking more of Christ than at other times, or, at least, not feeling more? Am I not right in saying that this is the case? and if so, have I not cause for asking why it is the case? We are not moved when we hear of the bitter passion of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, for us. We neither bewail our sins which caused it, nor have any sympathy with it. We do not suffer with Him. If we come to Church, we hear, {40} and then we go away again; not distressed at all; or if distressed, only for the moment. And many do not come to Church at all; and to them, of course, this holy and solemn time is like other times. They eat, and drink, and sleep, and rise up, and go about their business and their pleasure, just as usual. They do not carry the thought of Him who died for them, along with them,—with them wherever they are,—with them “whether they eat, or drink, or whatever they do.” They in no sense “live,” to use St. Paul’s words, “by the faith of the Son of God, who loved them and gave Himself for them.”
This, alas! cannot be denied. Yet, if it be so, that the Son of God came down from heaven, put aside His glory, and submitted to be despised, cruelly treated, and put to death by His own creatures,—by those whom He had made, and whom He had preserved up to that day, and was then upholding in life and being,—is it reasonable that so great an event should not move us? Alas! I sorrowfully foretell that time will go on, and Passion-tide, Good Friday, and Easter-Day will pass by, and the weeks after it, and many of you will be just what you were—not at all nearer heaven, not at all nearer Christ in your hearts and lives, not impressed lastingly or savingly with the thought of His mercies and your own sins and demerits.” Bl. John Henry Newman
http://www.newmanreader.org/works/parochial/volume6/sermon4.html