Mass Schedule of Rev. Fr. David Hewko

Our Lady of La Salette
Feast Day Today – September 19th

Since the Assumption of our Blessed Lady into heaven, she has often appeared to her children on earth. But, on the mountain of La Salette, the Virgin Mary appeared as she had never appeared before.

She was seen in grief, with all the signs of a most profound sorrow; she shed abundant tears whilst speaking to the children and she carried on her breast the image of her Divine Son nailed to the Cross, with the other symbols of His sufferings.

Nowhere had she ever invited her people to conversion with words so touching, and in so pressing a manner. Never before did she call sinful men back to Christ, with such a living representation of Calvary, where she stood as the Mother of Sorrows at the foot of the Cross with her dying Son; all, doubtless, on account of the enormity of our sins in this age.

Again, how remarkable that the Apparition should have happened on the eve of the very day which the Church has appointed to commemorate the Seven Sorrows of our Blessed Lady. (At that time, the feast was observed on the Third Sunday of September – Ed.)

One curious fact must not be forgotten, which strikingly supports all the evidence as to the truth of the children’s story. The spring, near where Our Lady appeared, had been completely dried up previous to the vision; it began to flow immediately after, and has continued to run rapid ever since in a stream of clear, miraculously curative water. – Edited from the La Salette Story

On September 19th, 1846, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to eleven year old Maximin Giraud and fourteen year old Melanie Calvat on the mountain of La Salette, France. The children were from the town of Corps near Grenoble, in southeastern France and were tending their employer’s cattle, high up on the mountainside pasture. Their attention was drawn to a globe of light a short distance away; as they gazed, the globe opened and they saw a beautiful woman seated on some stones which surrounded the bed of a dried up stream. Her elbows rested on her knees while her face was buried in her hands, and she wept bitterly. The children were frightened and did not know what to do, when the lady arose and with a voice in the sweetest of tones, said: “Come near, my children; do not be afraid. I am here to tell you great news.”

The children obeyed and when they were close, they saw that the woman’s countenance was of rare beauty, though her eyes were filled with tears. Her face was so resplendent with light that the noon-day sun lost its brightness; but, her complexion was a pale white such as those who have been bowed down with suffering. Her beauty was radiant; in fact, so dazzling and so glistening that Melanie frequently rubbed her eyes hoping to see better. The lady’s head-dress was white and crowned by a royal diadem wreathed with roses of many hues that glittered, while on her bosom rested a golden crucifix, with the pincers and hammer of the Passion. Her majestic beauty was ravishing; and her face exceedingly beautiful, while yet profoundly sad.

The beautiful lady stood tall with her head bent toward the children. Her mien and her manner were reassuring and kind, but also sorrowful. They listened to her sweet, tearful voice dictate to them a message which she asked to make known to all her people. This became known as the Public Message of La Salette. Along with this public message, the lady privately confided a secret to each of the little shepherds as well.

Soon after the apparition occurred, the news spread throughout the French countryside, and not long afterwards, miraculous cures began to be reported. On the fifth anniversary of the apparition, it was officially approved by the Church in a pastoral letter by the diocesan bishop under the title of Our Lady of La Salette.  

Our Lady instructed Melanie to make known her secret after the year 1858, and she published it herself in the face of great difficulties. After a thorough investigation, her account was fully approved by the Church. To this day, the contents of the secret are shrouded in confusion and obscurity, which is just where the enemy of souls wishes it to remain; for, it is a message especially significant for these apostate times. With this is mind, we provide below, one of the best pieces ever written on the Secret of La Salette, by the late, great, Solange Strong Hertz; as well as a link to her essay’s important sequel: 

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This Week’s Holy Mass Schedule

Today – Sunday, September 19th
Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
Saint Januarius & Companions, Martyrs
Our Lady of La Salette

Holy Mass Livestream from WI – 12:00 Noon EDT
Find Link Here

Tuesday, September 21st – 5:30 PM
Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist

Wednesday, September 22nd – 7:30 AM
Saint Thomas of Villanova, Bishop & Confessor

Thursday, September 23rd – 7:30 AM
Saint Linus, Pope & Martyr
Saint Thecla, Virgin & Martyr

Friday, September 24th – 5:30 PM
Our Lady of Ransom

Saturday, September 25th – 8:00 AM
Ferial

Confessions / Rosary – 30 Minutes Before Mass

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XVII Sunday After Pentecost 

The Gospel, which is now assigned to the Mass of the seventeenth Sunday, has given it the name of the Sunday of the love of God, dating, that is, from the time when the Gospel of the cure of the dropsy and of the invitation to the wedding-feast, was anticipated by eight days. Previously, even, to that change, and from the very first, there used to be read on this seventeenth Sunday, another passage from the New Testament which is no longer found in this serial of Sundays: it was the Gospel which mentions the difficulty regarding the resurrection of the dead, which the Sadducees proposed to our Lord.

Mass 

The judgments of God are always just, whether it be, in his justice, humbling the proud or, in his mercy, exalting the humble. This day last week, we saw this Sovereign disposer of all things allotting to each his place at the divine banquet. Let us recall to mind the behavior of the guests and the respective treatment shown to the humble and the proud. Adoring these judgments of our Lord, let us sing our Introit; and as far as regards our own selves, let us throw ourselves entirely upon his mercy.

The most hateful of all the obstacles which divine love has to encounter upon earth is the jealousy of Satan, who endeavors, by an impious usurpation of his own, to rob God of the possession of our souls — souls, that is, which were created by and for Him alone. Let us unite with holy Church in praying, in the Collect, for the supernatural assistance we require for avoiding the foul contact of the hideous serpent.

The other Collects, as in the Fourth Sunday After Pentecost.

The Church, by thus giving the words from St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, again takes up the subject so dear to her — the dignity of her children. She beseeches them to correspond, in a becoming manner, to their high Vocation. This Vocation, this Call, which God gives us is, as we have been so often told, the call, or invitation, made to the human family, that it would come to the sacred nuptials of the divine Union; it is the Vocation given to us to reign in heaven with the Word, who had made himself our Spouse, and our Head. The Gospel read to us eight days ago, which was formerly the one appointed for this present Sunday, and what thus brought into close connection with our Epistle — that Gospel, we say, finds itself admirably commented by these words of St. Paul to the Ephesians, and it, in turn, throws light on the Apostle’s words about the Vocation. When thou art invited to a Wedding (“cum vocatus fueris”) sit down in the lowest place! These were our Lord’s words to us last Sunday; and now, we have the Apostle saying to us: Walk worthy of the vocation in which ye are called, yes, walk in that vocation with all humility!

Let us now attentively hearken to our Apostle, telling us what we must do, in order to prove ourselves worthy of the high honor offered to us by the Son of God. We must practice, among other virtues, these three — humility, mildness, and patience. These are the means for gaining the end that is so generously proposed to us. And what is this end? It is the unity of that immense body, which the Son of God makes his own, by the mystic nuptials he vouchsafes to celebrate with our human nature. This Man-God asks one condition from those whom he calls, whom he invites, to become, through the Church, his Bride, bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh. This one condition is that they maintain such harmony among them that it will make one body and one spirit of them all, in the bond of peace. “Bond most glorious!” cries out St. John Chrysostom, “bond most admirable, which unites us all mutually with one another, and then, thus united, unites us with God.” The strength of this bond is the strength of the Holy Spirit himself, who is all holiness and love; for it is that Holy Spirit who forms these spiritual and divine ties; He it is who, with the countless multitude of the Baptized, does the work which the soul does in the human body, that is, it gives it life, and it unites all the members into oneness of person. It is by the Holy Ghost that young and old, poor and rich, men and women, distinct as all these are in other respects, are made one, fused, so to say, in the fire which eternally burns in the blessed Trinity. But in order that the flame of infinite love may thus draw into its embrace our regenerated humanity, we must get rid of selfish rivalries and grudges and dissensions which, so long as they exist among us, prove us to be carnal, and therefore, that we are unfit material for either the divine flame to touch, or for the Union which that flame produces. According to the beautiful comparison of St. John Chrysostom — when fire lays hold of various species of wood which have been thrown into it, if it find the fuel properly dry, it makes one burning pile of all the several woods; but if they are damp and wet, it cannot act on them separately nor reduce the whole to one common blaze: so is it in the spiritual order; the unhealthy humidity of the passions neutralizes the action of the sanctifying Spirit; and Union, which is both the means and end of love, becomes an impossibility.

Let us, therefore, bind ourselves to our brethren by that blessed link of charity which, if it fetters at all, fetters only our bad tempers; but in all other respects, it dilates our hearts by the very fact of its giving free scope to the Holy Ghost to lead them safely to the realization of that one hope of our common vocation and calling — which is to unite us to God by love. Of course, charity, even with the Saints, is, so long as they are on this earth, a laborious virtue; because even with the best, grace seldom restores to a perfect equilibrium the faculties of man which were put out of order by original sin. From this it follows that the weakness of human nature will sometimes show themselves, either by excess or by deficiency; and when these weaknesses do crop up, it is not only the saint himself is humbled by their getting the better of him, but as he is well aware, they who live with him have to practice kindness and patience towards him. God permits all this in order to increase the merit of us all, and make us long more and more for heaven. For it is there alone that we shall find ourselves not only totally, but without any effort, in perfect harmony with our fellow men; and this because of the perfect peaceful submissiveness to our entire being under the absolute sway of the thrice holy God, who will then be all to all. In that happy land, it will be God himself will wipe away the tears of his elect for their miseries will all be gone; and their miseries will be gone because their whole being will be renovated, because united with Him, who is its infinite source. The eternal Son of God having then conquered, in each member of his mystical Body, the hostile powers and death itself, will appear, in the fullness of the mystery of his Incarnation, as the true Head of humanity, sanctified, restored, and developed in Him. He will rejoice at seeing how, by the workings of the sanctifying Spirit, there has been wrought the destined degree of perfection in each of the several parts of that marvelous Body, which He vouchsafed to aggregate to Himself by the bond of love; and all this in order that he might eternally celebrate, in a choir composed of himself, the Incarnate Word, and all creation, the glory of the ever adorable Trinity. How will not the sweetest music of earth be then surpassed! How will not our most perfect choirs seem to us then to have been almost like the noise of children singing out of tune, compared with the concord and harmony of that eternal song! Let us get ourselves ready for that heavenly concert. Let us put our voices in order, by now attuning our hearts to that plenitude of love, which alas! is not often enjoyed here below, but which we should ever be trying to realize, by that patiently supporting the faults of our brethren and ourselves, which the Epistle so earnestly impresses upon us.

One would almost say that, in the ecstasy of her delight, at hearing these few sounds of heaven’s music brought to her by such a singer as her Apostle — our Mother the Church feels herself carried away far beyond time, and boldly joins a short song of her own to that of her Jesus and his Paul. Yes, it looks like it, for by way of conclusion to the text of our Epistle, she adds an ardent expression of praise, which is not in the original; and thus she forms a kind of doxology to the inspired words of her apostolic Chanter.

We now know the priceless gifts brought to our earth by the Man-God. Thanks to the prodigies of power and love achieved by the divine Word and the sanctifying Spirit — the soul of the just man is a little heaven on earth. In this strong appreciation of marvels, which have made the Christian people be chosen by God as his own — his own inheritance — let us sing our Gradual and Alleluia the happiness of the Christian people, chosen by God for His own inheritance.

The Man-God allowed temptation to approach his sacred person in the desert; he disdained not to sustain the attacks which the devil’s spiteful cunning has, from the world’s first beginning, been suggesting to him as the surest means of working man’s perdition. Our Jesus permitted the demon thus to tempt him, in order that he might show his faithful servants how they are to repel the assaults of the wicket spirit. Today our adorable Master, who would be a model to his children in all their trials, is represented to us as having to content not with Satan’s perfidy, but with the hypocrisy of his bitterest enemies, the Pharisees. They seek to ensnare him in his speech, just as the representatives of the world, which he has condemned, will do to his Church, and that in all ages, right to the end of time. But as her divine Spouse triumphed, so will she, for he will enable her to continue his work upon earth, and amidst the same temptations and the same snares. She is ever to come off with victory by maintaining a most inviolable fidelity to God’s law and truth. The tools of Satan, who are the heretics and the princes of this world, chafing at the restraint put by Christianity on their ambition and lust, will always be studying how best to outwit the guardian of the divine oracles, by their captious propositions or questions. When necessity requires her to speak, she is quite ready; for as Bride of that divine Word, who is his Father’s eternal and substantial utterance, what can she be but a voice, either announce him on earth, or sing him in heaven? That word of hers, endowed as it is with the power and penetration of God himself, will not only never be taken by surprise, but like a two-edged sword, it will generally go much deeper than the crafty questioners of the Church anticipated; it will not only refute their sophistry, it will also expose the hypocrisy and wickedness of their intentions. By their sacrilegious attempts, they will have gained nothing but disgrace and shame, and the mortification of having occasioned a fresh luster to Truth by the new light in which it has been put, and of having procured a clearer knowledge of dogma or morals for the devoted children of the Church.

It was thus with the Pharisees of today’s Gospel. As the Homily upon it tells us, they wanted to see if Jesus, who had declared himself to be God, would not consequently make some addition to the commandment of divine love; and if he did, they would be justified in condemning him as having tried to change the letter of the law in its greatest commandment. Our Lord disappoints them. He met their question by giving it a longer answer than they had asked for; that is, having first recited the text of the great commandment as given in the Scripture, he continued the quotation, and by so doing, showed them that he was not ignorant of the intention which had induced them to question him: he continued the quotation by reminding them of the second commandment, which is like unto the first — the commandment, that is, of love of the neighbor, and that condemned their intended crime of deicide. Thus were they convicted of loving neither their neighbor nor God himself, for the first commandment cannot be observed if the second, which flows from and completes it, be broken.

But our Lord does not stop there; he obliges them to acknowledge, at least implicitly, the divinity of the Messiah. He puts a question, in His turn, to them, and they answer it by saying, as they were obliged to do, that the Christ was to be of the family of David; but if he be his Son, how comes it that David calls himself “his Lord,” just as he calls God himself, as we have it in the 109th Psalm, where he celebrates the glories of the Messiah? The only possible explanation is that the Messiah, who in due time and as Man, was to be born of David’s house, was God, and Son of God, even before time existed, according to the same Psalm: From my womb, before the day-star, I begot thee. This answer would have condemned the Pharisees, so they refuse to give it; but their silence was an avowal; and before very long, the eternal Father’s vengeance upon these vile enemies of his Son will fulfill the prophecy of making them his footstool in blood and shame: that time is to be the terrible day when the justice of God will fall upon the deicide city.

Let us Christians, out of contempt for Satan, who stirred up the expiring Synagogue to thus lay snares for the Son of God — let us turn these efforts of hatred into an instruction which will warm up our love. The Jews, by rejecting Christ Jesus, sinned against both of the commandments which constitute charity, and embody the whole law; and we, on the contrary, by loving that same Jesus, fulfill the whole law.

This Jesus of ours is the brightness of eternal glory; one by nature with the Father and the Holy Ghost; he is the God whom the first commandment bids us love; and it is in Him also that the second has its truest and adequate application. For not only is he as truly Man as he is truly God, but he is the Man by excellence, the perfect Man, on whose type, and for whom, all other men were formed; he is the model and brother to all of them; he is, at the same time, the leader, who governs them as their King, and offers them to God as their High Priest; he is the Head, who communicates to all the members of the human family both beauty and life and movement and light; he is the Redeemer of that human family, when it fell, and on that account, he is, twice over, the source of all right and the ultimate and highest motive, even when not the direct Object, of every love that deserves to be called love, here below. Nothing counts with God, excepting so far as it has reference to this Jesus. As St. Augustine says, God only loves men inasmuch as they either are, or may one day become, members of his Son; it is his Son that he loves in them: thus he loves with one same love, though not equally, both his Word, and the Flesh of his Word, and the members of his Incarnate Word. Now, Charity is love — love such as it is in God, communicated to us creatures by the Holy Ghost. Therefore, what we should love, by charity, both in our own selves and in others is the divine Word, as either being or, as another expression of the same St. Augustine adds, “that it may be” in others and in ourselves.

Let us take care, also, as a consequence of this same truth, not to exclude any human being from our love, excepting the damned, who are thereby absolutely and eternally cut off from the body of the Man-God. Who can boast that he has the Charity of Christ, if he do not embrace his Unity? The question is St. Augustine’s again. Who can love Christ without loving, with Him, the Church, which is his Body? without loving all his members? What we do, be it to the least or be it to the worthiest — be it of evil or of good — it is to Him we do it, for he tells us so. Then let us love our neighbor as ourselves because of Christ, who is in each of us, and gives to us all union and increase in Charity.

That same Apostle who says: The end of the law is charity, says also: The end of the law is Christ; and we now see the harmony existing between these two distinct propositions. We understand also the connection there is between the word of the Gospel: On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets, and that other saying of our Lord: Search the Scriptures, for the same are they that give testimony of me. The fullness of the law, which is the rule of men’s conduct, is in Charity, of which Christ is the end, just as the Object of the revealed Scriptures is no other than the Man-God, who embodies in his own adorable unity, for us his followers, all moral teaching and all dogma. He is our faith and our love, “the end of all our resolutions,” says St. Augustine; “for all our efforts tend but to this—to perfect ourselves in Him; and this is our perfection, to reach Him: having reached Him, seek no farther, for he is your End.” The holy Doctor gives us, when we have reached this point, the best instruction as to how we are to live in the divine Union: “Let us cling to One, let us enjoy One, let us all be one in Him;” hæreamus Uni, fruamur Uno, permaneamus unum.

The beautiful Anthem for today’s Offertory, separated as we now have it from the Verses which formerly accompanied it, does not suggest why, in the earliest ages, it was assigned to this Sunday. We subjoin these Verses to the Anthem, which has been retained. The second concludes with the announcement of the arrival of the Prince of the heavenly Hosts, who is coming to the aid of God’s people. This gives the desired explanation; and it becomes all the clearer when remember that this Sunday begins the week of the great Archangel in the Antiphonary published, from the most ancient manuscripts, by the blessed Thomasi; and that the following Sunday is there designated as the first Sunday after Saint Michael (post Sancti Angeli).

Forgiveness of our past sins, and preservation from future ones—these are the effects produced by the Holy Sacrifice. Let us pray for them, in the Secret, together with the Church.

It is while assisting at these great Mysteries that the Christian soul in the enthusiasm of her love presents to her God her promises and her engagements. Let her, then, give herself unreservedly to the God who overwhelms her with his favors; but while thus giving free vent to the holy emotions which she so justly feels, let her not forget that He who hides himself, out of consideration for our weakness, under the Eucharistic veil, is the Most High, who is terrible to the kings of the earth, and an avenger of infidelity to what is vowed.

The other Secrets, as in the Fourth Sunday After Pentecost.

It is the very holiness of God that, in this divine Sacrament, comes for the purpose of curing our vices and fortifying our faltering steps in the road which leads to eternity. In the prayer of the Post-communion, let us yield our souls to his almighty influence.

The other Postcommunions, as in the Fourth Sunday After Pentecost.

 Mater Dolorosa
Feast Day Today – September 15th

Patroness of the Sorrowful Heart of Mary

Holy Mass Today – 5:30 PM
Confessions / Seven Dolors Rosary – 5:00 PM

Today, on the Octave of the Immaculata’s Nativity, we have September’s centerpiece feast day; and the solemnity which reflects this entire month’s consecrated devotion: The Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

We have a smaller version of this feast each year on the Friday of Passion Week, but today (and September by extension) is really the day we devote each year to especially honor our Blessed Lady’s tears. Most fittingly, it falls on the heels of yesterday’s great feast: The Exaltation of the Holy Cross. It is most significant how these liturgical feasts present the same theme under entirely different spiritual outlooks:

September 14th emphasizes Christ’s Kingship: praising the Holy Cross as the sign of our redemption; unfolding before our eyes the crux gemmate – the gemmed cross. September 15th portrays the immense human suffering of Christ with His Mater Dolorosa – Sorrowful Mother and Co-Redemptrix. Both feasts honor the Cross of our Saviour, showing the two spiritual trends of ancient times and that of the Middle Ages, the beata passio  – the blessed passion and the passio amara  – the bitter passion.

Regina Martyrum – Ora pro nobis

Like her Divine Son, our Blessed Lady’s life was a continuous series of sorrows and tribulations, the greatest of which she suffered during Christ’s most bitter passion and death; as the furious storm of hatred and rejection burst forth with all its violence against Him. It’s for this immense torment and pain that Holy Mother Church crowns Our Lady as Queen of Martyrs. In tribute to the Sorrowful Mother who endured suffering more than enough to even cause death, had she not been saved from the physical consequence of such great affliction. God spared her the shedding of blood, but He did not free her from the agony of martyrdom.

In order to foster contemplation on these agonizing tears and dolors, the Church has enriched with great indulgences many devotions to the Sorrowful Mother, most especially her Seven Dolors Rosary (page 10). And how deeply touching is the beautiful hymn: Stabat Mater Dolorosa, which the Church tenderly recites in the Sequence for today’s Holy Mass and also intertwines with prayerful recollection during the Stations of the Cross, or when walking the Via Dolorosa in the Holy Land.
 
The precise object of devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows consists in a simple, heartfelt and sincere compassion for the tears and sufferings which the most Holy Virgin endured, that began with the prophecy of Simeon and then finally consummated with the passion, death and burial of her Divine Son.
 
In practice, devotion to the Blessed Virgin’s sorrows is especially recommended for souls who wish to rid themselves of sinful habits. By nourishing the spirit of compunction, the devotion affords great consolation while it strengthens confidence in God’s mercy; and it will especially draw down our Blessed Lady’s protection in moments of temptation and preserve the converted sinner from relapsing into sin. In fact, our Sorrowful Mother once stated to her faithful servant, Saint Bridget of Sweden:
 

Another gift granted to those who have a devotion to Our Lady’s tears is the grace of a good and holy death. In recompense for her fidelity in remaining near to Jesus as He died on the Cross, His Sorrowful Mother has received a special power to assist souls in their last agony; and no doubt she will above all exercise this power on behalf of those who have wept with her; who have compassionated with her sorrows and lovingly consoled her.

The Sacred Heart once confided to Blessed Veronica of Binasco:

The Blessed Virgin grants Seven Graces to the souls who honor her daily by meditating on her tears and dolors, and reciting seven (7) Hail Marys in honor of her seven sorrows. This devotion was passed on by Saint Bridget of Sweden.

 THE SEVEN GRACES:

+  I will grant peace to their families.

+  They will be enlightened about the divine mysteries.

+  I will console them in their pains and I will accompany them in their work.

+  I will give them as much as they ask for as long as it does not oppose the adorable will of my Divine Son or the sanctification of their souls.

+  I will defend them in their spiritual battles with the infernal enemy and I will protect them at every instant of their lives.

+  I will visibly help them at the moment of their death; they will see the face of their Mother.

+  I have obtained this grace from my Divine Son, that those who propagate this devotion to my tears and dolors, will be taken directly from this earthly life to eternal happiness since all their sins will be forgiven and my Son and I will be their eternal consolation and joy.

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Reflection on Our Sorrowful Mother
by Rev. Fr. Frederick A. Reuter

Darkness had come down over the hills of Judea, and, in the gloom, hills and valleys were one. It was the last day of the unredeemed world; the morrow would be the dawn of the first day of the world redeemed by the Death of Christ Our Lord.

Upon one of those hills, stood a sorrowing Mother. It was the evening of her sorrow, near its end. The morning began in the long ago, when in the Temple the prophet had told that Mother of a coming sorrow that would pierce her heart as a sword. It grew in intensity in the hurried, anxious flight into Egypt, when fear broke into that stainless heart lest ruffian hands should steal away the Life that had just begun.

That sorrow changed its tone to grief again, in the weary, aching search of the three days’ loss in Jerusalem; and again the parting of the Son from His Mother, and her meeting Him cross-laden, seemed to her more than she could bear. But this was not all. It surpasses human words to tell all that Mother suffered. One cannot hope to tell the whole story. But one can always look upon the sweet, sorrowful face of the Mother, think of who she was, think of her Son, gaze upon His dead body, all covered with His precious blood, and then answer what it teaches one’s heart of her sorrow. One begins to look upon the face of that Mother, to mourn with her and for one’s sins; to ask the grace to know the depth of the bitterness that welled up in Mary’s heart.

The very meaning of the name of Mary is “sea of bitterness.” How truly this word tells the story of that Mother’s life. The bitterness of the Passion of Christ, ” great as the sea,” was in the heart of Mary from that first dread prophecy. The shadow of the Cross hung its gloom over that bright life, which one would say should have been free from sorrow’s lightest touch. She had a mother’s heart in all its yearnings for the joy of her Son, and its finest fibers were wrung in response to the beating pulses of His pain. The first pang came with the Circumcision, and increased till the spear opened His side at the crucifixion, till it could increase no more, for the measure of its woe was full; and in that fullness there was no kind of bitterness that she had not tasted. The neglect and the insults at Bethlehem, the inconvenience and fear of the flight were there; and before this, the grief after the Annunciation, when Joseph was “minded to put her away,” a sorrow that she bore in silence alone, and such an intensely painful sorrow to her immaculate Heart; the parting and the Agony and the Passion and the scenes of Calvary –all these tell us of that “sea of bitterness” in Mary’s name.

All this brings her inexpressibly near to us in sympathy. In our trials, and desolation and darkness, we do not realize how near to us she is until we have meditated upon this meaning of her name. In Mary the faculty of sympathy is developed to such a degree that she cannot but feel for each one of our woes. Sympathy would come from the very perfection of that heart, formed with such care and quickened by the greatest graces of God. Mary’s heart is the heart of a Mother ever inclining to comfort her little ones in their distress. For, as among the Greeks, that mercy might temper justice, no one was allowed to be a judge, who was not also a father; so in a much greater degree, will a mother’s justice be tempered by mercy. Besides being a mother, her Son’s sorrows developed still more that character of her soul; and as His sorrows were born for us, even apart from her special relation to us, our sorrows must make a deeper impression on her. When we remember, moreover, that we have been entrusted to her as to our Mother, we understand more fully the meaning of the words of the Salve Regina, that she is a “Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope,” and in our sorrow we send up to her a cry of mourning from this vale of tears, that she who was immersed in bitterness may turn her eyes of mercy upon our needs.

Sorrows come home to every human heart; sorrows that are sweet and merciful; sorrows that set the heart against the pitiless world, or seek to make it rebellious against God’s providence; or, again, sorrows that paralyze the heart’s energies, and deaden it to all that is joyful in life. But, over all these sorrows comes the calm, peaceful glance of the Mother of Sorrows, helping us to sanctify every pang, and to bear all in patience through love for our dear Saviour, her Son.

When the morning of her sorrow had grown into noon, and the evening came, the fullest weight of grief was upon her. The Cross is laid upon Him, and He is brought to Calvary. His Mother meets Him on the way. Their eyes meet. Dimly, through the tears and blood that obscure His sight, Our Lord discerns His Mother’s face, and His glance carried strength to her soul. He summons her, His well- beloved, to ratify the oblation made at Nazareth in the hour of the Incarnation, when she consented to become the Mother of the Man of Sorrows; the oblation made solemnly in the Temple on the day of His Presentation, and renewed again and again as the time of the Passion drew near: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord.” At every stage of His Redemption she is His handmaid, waiting upon Him always, His fellow-worker on whose sympathy and absolute fidelity He can rely. No cry of pain escapes her. To bring Him the only comfort in her power–the assurance that she accepts with Him every jot and tittle of the Father’s will; that she does not grudge one pang; that she is ready for more, for the consummation of the Sacrifice, for Calvary–this is her one thought. She cannot speak. Her heart would break with a word to Him. But her eyes, her quivering lips, her clasped hands speak for her. It is but for a moment that the Son and the Mother meet.

“When they have come to the place where they are to crucify Him, she, in her love, is near; as they stretch Him upon the Cross, she hears the dull thud of the hammer as it falls upon the nail that is to pierce His right hand, and the cruel sound it makes as it forces the nail through His sacred Flesh.

Did not that nail drive its way through her own heart? And then comes the nailing of the left hand, and another wound in her heart, and then the strokes that fasten the feet of her Son to the wood of the Cross. The Cross is lifted up, and sinks into the place prepared for it. She hears the sound, and knows that it is increasing the pains in His hands and feet. ”Oh, all you that pass by the way, attend and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.”

As Mary stands there at the foot of the Cross and looks up to that face–that beautiful face of her Infant of Bethlehem–there comes to her heart the contrast of the joy of that first Christmas and the sorrow of this Good Friday. That little one had grown up beside her, had called her lovingly by the name of mother; and from the gloom of Calvary her heart goes back to the home at Nazareth, and the crib of Bethlehem, and it seems as if her heart is broken. This is the realization of Simeon’s prophecy; the sword has pierced her heart, indeed.

But when a mother sees her son grow up, and when his life is full of the promise of manhood, in all the glory of his youth he is suddenly taken away from her, who will measure the desolation and the darkness and the sadness that sweep over her life? Her hopes are broken, her dreams scattered, her soul crushed. In the night of her grief, it seems to her that there is nothing in life worth living for. She is alone, and the great sorrowing love welling up in her heart has not whereon to put itself. If this be true of a mother’s love for her child, where was there a mother with such a child as Jesus? Where was a mother with such great, strong, tender love as the Blessed Virgin Mary had for her Son? And unless we know who Jesus was, unless we understand His infinite holiness His tenderness, His goodness, His divine amiability and His own love for that Mother; unless we can penetrate into the mysteries of that beautiful heart of Mary, we can never fully understand the sorrow of that afternoon on Calvary. As she stood gazing upward there, she heard Him speak. But, oh, how, changed that voice from long ago; She heard Him speak the word “Mother.” And after those other words were spoken, as she was looking up, she saw those eyes close, and heard that last word, and Jesus, her Son, was dead.

The desolation and the sorrow, and the grief and the resignation of the Mother of Jesus! He was dead! “The most beautiful of the sons of men.” Now there was no comeliness in Him. He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, one wound from the crown of His head to the soles of His feet. He was wounded for our iniquities, and by His bruises we are healed. When they lift that Body from the Cross, and place it in the arms of His heart-broken Mother; when in her grief she clasps her arms about Him to forget all the world and be alone with Him in spirit, truly we ask: “Was there ever a sorrow like that sorrow?” Can we enter deeper into that mystery of sorrow?

There is indeed a deeper depth: but it is enough. With these pictures and memories before us, we should let the thought of them sink deep into our hearts. We naturally feel disposed to sympathy with that Mother, and sorrow for the sufferings of Jesus Christ; sorrow and love and sympathy in union with the hearts of Jesus and Mary. There is no better means of offering the reparation in which, as Associates in the Apostleship of Prayer, we are all engaged. The very day of the Feast of Mary’s Sorrows, which is kept in September, is our own day for Communions of Reparation. Although a day commemorative of mourning, it still goes by the name of Feast. Feast of the Seven Sorrows, the Church terms it, and so dear is that Feast that the Calendar offers it to our celebration twice a year. It is rightly dear to the Church, and justly named Feast. Mary’s Sorrows were a cause of our joy.

OUR LADY OF FATIMA CHAPEL
16 DOGWOOD ROAD SOUTH
HUBBARDSTON, MA 01452

The September Apparition

Today we commemorate the Blessed Virgin’s fifth visit to Fatima on September 13th, 1917. Nearly 30,000 souls had gathered at the Cova da Iria; as the children (and the crowd) awaited Our Lady’s visit, Lúcia led the Rosary. At noon, a certain phenomenon announced the arrival of Our Lady to many in the crowd.

Again drawing especially from Frère Michel de la Sainte Trinité we read:

Among the numerous testimonies describing the marvels which Our Lady wished to accompany Her coming, the most detailed is undoubtedly from Father John Quaresma, who later on became Vicar General of Leiria. He had come there incognito, in secular clothing with two other priests, Fathers Manuel do Carmo Gois and Manuel Pereira da Silva, in the same dress. All three surveyed the events from an elevation at the side of the Cova.  In 1932, Msgr. Quaresma, in a letter to his colleague Msgr. Carmo Gois, recalls the prodigious event of September 13th in all its details:

“On a beautiful September morning we left Leiria in a rickety carriage drawn by an old horse, for the spot where the much discussed apparitions were to take place. Father Gois found the high point of the vast amphitheater from which we could observe events without approaching too nearly the place where the children were awaiting the apparition. At midday (solar time) there was complete silence. One only heard the murmur of prayers.

Suddenly there were sounds of jubilation and voices praising the Blessed Virgin. Arms were raised pointing to something in the sky. “Look, don’t you see?” “Yes, yes, I do…!” There was much satisfaction on the part of those who did. There had not been a cloud in the deep blue sky and I too raised my eyes and scrutinized it in case I should be able to distinguish what the others, more fortunate than I, had already claimed to have seen. With great astonishment I saw, clearly and distinctly, a luminous globe, which moved from the east to the west, gliding slowly and majestically through space. My friends also looked and had the good fortune to enjoy the same unexpected and delightful vision. Suddenly the globe, with its extraordinary light, disappeared. Near us was a little girl dressed like Lúcia and more or less the same age. She continued to cry out happily: “I still see it! I still see it! Now it’s coming down!

“It then began to approach the holm oak of the apparition. Then the sun’s brightness diminished, the atmosphere became golden yellow, like the other times. Some people even reported being able to distinguish the stars in the sky. Lúcia began to speak …”

“What does Your Grace want of me?”

“Continue to say the Rosary in order to obtain the end of the war. In October, Our Lord will come, as well as Our Lady of Sorrows and Our Lady of Carmel. Saint Joseph will appear with the Child Jesus in order to bless the world.”

Then, regarding the penitential practice of wearing the coarse rope around their waists, Our Lady told Lúcia:

“God is satisfied with your sacrifices, but He does not want you to sleep with the rope. Wear it only during the day.”

Sister Lucia’s fourth Memoir adds: “In October I will perform a miracle so that all may believe.”

Then Our Lady began to rise as usual, and disappeared.

AN AMAZING “RAIN OF FLOWERS”

During the time of the apparition the majority of the pilgrims had enjoyed a marvelous spectacle: they saw falling from Heaven a shower of white petals, or round, shining snowflakes which slowly descended and disappeared as they approached the ground. Here are a few testimonies:

“Very high up we saw little white forms like snow in the air, coming across from the east to the west. One could say they were doves, but we could clearly see that they were not birds. On the slope, to the west, stood Father Joaquim Ferreira Gonzalves das Neves, parish priest of Santa Catarina da Serra… I turned towards him and asked him if he saw something. He said no. I indicated the direction to him, and suddenly he declared that he saw also.”

It was an unheard of phenomenon, which the witnesses were not able to describe very well:  “One might think they were stars”, declared Manuel Gonzalves, from the hamlet of Montelo. Others spoke of a rain of white roses, which vanished at the approach of the ground.

A MYSTERIOUS CLOUD

The Blessed Virgin wished to give the crowd gathered around the holm oak where She was appearing another sign of Her presence:

“A pleasant looking cloud formed around the rustic arch which dominated the little tree-stump. Rising up from the ground, it grew thicker and went up into the air until it was five or six meters high; then it disappeared like smoke that vanishes before the wind.”

“A few moments later, similar curls of smoke were formed and disappeared in the same manner, and then a third time.”

“Everything happened as though some invisible thurifers were incensing the Vision liturgically. The three incensations together lasted the whole time of the apparition, that is from ten to fifteen minutes.”

In his letter approving devotion to Our Lady of Fatima, the Bishop of Leiria declared this phenomenon “humanly speaking inexplicable.”

THE LUMINOUS GLOBE GOES BACK UP TO HEAVEN

Not everything was over yet. At the end of the Apparition, when the Blessed Virgin had finished transmitting Her message, Lúcia  exclaimed: “If you want to see Her, look over there! And she pointed with her finger towards the east. Then once again the luminous globe having an oval form could be seen, going up into the air and leaving the Cova da Iria in the direction of the east.

Here is the conclusion of Msgr. Quaresma’s account:

“After a few minutes, about the duration of the Apparitions, the child began to exclaim again, pointing to the sky: ‘Now it’s going up again!’ And she followed the globe with her eyes until it disappeared in the direction of the sun.

What do you think of that globe?” I asked my companion, who seemed enthusiastic at what he had seen. “That it was Our Lady”, he replied without hesitation. It was my undoubted conviction also. The children had contemplated the very Mother of God, while to us it had been given to see the means of transport which had brought Her from Heaven to the inhospitable waste of the Serra de Aire.

I must emphasize that all those around us appeared to have seen the same thing, for one heard manifestations of joy and praise of Our Lady. But some saw nothing. Near us was a simple devout creature weeping bitterly because she had seen nothing.

We felt remarkably happy. My companion went from group to group in the Cova and afterwards on the road, gathering information. Those he questioned were of all sorts and kinds and of different social standing, but one and all affirmed the reality of the phenomena which we ourselves had witnessed.”

THE MESSAGE OF THE SIGNS

Far from overwhelming the little seers with interminable discourses which they would not be able to remember, Our Lady showed an admirable pedagogy at Fatima. She contented Herself to humbly take up certain themes, all closely connected, and She repeated them from month to month, each time adding some new element. Thus on October 13th, She repeats almost entirely, although in a different way, Her words of September 13th. Thus it will be more fruitful to comment on Her last two messages at the same time…

Let us consider what constitutes the originality of this fifth apparition, that is the striking atmospheric signs which accompanied the coming of Our Lady and Her return to Heaven. To be sure, they were first and above all sensible proofs mercifully granted by Her, to convince still more the crowds of the faithful gathered in the Cova da Iria of the reality of Her presence. And in fact these signs would encourage innumerable pilgrims to return for the last rendezvous, to the point where there were almost twice as many, from 50,000 to 80,000!

But the miracles of Our Lord and the signs accomplished by Our Lady of Fatima are not only extraordinary facts which bear witness to their supernatural origin, they are also symbols rich in meaning, the sensible expressions of a mystery… Thus all the surprising marvels of September 13th, which filled with joy all those who had the privilege of contemplating them were like a language, the discreet and veiled manifestation of the Immaculate Virgin who during this time appeared in brilliant light to Her three usual confidants. And first of all, this luminous globe which preceded the apparition…

THE IMMACULATE ONE CAME DOWN FROM HEAVEN

Yes, such was indeed the clearest conclusion spontaneously drawn by all those who had seen the mysterious luminous globe slowly and majestically gliding into space, going from east to west, to descend finally on the holm oak of the apparition, before going back into space, in the direction of the east. The sign was simple, and its meaning was obvious to all: “It was Our Lady who came!” exclaimed Father Gois. And Father Quaresma explained: “The little shepherds had seen the Mother of God Herself. To us it had been given to see the means of transport, if one may so express it,  which had brought Her from Heaven to the inhospitable waste of the Serra de Aire.”

Frère Michel takes pains in his account to make clear that an essential function of the apparition was to emphasize the reality of the Blessed Virgin’s glorified body appearing there. Not some mystical appearance of a symbolic representation of Mary, but she herself. We need to bear this in mind in order to counteract the pernicious effects of modernism, which always undermines the physical reality of Jesus’s real presence and Mary’s as well. [NOTE: This tendency of Modernism to undermine the physical reality of the real, physical reality of Jesus and Mary is counteracted by devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.]

Despite the modernists, at Fatima as at Lourdes, much evidence allows us to affirm that Heaven visited the earth, the Virgin Mary descended in person in Her glorified, risen body to appear to the three shepherds, to transmit Her message to them, and comfort the innumerable crowds with Her invisible presence. Then She went back up to Heaven, resplendent with Light, always towards the east from whence She had come.

This last detail, very well attested by the seers, is still another symbolic trait rich in biblical reminiscences: Does it not remind us of the Spouse in the Canticle of Canticles? “Who is She that cometh forth as the dawn, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army in battle array?” (Canticles 6, 9)

THE IMMACULATE ONE, ARK OF THE NEW COVENANT

During all the apparitions since June 13th, many witnesses had noticed a thin white cloud, very pleasant to look at, forming above the holm oak. It remained there for the whole duration of the apparition, before gently going up in the sky towards the east, before finally disappearing. In August, almost everybody could see it. The same phenomenon took place on September 13th, but in an even more lavish manner, since the unusual cloud formed and then disappeared three times in a row, during the ten minutes Our Lady had spoken to the children.

This mysterious cloud which enveloped the apparition, as if to manifest its presence while concealing it at the same time, does it not remind us once again of the great biblical theophanies? Certainly, from the giving of the law to Moses on Sinai to the Transfiguration of Jesus on Mount Tabor, the cloud always appears in sacred history as the symbol and sensible expression of the divine Presence. But how can we explain the fact that a creature, even the most sublime, the Blessed Virgin, could manifest Herself in the glorious aura of a specifically divine attribute?

The answer is rich in mystical significance and is taught in the Gospel of St. Luke, by way of allusion but still quite clearly: through a series of hints that the exegetes have perfectly grasped, the Evangelist identifies the Virgin Mary with the Ark of the Covenant. This Ark, hidden under the Tent, was like a movable sanctuary, the place where Yahweh had fixed His residence, accompanying Israel in its wanderings; and the Cloud manifested His presence. As soon as the Ark was introduced, we read in the Book of Exodus, “the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.” (Ex. 40:34-35) After the building of the Temple by Solomon, the Ark was solemnly carried in by the priests to the Holy of Holies. And finally, it is by the Cloud that Yahweh manifests that He is taking possession of His Temple, and establishes His abode there.

Now the symbolism is clear: by manifesting Herself in the cloud in each of Her apparitions, did not Our Lady wish to signify to us one of the most sublime aspects of Her mystery? In these three clouds observed on September 13th and October 13th, which also remind us of the triple incensation in the liturgy, the Immaculate Virgin shows us that She is the Abode and the Temple of God, the Sanctuary of the Holy Trinity, and the Ark of the New Covenant. In addition to Her message, it seems that at Fatima the Virgin Mary wished to teach us, in an incomparable synthesis, and in both a sensible and symbolic manner, all the highest perfections of Her personal vocation, already chanted for many centuries by the liturgy of the Church: “Ark of the Covenant, pray for us!”

THE  IMMACULATE  ONE,  DISPENSER  OF  A  SHOWER  OF  GRACES

As for the gracious shower of rose petals or snowflakes, the significance can be grasped immediately. The symbolism is so natural that the expression “a shower of graces” has become commonplace. For example, we need only recall the beautiful words of St. Therese of the Child Jesus who, planning to spend her Heaven doing good on earth, said to her sister: “You’ll see, it will be like a shower of roses.”

At Rue du Bac, Our Lady had declared to St. Catherine Laboure: “Come to the foot of this altar. Here, graces will be poured out on everybody who will ask for them with confidence.” Is it not the same pressing invitation that Our Lady wished to express at the Cova da Iria, by the eloquent symbol of a preternatural rain? Unquestionably yes. And as if to encourage the pilgrims to come en masse to this blessed place, where she showered Her graces profusely, she renewed the same prodigy of this mysterious rain on May 13th, 1918, and one more time, on May 13th, 1924: this time Bishop da Silva of Leiria was at the Cova da Iria and could bear witness to it himself.

BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO HAVE NOT SEEN AND HAVE BELIEVED!

And yet, Msgr. Quaresma writes, “some people saw nothing at all.” And again, Canon Barthas remarks: “It seems that the proportion of those who saw nothing was about a third of the total.” Did Our Lady wish to try their faith? It seems likely. Far from favoring only the believers, or those who intensely desired to finally see tangible proofs of the supernatural character of the events, many of them did not notice any extraordinary phenomenon that day. The privation of this consolation was a hard trial for them! It remained for them to have blind confidence in the words of Our Lady, and to continue firmly hoping to be more fortunate on October 13th; for She had promised since July, and repeated this promise to the seers in September: “In October, I will perform a miracle so that all may see and believe.”

Carefully note Our Lady’s choice of words, “So that all may believe.”  Here is the Immaculate Mother of God affirming that Fatima is a message for all. That is, Fatima is not simply a private revelation that we may choose to ignore!

– Edited from Return To Fatima and The Whole Truth About Fatima by Frère Michel de la Sainte Trinité

“Oh! all ye that pass by the way, attend and see,
if there be any sorrow like to my Sorrow.”

September is Consecrated to Our Lady of Sorrows

See: The Manual of Devotion to the Sorrowful Mother
By Rev. Fr. Ambrose St. John, 1861

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This Week’s Holy Mass Schedule

Today – Sunday, September 5th
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Saint Laurence Justinian, Bishop & Confessor

Holy Mass Livestream from PA – 9:00 AM EDT
Find Link Here

Wednesday, September 8th – 5:30 PM
The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Thursday, September 9th – 7:30 AM
Saint Peter Claver, Confessor

Friday, September 10th – 5:30 PM
Saint Nicholas of Tolentino, Confessor

Confessions / Rosary – 30 Minutes Before Mass

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Bishop Schneider Grants Religious Exemption Letter
To Avoid Abortion-Tainted Jabs

His Excellency, Bishop Athanasius Schneider has decided to offer a personalized affidavit affirming membership in the Confraternity of Our Lady of Fatima, which will help members to avoid abortion-tainted injections.

(LifeSite News) Many Catholics in the United States are concerned about being fired or otherwise forced to receive abortion-tainted inoculations . Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Kazakhstan has decided to provide affidavits certifying membership in the Confraternity of Our Lady of Fatima.The Confraternity is opposed to abortion-tainted injections as a deeply religious held belief. The certificates are personalized with the name of each member and bear the bishop’s signature.

Any member is able to take that certificate along with a personal statement to his/her place of employment.

The certificate reads:

“This is to certify that [NAME] is a perpetual member of the Confraternity of Our Lady of Fatima in good standing and as such holds to the following deeply held religious belief that the crime of abortion is so monstrous that any kind of concatenation (i.e. sequence) with this crime, even a very remote one, such as inoculations that use aborted fetal cells for the testing or production, is immoral and cannot be accepted under any circumstances by a Catholic.”

Christopher Wendt, International Director of the Confraternity of Our Lady of Fatima, who helped co-found the Confraternity with Bishop Schneider, explains that anyone in the world is welcome to join the Confraternity.

“There are a some promises that you make to try to help live out the call of Our Lady of Fatima and to bring about the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in your own life,” Wendt said.

There is also a resource link on their website on how to request your certificate and how to get a copy of the Religious Exemption Letter Template.

It’s all very straightforward. First you download your Religious Exemption Letter Template. You take that template and personalize it, making it an expression of your deeply personal religious beliefs. Then, second, if you feel called to join the Confraternity, you fill out the form and become a member. A third party will send you your personalized certificate signed by Bishop Schneider in an email within one business day. Then you submit both to your place of employment.

It says on the website that it is not offered as legal advice, but respected attorneys have reviewed it. It is recommended certainly that you do seek expert legal help if you feel that your Constitutional rights are being violated.

To join the Confraternity of Our Lady of Fatima and to request your certificate from Bishop Schneider, go to https://www.livefatima.io/exemption/

RELATED: Read the recent speech delivered by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò: Considerations on the Great Reset and the New World Order

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XV Sunday After Pentecost

This Sunday’s Introit – which now goes under the name of the Sunday of the widow of Naim, because of the Gospel read on it – gives us a sample of the prayers we should address to our Lord in our necessities. Last Sunday, we heard our Jesus promising to provide for all our wants, on the condition that we would serve him faithfully, by seeking his kingdom. When we present our petitions to him, let us show him the confidence he so well deserves from us; and we shall be graciously heard.

The humility wherewith our holy Mother the Church presents her supplications to God should serve as a model to us. If the Bride herself thus treats with God, what ought not be our sentiments of lowliness, when we appear in the presence of sovereign Majesty? We may well say to this tender Mother of ours what the Disciples said to Jesus: Teach us how to pray! Let us unite with her in this Collect.

The other Collects, as in the Fourth Sunday After Pentecost.

Holy Church resumes the lesson of St. Paul, where she left it last Sunday. The Spiritual life, the life produced in our souls by the Holy Spirit, in place of the former life of the flesh—this is still the subject of the Apostle’s teaching. When the flesh has been subdued, we must take care and not suppose that the structure of our perfection is completed. Not only must the combat be kept up after the victory, under penalty of losing all we have won, but we must also be on the watch lest one or other of the heads of the triple concupiscence take advantage of the soul’s efforts being elsewhere directed, to raise itself against us, and sting us all the more terribly, because it is left to do just as it pleases. The Apostle warns us here of vainglory, and well he may; for vainglory is, more than other enemies, always in a menacing attitude, ready to infuse its subtle poison even into acts of humility and penance; hence the Christian, who is desirous to serve God and not his own gratification, by the virtues he practices, must keep up a specially active vigilance over this passion.

Just let us think, for a moment, on the madness that culprit would be guilty of who, having his sentence to death commuted for a severe flogging, should take pride in the stripes left on his body by the whip! May this madness never be ours! It would seem, however, as though it were far from being impossible, seeing how the Apostle, immediately after his telling us to mortify our flesh, bids us take heed of vainglory. In fact, we are not safe on this subject, excepting inasmuch as the outward humiliation, inflicted by us on our body has this for its principle, that our soul should voluntarily humble herself at the sight of her miseries. The ancient Philosophers, too, had their maxims about the restraint of the senses; but those among them who practiced those admirably worded maxims found them a stepping-stone for the pride to mount of mountains high in self-conceit. It could not be otherwise; for they were totally devoid of anything like the sentiments which actuated our Fathers in the faith who, when they clad themselves in sackcloth and prostrated on the ground, cried out from the heartfelt conviction of the miseries of human nature: Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy great mercy! for I was conceived in iniquities, and my sin is ever before me!

To practice bodily mortification with a view to get the reputation of being saints, is it not doing what St. Paul here calls sowing in the flesh, that in due time, that is, on the day, when the intentions of our hearts will be made manifest, we may reap not life and glory everlasting, but endless disgrace and shame? Among the works of the flesh mentioned in last Sunday’s Epistle, we found contentions, dissensions, jealousies, all of which are the ordinary outcome of this vainglory, against which the Apostle is now warning us. The production of such rotten fruits would be an unmistakable sign that the heavenly sap of grace had gone from our souls and that, in its stead, there had been brought the fermentation of sin; and that now, having made ourselves slaves, as of old, we must tremble because of the penalties threatened by God’s law. God is not mocked; and as to the confidence which generous fidelity of love imparts to those who live by the Spirit—it would, in the case we are now supposing, be but a hypocritical counterfeit of the holy liberty of the children of God. They alone are his children whom the Holy Spirit leads, and leads them in charity; those others are led on by the flesh, and such cannot please God.

If, on the contrary, we would have an equally unmistakable sign, which is quite compatible with the obscurities of faith that we are really in possession of divine Union, let us not take occasion from the sight of others’ defects and faults to be puffed up with pride, but rather, from the consideration of our own miseries, be indulgent to everyone else. If others fall, let us give them a helping and prudent hand. Let us bear one another’s burdens along the road of life, and then, having thus fulfilled the law of Christ, we shall know (and oh! the joy there is in such knowing!) that we abide in Him, and He in us. These most thrilling words, which were made use of by our Lord to express the future intimacy he would have with whomsoever should eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood in holy Communion, St. John, who had told them to us, takes them and uses them in his Epistles, and (let us mark the deep mystery of the application) applies them to whomsoever, in the Holy Ghost, observes the great commandment of loving his neighbor.

Would to God we could ever have ringing in our ears the saying of the Apostle: Whilst we have time, let us work good to all men! For the day will come, and it is not so very far off, when the Angel, carrying the mysterious Book, and having one foot on the earth and the other on the sea, shall make his mighty voice as that of a lion be heard through the universe and, with his hand lifted up towards heaven, shall swear by Him that liveth forever and ever, that time shall be no more! Then will man reap with joy what he shall have sown in tears; he failed not, he grew not weary of doing good while in the dreary land of his exile—still less will he ever tire of the everlasting harvest which is to be in the living light of the Eternal Day.

As we sing the Gradual, let us remember that the only praise which gives God pleasure is that which goes up to him from a soul where reigns the harmony of the several virtues. The Christian life, which is regulated by the ten commandments, is the ten-stringed psaltery on which the Finger of God, who is the Holy Ghost, plays to the Spouse the music that he loves to hear.

This is the second time, during the Year, holy Church offers this Gospel to our consideration; we cannot be surprised at this, for the fathers selected by her as its interpreters tell us, on both of these occasions, that the afflicted mother who follows her son to the grave is the Church herself.

The first time we saw her under this symbol of a mother mourning for her child was in the penitential season of Lent. She was then, by her fasting and prayer (united as those were with her Jesus’ sufferings), preparing the resurrection of such of our brethren as were dead in sin. Their resurrection was realized, and we had them, in all the fullness of their new life, seated side by side with us at the Paschal Table. What exquisite joy on that Feast of Feasts inundated the Mother’s heart as she thus shared in the triumphant gladness of her divine Spouse! He, her Jesus was, by his one Resurrection, twice over the conqueror of death—he rose from the grave, and he gave back the child to the Mother. The Disciples if this Risen Lord, who follow him closely by their observance of the evangelical counsels, yes, they, and the whole multitude that associated themselves with the Church, glorified Jesus for his wonderful works and sang the praises of that God who thus vouchsafed to visit his people.

The Mother ceased to weep. But since then, the Spouse has again left her to return to his Father; she has resumed her widow’s weeds, and her sufferings are continually adding to the already well-nigh insupportable torture of her exile. And whence these sufferings? From the relapses of so many of those ungrateful children of hers to whom she had given a second birth and at the cost of such pains and tears! The countless cares she then spent over her sinners, and that new life she gave them in the presence of her dying Jesus—all this made each of the penitents, during the Great Week, as though he were the only son of that Mother. What an intense grief, says St. John Chrysostom, that so loving a Mother should see them relapsing, after the communion of such mysteries, into sin which kills them! “Spare me,”—as she may well say, in the words which the holy Doctor puts into the Apostle’s mouth—”Spare me! No other child, once born into this world, ever made his Mother suffer the pangs of childbirth over again!” To repair the relapse of a sinner costs her no less travail than the giving birth to such as had never believed.

And if we compare these times of ours with the period when sainted Pastors made her words be respected all over the world—is there a single Christian who is still faithful to the Church who does not feel impelled, by such contrast, to be more and more devoted to a Mother so abandoned as she now is? Let us listen to the eloquent words of St. Laurence Justinian on this subject. “Then,” says he in his De compuncti et planctu christianem perfectus, “all resplendent with the mystic jewels wherewith the Bridegroom had beautified her on the wedding day, she thrilled with joy at the increase of her children, both in merit and number; she urged them to ascend to ever greater heights; she offered them to God, she raised them, in her arms, up towards heaven. Obeyed by them, she was, in all truth, the mother of fair love and fear; she was beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in array. She stretched out her branches as the turpentine-tree, and beneath their shadow, she sheltered them she had begotten, against the heat, and the tempest, and the rain. So long, then, as she could, she labored, feeding at her breasts all those she was able to assemble. But her zeal, great as it was, has redoubled from the time she perceived that many, yea very many, had lost their first fervor. Now for many years, she is mourning at the sight of how, each day, her Creator is offended, how great are the losses she sustains, and how so many of her children suffer death. She that was once robed in scarlet has put on mourning garments; her fragrance is no longer felt by the world; instead of a golden girdle, she has but a cord, and instead of the rich ornament of her breast, she is vested in haircloth. Her lamentations and tears are ceaseless. Ceaseless is her prayer, striving if, by some way, she may make the present as beautiful as in times past; and yet, as thou it were impossible for her to call back that lovely past, she seems wearied at such supplication. The word of the prophet has come true: They are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together; there is none that doth good, no, not one! … The manifold sins committed by the Church’s children against the divine precepts show that they who so sin are rotten members, members alien to the body of Christ. Nevertheless, the Church forgets not that she gave them birth in the laver of salvation; she forgets not the promises they then made to renounce the devil, and the pomps of the world, and all sin. Therefore does she weep over their fall, being their true mother, and never losing the hope of winning their resurrection by her tears. O what a flood of tears is thus every day shed before God! What fervent prayers does not this spotless virgin send, by the ministry of the holy Angels, up to Christ, who is the salvation of sinners! In the secret of hearts in lonely retreats, as well as in her public temples, she cries out to the divine mercy that they who are now buried in the filth of vice may be restored to life. Who shall tell the joy of her heart, when she receives back living the children she mourned over as dead? If the conversion of sinners is such a joy to heaven, what must it be to such a Mother? According to the multitude of the sorrows of her heart, so will be the consolations, giving joy to her soul.”

It is the duty of us Christians, who, by God’s mercy, have been preserved from the general decay to share in the anguish of our Mother, the Church; we should humbly but fervently cooperate with her in all her zealous endeavors to reclaim our fallen brethren. We surely can never be satisfied with not being the number of those senseless sons who are a sorrow to their Mother, and despise the labor of her that bore them. Had we not the Holy Spirit to tell us how he that honoreth his Mother is as one that layeth up to himself a treasure—the thought of what our birth cost her would force us to do everything that lies in our power to comfort her. She is the dear Bride of the Incarnate Word; and our souls, too, aspire to union with Him; let us prove that such Union is really ours by doing as the Church does—that is, by showing in our acts the one thought, the one love, which the divine Spouse always imparts to souls that enjoy holy intimacy with him, because there is nothing he Himself has so much at heart—the thought of bringing the whole world to give glory to his Eternal Father, and the love of procuring salvation for sinners.

Let us unite with the Church, our Mother, in singing now in the Offertory, the realization, in part at least, of her expectations; let not our lips ever be shut up in senseless silence, when we have our God bestowing favors on us.

In the Secret let us put ourselves, and everything that belongs to us, under the custody, the keeping all-powerful, of the divine Mysteries.

The other Secrets, as in the Fourth Sunday After Pentecost.

Jesus’ word called back from death the son of the widow of Naim; his Flesh is the Life of the world, for it is the Bread, whose praise we are now to celebrate in our Communion-Anthem.

Divine Union is not perfect in us, unless the Mystery of love so predominates over both our minds and bodies, as that they be fully possessed by it as our Mother here words its efficacy; we must be influenced and directed by it, and not by nature, that is, by the dictates of flesh and blood and human sense.

The other Postcommunion, as in the Fourth Sunday After Pentecost.