Homily #080430 ( 09min) Play – St. Pius V worked strenuously to reform the Liturgy and the Clergy. Let us invoke him today, in times when the Liturgy is being abused and the Clergy is in need of reform.
Ave Maria! Mass readings
+++

The post Apr 30 – Homily – Fr. Angelo: St. Pius V first appeared on AirMaria.com.

Ave Maria!

Well, it has been a busy week or so in the news for the FI’s in regard to our accelerating adoption of the Extraordinary Form (EF) of the Mass. Starting last week February 27 we were featured on Fr. Zuhlsdorf’s blog and picked by the New Liturgical Movement about upcoming EF Masses involving the FIs. The first will be the ordinations of five FIs in our friary in Tarqinia, Italy on the 25th of March, the Annunciation. They will be ordained by Bishop Raymond Burke, recently made head of the Roman Apostolic Signatura and he will be celebrating the Mass in the Extraordinary Form. One of the ordinees will be an American, Fra John Lorenzo. The article goes on to mention that another EF Mass will be in the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran on the 800th anniversary of the approval of the Rule of St. Francis by Pope Honorius III on April 16 and will be celebrated by Fr. Stefano Manelli the founder of the FIs, a great honor indeed.
Then on March 4 the Latin Mass Society published a wonderful  article about our Contemplative Sisters in Cornwall, England about how they have adopted the 1962 Missal and the Divine Office. This was picked up by Fr. Zuhlsdorf, Rorate Caeli, New Liturgical Movement, and Damian Thompson of The Telegraph. You can see pictures and some history of the Sister’s house here.

All of these articles have generated many comments and discussion on the blogs. All we can say is thanks for all the great articles and Glory be to God.

Ave Maria!

The post FiNews – FIs are in the News Again first appeared on AirMaria.com.

The live broadcast of the Mass went well for the Solemnity of St. Joseph. We had about 115 viewers who viewed the Missa Cantata on AirMaria and at least two other sites who embedded the viewer, Rorate Caeli and Pro Multis Media. Thank you both for this. We had some audio problems and some glitches with the switching between the two cameras, but we are learning. The Chapel was quite full and the choir was simply heavenly as was the liturgy. All in all we have much to be thankful for. Glory be to God!

Videos Available at Ustream:

St Joseph #1 Missa Cantata – Prayers at the Foot of the Altar through the Gospel. Missed a few minutes at the beginning. Sorry about that. I was asleep at the switch.

St Joseph #2 Missa Cantata Homily – Missed 1st minute trying to restart recording. Early audio problems but gets better around 3min.

St Joseph #3 Missa Cantata – Suscipiat to Agnus Dei, includes the Consecration.

St Joseph #4 Missa Cantata – Domine non sum dignus, Communion.

The post Fi News – Last Night’s Live Broadcast first appeared on AirMaria.com.

+

The Mystery of Faith: TRANSUBSTANTIATION

+

The words of Our Lord cannot be watered down: the ­bread which I

shall give is my flesh for the life of the world.

+

This is the mystery of Faith, we proclaim immediately after the

Consecration at Mass. It has been and is the touchstone of the Catholic

faith. By transubstantiation, the species of bread and wine are no

longer common bread and common drink, but rather the sign of

something sacred and the sign of spiritual food. But they take on a

new expressive­ness and a new purpose for the very reason that they

contain a new reality: which we are right to call ‘ontological’. For

beneath these appearances there is no longer what was there before

but something quitedifferent, since on the conver­sion of the bread and

wine’s substance, or nature, into the Body and Blood of Christ,

nothing is left of the bread and wine but the appearances alone.

Beneath these appearances Christ is present whole and entire, bodily

present too, in his physical reality although not in the manner in

which bodies are present in a place.

+

We look at Jesus present in the Tabernacle, perhaps just a few yards

away, and we tell him that we know, through faith, that he is present.

In Holy Communion Christ himself, perfect God and perfect man,

gives himself to us; he is mysteriously hidden, but wishes to

communicate divine life to us. When we receive him in this sacrament,

his Divinity acts on our soul by means of his glorious Humanity, with a

far greater intensity than when he was here on earth. None of the

people who were cured – Bartimaeus or the paralyzed man of

Capharnaum or the lepers -were as close to Christ as we are every time

we go to Holy Communion.

+

The effects produced by that Living Bread, Jesus, in our soul

are immeasurable and of an infinite richness. The Church expresses it

clearly in the following words: All the effect which material food and

drink have with regan1 to the life of the body, sustaining, res­toring and

delighting it, is carried out by this sacrament with regan1 to the

spiritual life.

+

Hidden under the sacramental species, Jesus waits for us. He has

remained there so that we can receive him and be strengthened in his

love. We must examine our faith today; let us ask ourselves what our

love is like, how do we prepare ourselves for Communion, when so

many people neglect Our Lord entirely. We must say with Peter: we

have known and believed that you are the Christ. You are our

Redeemer, our raison d’etre.

+

The effects of Communion on the soul: it sus­tains, restores,

delights. Communion sustains the life of the soul in away similar to that in

which food sustains the body. The reception of the Blessed Eucharist

keeps Catholics in God’s grace, since the soul recovers its energies from

the continual wear and tear it suffers through the wounds of original

sin and of personal sins. It maintains the life of God in the soul, freeing

it from lukewarmness; and it helps us to avoid mortal sin and

struggle effectively against venial sins. The Blessed Eucharist increases

supernatural life also: it makes it grow and develop. And while it fills

the soul spiritually, it gives it an increasing desire for eternal goods.

+

Finally, the grace we receive in each Communion delights the person

who receives with good dispositions. Nothing can be compared to the

joy of the Holy Eucharist, to the friendship and nearness of Jesus,

present within us. Jesus Christ, during his life on earth, never passed by

any­where without pouring out his abundant blessings, from which we

can deduce how great and precious must be the gifts which those who

have the happiness of receiving Him in Holy Communion must share;

or rather, that all the hap­piness we can have in this life consists in

receiving Our Lord in Holy Communion.

+

Communion is the remedy for our daily needs, the medicine of

immortality, the antidote against death, and food by which to live

forever in Jesus Christ. It grants to the soul the peace and joy of Christ

which is truly a foretaste of eter­nal happiness. Among all the practices of piety there is none whose sanctifying effectiveness can be compared to the worthy reception of this sacrament. In it, not only do we receive grace, but the Source and Fountainhead from which all

grace flows.

+

All the sacraments are ordained towards the Blessed Eucharist: it is the pivotal sacrament. Hidden under the accidents of bread, Jesus wants us to come and receive him frequently. The banquet, he tells us, is ready. Many indeed are those who are absent, and Jesus waits for us to tell all those others that he is also waiting for them in the Tabernacle.

+

We must ask Our Lady to help us go to Communion every day with better dispositions.

+

The post Mysterium Fidei first appeared on AirMaria.com.

Pope St. Pius X

Feast day is August 21st

Pope St. Pius X was born as Giuseppe Sarto to a poor family in 1835. He was ordained to the holy priesthood in 1858 was elected Pope in 1903. One biography says this on his pontificate: He lowered the age of First Communion to the age of 7 and encouraged frequent, even daily Communion. He reformed the liturgy, promoted clear and simple homilies, and brought Gregorian chant back to services. He revised the Breviary, and the teaching of the Catechism. He fought Modernism, which he denounced as “the summation of all heresies”. He reorganized the Roman curia and initiated the codification of canon law. He promoted the reading of Sacred Scripture and the foreign missions. His will read: “I was born poor; I lived poor; I wish to die poor.” He died in August of 1914.  He is known as the Pope of the Blessed Sacrament and also as the Pope who suppressed modernism and that suppression lasted for decades until  it roared again to life in the turbulent times following the second Vatican Council.

His great encyclical addressing and condemning modernism can be found at

http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius10/p10pasce.htm

+++

excerpts from

PASCENDI DOMINICI GREGIS ON THE DOCTRINE OF THE MODERNISTS ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS X, SEPTEMBER 8, 1907

VENERABLE BRETHREN, HEALTH AND THE APOSTOLIC BLESSING:

1. One of the primary obligations assigned by Christ to the office divinely committed to Us of feeding the Lord’s flock is that of guarding with the greatest vigilance the deposit of the faith delivered to the saints, rejecting the profane novelties of words and the gainsaying of knowledge falsely so called. There has never been a time when this watchfulness of the supreme pastor was not necessary to the Catholic body, for owing to the efforts of the enemy of the human race, there have never been lacking men speaking perverse things, vain talkers and seducers,erring and driving into error.

It must, however, be confessed that these latter days have witnessed a notable increase in the number of the enemies of the Cross of Christ, who, by arts entirely new and full of deceit, are striving to destroy the vital energy of the Church, and, as far as in them lies, utterly to subvert the very Kingdom of Christ. Wherefore We may no longer keep silence, lest We should seem to fail in Our most sacred duty, and lest the kindness that, in the hope of wiser counsels, We have hitherto shown them, should be set down to lack of diligence in the discharge of Our office.

2. That We should act without delay in this matter is made imperative especially by the fact that the partisans of error are to be sought not only among the Church’s open enemies; but, what is to be most dreaded and deplored, in her very bosom, and are the more mischievous the less they keep in the open. We allude, Venerable Brethren, to many who belong to the Catholic laity, and, what is much more sad, to the ranks of the priesthood itself, who, animated by a false zeal for the Church, lacking the solid safeguards of philosophy and theology, nay more, thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines taught by the enemies of the Church, and lost to all sense of modesty, put themselves forward as reformers of the Church; and, forming more boldly into line of attack, assail all that is most sacred in the work of Christ, not sparing even the Person of the Divine Redeemer, whom, with sacrilegious audacity, they degrade to the condition of a simple and ordinary man.

3….Nor indeed would he be wrong in regarding them as the most pernicious of all the adversaries of the Church. For, as We have said, they put into operation their designs for her undoing, not from without but from within. Hence, the danger is present almost in the very veins and heart of the Church, whose injury is the more certain from the very fact that their knowledge of her is more intimate.

Moreover, they lay the ax not to the branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the faith and its deepest fibers. And once having struck at this root of immortality, they proceed to diffuse poison through the whole tree, so that there is no part of Catholic truth which they leave untouched, none that they do not strive to corrupt. Further, none is more skillful, none more astute than they, in the employment of a thousand noxious devices; for they play the double part of rationalist and Catholic, and this so craftily that they easily lead the unwary into error; and as audacity is their chief characteristic,

10….In hearing these things we shudder indeed at so great an audacity of assertion and so great a sacrilege. And yet, Venerable Brethren, these are not merely the foolish babblings of unbelievers. There are Catholics, yea, and priests too, who say these things openly; and they boast that they are going to reform the Church by these ravings!

14….Destruction of one, true religion: these errors, combined with those which we have already mentioned, open wide the way to Atheism. Here it is well to note at once that, given this doctrine of experience united with that of symbolism, every religion, even that of paganism, must be held to be true….But what is most amazing is that there are Catholics and priests, who, We would fain believe, and yet act as if they fully approved of them. For they lavish such praise and bestow such public honor on the teachers of these errors as to convey the belief that their admiration is not meant merely for the persons, who are perhaps not devoid of a certain merit, but rather for the sake of the errors which these persons openly profess and which they do all in their power to propagate.

21….But for the Modernists, sacraments are bare symbols or signs, though not devoid of a certain efficacy — an efficacy, they tell us, like that of certain phrases vulgarly described as having caught the popular ear, inasmuch as they have the power of putting certain leading ideas into circulation, and of making a marked impression upon the mind. What the phrases are to the ideas, that the sacraments are to the religious sense, that and nothing more.

The Modernists would express their mind more clearly were they to affirm that the sacraments are instituted solely to foster the faith but this is condemned by the Council of Trent: If anyone says that these sacraments are instituted solely to foster the faith, let him be anathema.

22….For if we take the Bible, according to the standards of agnosticism, namely, as a human work, made by men for men, albeit the theologian is allowed to proclaim that it is divine by immanence, what room is there left in it for inspiration? The Modernists assert a general inspiration of the Sacred Books, but they admit no inspiration in the Catholic sense.

27….The progressive force, on the contrary, which responds to the inner needs, lies in the individual consciences and works in them — especially in such of them as are in more close and intimate contact with life. Already we observe, Venerable Brethren, the introduction of that most pernicious doctrine which would make of the laity the factor of progress in the Church…

With all this in mind, one understands how it is that the Modernists express astonishment when they are reprimanded or punished. What is imputed to them as a fault they regard as a sacred duty. They understand the needs of consciences better than anyone else, since they come into closer touch with them than does the ecclesiastical authority. Nay, they embody them, so to speak, in themselves. Hence, for them to speak and to write publicly is a bounden duty. Let authority rebuke them if it pleases — they have their own conscience on their side and an intimate experience which tells them with certainty that what they deserve is not blame but praise.

34….The Modernists have no hesitation in affirming generally that these books, and especially the Pentateuch and the first three Gospels, have been gradually formed from a primitive brief narration, by additions, by interpolations of theological or allegorical interpretations, or parts introduced only for the purpose of joining different passages together. This means, to put it briefly and clearly, that in the Sacred Books we must admit a vital evolution, springing from and corresponding with the evolution of faith…To hear them descant of their works on the Sacred Books, in which they have been able to discover so much that is defective, one would imagine that before them nobody ever even turned over the pages of Scripture.

38….They insist that both outwardly and inwardly it (the Church) must be brought into harmony with the modern conscience which now wholly tends towards democracy; a share in ecclesiastical government should therefore be given to the lower ranks of the clergy and even to the laity and authority which is too much concentrated should be decentralized…As for history, it must be written and taught only according to their methods and modern principles. Dogmas and their evolution, they affirm, are to be harmonized with science and history.

In the Catechism no dogmas are to be inserted except those that have been reformed and are within the capacity of the people. Regarding worship, they say, the number of external devotions is to he reduced, and steps must be taken to prevent their further increase…With regard to morals, they adopt the principle of the Americanists, that the active virtues are more important than the passive, and are to be more encouraged in practice…and there are some who, gladly listening to the teaching of their Protestant masters, would desire the suppression of the celibacy of the clergy. What is there left in the Church which is not to be reformed by them and according to their principles?

MODERNISM: SYNTHESIS OF ALL HERESIES

39….Undoubtedly, were anyone to attempt the task of collecting together all the errors that have been broached against the faith and to concentrate into one the sap and substance of them all, he could not succeed in doing so better than the Modernists have done. Nay, they have gone farther than this, for, as We have already intimated, their system means the destruction not of the Catholic religion alone, but of all religion.

Hence the rationalists are not wanting in their applause, and the most frank and sincere among them congratulate themselves on having found in the Modernists the most valuable of all allies….works of ascetical theology — works for which the Modernists have but little esteem…For if all the intellectual elements, as they call them, of religion are nothing more than mere symbols of God, will not the very name of God or of divine personality be also a symbol, and if this be admitted, the personality of God will become a matter of doubt and the gate will be opened to pantheism? …Modernism leads to atheism and to the annihilation of all religion. The error of Protestantism made the first step on this path; that of Modernism makes the second; atheism makes the next.

PRIDE SITS IN THE MODERNIST HOUSE

40….But it is pride which exercises an incomparably greater sway over the soul to blind it and lead it into error, and pride sits in Modernism as in its own house, finding sustenance everywhere in its doctrines and lurking in its every aspect. It is pride which fills Modernists with that self-assurance by which they consider themselves and pose as the rule for all. It is pride which puffs them up with that vainglory which allows them to regard themselves as the sole possessors of knowledge, and makes them say, elated and inflated with presumption, “We are not as the rest of men,” and which, lest they should seem as other men, leads them to embrace and to devise novelties even of the most absurd kind.

It is pride which rouses in them the spirit of disobedience and causes them to demand a compromise between authority and liberty. It is owing to their pride that they seek to be the reformers of others while they forget to reform themselves, and that they are found to be utterly wanting in respect for authority, even for the supreme authority. Truly there is no road which leads so directly and so quickly to Modernism as pride. When a Catholic layman or a priest forgets the precept of the Christian life which obliges us to renounce ourselves if we would follow Christ and neglects to tear pride from his heart, then it is he who most of all is a fully ripe subject for the errors of Modernism.

42….The Modernists pass judgment on the holy Fathers of the Church even as they do upon tradition… Finally, the Modernists try in every way to diminish and weaken the authority of the ecclesiastical magisterium itself by sacrilegiously falsifying its origin, character, and rights, and by freely repeating the calumnies of its adversaries…the Modernists vent all their bitterness and hatred on Catholics who zealously fight the battles of the Church. There is no species of insult which they do not heap upon them, but their usual course is to charge them with ignorance or obstinacy.

43….They seize upon professorships in the seminaries and universities, and gradually make of them chairs of pestilence. In sermons from the pulpit they disseminate their doctrines, although possibly in utterances which are veiled…They are to be found among the laity, and in the ranks of the clergy, and they are not wanting even in the last place where one might expect to meet them, in religious communities If they treat of biblical questions, it is upon Modernist principles…they destroy as far as they can the pious traditions of the people…they have persuaded themselves that in all this they are really serving God and the Church. In reality they only offend both…

50. It is also the duty of the Bishops to prevent writings of Modernists, or whatever savors of Modernism or promotes it, from being read when they have been published, and to hinder their publication when they have not. No books or papers or periodicals whatever of this kind are to be permitted to seminarists or university students. The injury to them would be not less than that which is caused by immoral reading — nay, it would be greater, for such writings poison Christian life at its very fount.

57….Meanwhile, Venerable Brethren, fully confident in your zeal and energy, We beseech for you with Our whole heart the abundance of heavenly light, so that in the midst of this great danger to souls from the insidious invasions of error upon every hand, you may see clearly what ought to be done, and labor to do it with all your strength and courage. May Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our faith, be with you in His power; and may the Immaculate Virgin, the destroyer of all heresies, be with you by her prayers and aid.

The post Pope St. Pius X addressed the heresies of Modernism first appeared on AirMaria.com.

The Eucharistic sacrifice and the ordinary life of the Christian.

The Second Vatican Council reminds us that the sacrifice of the Cross and its sacramental renewal in the Mass are, apart from the difference in the manner of offering, one and the same sacrifice of praise, of thanksgiving, of propitiation and of satisfaction. The ends which Our Savior gave to His sacrifice on the Cross are usually summed up in these four.

The four ends of the Mass are achieved in different ways and to a different extent. The ends that refer directly to God, namely, adoration, praise and thanksgiving, are always produced infallibly and with all their infinite value, independently of our collaboration.  This is true even when the Mass is celebrated without the presence of a single member of the faithful, or, if there is one, if he assists in a distracted way. God, our Lord is praised infinitely every time the Eucharistic Sacrifice is celebrated, and thanksgiving is offered up which satisfies God fully. This oblation, says Saint Thomas, pleases God more than all the sins of the world offend him, since Christ himself is the actual Priest who offers, as well as being the actual victim who is offered in every Mass.

However, the other ends of the Eucharistic Sacrifice (propitiation and petition), which are for the benefit of man and are called the fruits of the Mass, do not in fact always achieve the fullness of which they are capable. These fruits – of reconciliation with God and of obtaining from him what we ask for from his bounty – could also be of infinite value. They too rest on the merits of Christ. We never receive these fruits to that perfect degree, since they are applied to us according to our personal dispositions. The more ardently and intently we take part in the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar, the greater application of these fruits of propitiation and petition we shall receive. Christ’s own prayer multiplies the value of our prayer to the extent that we unite our petitions and atonement to his in the Mass, on the Cross itself so that we might receive the fruits of the Mass, the Church invites us to unite ourselves with the Sacrifice of Christ. That is, to take part in Jesus Christ’s praise, thanksgiving, propitiation and impetration.

The external rite of the Mass (comprising the actions and ceremonies) both signifies the interior sacrifice of Jesus Christ and is a sign of the offering and dedication of all the faithful united to him. This dedication of the whole of our being, of all our daily activities, is yet another reason for us to carry them out perfectly and with a right intention. As the Second Vatican Council puts it: For all their deeds and actions, prayers and apostolic undertakings, family and mar­ried life, daily work, relaxation of mind and body, if they are accomplished in the Spirit indeed, even the hardships of life if patiently borne, all these become spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. In the celebration of the Eucharist these may most fittingly be offered to the Father along with the body of the Lord.  All our actions and our very life itself take on a new value when they hinge on the Mass as the center of our day towards which all our thoughts and deeds are directed. It is the source from which flow all the graces we need to sanctify our stay on earth.

Taking part in the Mass conscious of what we are doing, with devotion and full collaboration. Our partici­pation should be personal prayer, union with Jesus Christ, who is at once the Priest and the Victim.

Our Mother the Church wants to obtain ever more fruits from the Mass. So she desires that when we are present we should not be there as strangers or silent specta­tors, but constantly increasing our understanding of the rites and prayers, taking part in the sacred action in full awareness of what we are doing, with devotion and earnest collaboration. We should foster a right disposition of heart, with soul and voice in unison, and co-operating with divine grace. We shall pay particular attention to the dialogues and acclamations. We shall fill the established periods of silence with acts of faith and charity, particu­larly at the Consecration and when we receive Our Lord in Communion. The most important thing is interior participation, our union with Jesus Christ who offers him­self. The external elements which also form part of the liturgy will be of great help to us in doing this – bodily postures (kneeling, standing, sitting) reciting or singing of other parts together, such· as the Gloria, the Creed, the Sanctus, the Our Father, etc.

We will often find it helps to follow the prayers of the celebrant in our missal. The effort to be punctual, arriving a few minutes before Mass begins, will help us to be better prepared. Besides, it is a sign of love for Christ and a courtesy towards the priest who is celebrating Mass as well as to others who are attending. God wants us to be exemplary in this, too. Wouldn’t we arrive in good time for an important interview? There is nothing more impor­tant than the Mass.

Internal participation is mainly a question of practicing the virtues through acts of faith, hope and charity. At the moment of the Consecration we can say with the words of the Apostle Thomas, words overflowing with faith and love, My Lord and My God, … or ‘I firmly believe that You are really present on the altar’ … or whatever form of words appeals to our personal devotion.

Above all, our taking part in the Mass must be per­sonal prayer, the high point of our customary dialogue with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This prayer, to the extent possible to each person, is a requisite for a genuine, conscious liturgical participation. But not that alone, it is also the fruit of such a participation. Now and always, but nowadays more than ever, we need to foster the spirit and practice of personal prayer … We cannot keep going as Christians without a constant, intimate, personal life of prayer, faith, and charity. Without these we cannot carefully and advantageously take part in the liturgical renewal

Without them we cannot be effective witnesses to that Christian authenticity that we hear so much about. Lacking such participation we cannot think, breathe, act, suffer and hope with the living, pilgrim Church … To all we say, ‘Let us pray, brethren:’ Never tire of trying to call up from the depths of your soul that intimate voice which addresses God as ‘Thou’ … , the God beyond words, the mysterious Other who watches over you, waits for you, loves you. And you will never be let down, or left alone. You will experience the new joy of an enrapturing response: Behold I am with you.  Our God is with us and in us in a very special way in Holy Communion, when our taking part in the Mass reaches its highest point. The proper effect of this Sacrament, teaches Saint Thomas Aquinas, is to change man into Christ, so that he can say with the Apostle, ‘I live; no, it is not I who live. It is Christ who lives in me.’

Preparation for Mass. Apostolate and the Eucharis­tic Sacrifice.

Before Mass we have to prepare our soul to ready for the most important event that takes place in the world each day. The Mass celebrated by any priest in the most out-of-the-way, the remotest comer of the world, even when no other person is attending, is the greatest thing happening on earth at that moment. It is the most pleasing thing that we men can offer to God. It is the opportunity to thank him for the many benefits we receive; to ask for­giveness for so many sins and such lack of love and for all our spiritual and material needs. We all have things we need to ask for…Lord, this illness…Lord, that sorrow… Lord, that humiliation I can’t accept even for love of You … We desire blessings, happiness and joy for the members of our household. We are saddened by the fate of those who suffer hunger and thirst for bread and justice; of those who undergo the anguish of loneliness; of those who at the end of their lives are facing death without an affectionate look or the help of a friend.

But it is sin which is the wretchedness that causes suffering, and is the great world-wide malaise we have to remedy. It separates us from God and endangers souls with the prospect of eternal damnation. To bring men to eternal glory in the love of God – that was the essential desire of Christ when He gave up his life on Calvary, and that has to be our desire when we celebrate Mass. Our apostolate is therefore directed towards the Mass and is strengthened by it.

Some minutes of thanksgiving after Mass will round off these most important moments of the day. They will have a direct influence on our work, on our family life, on the cheerfulness we show to everyone, and in the certainty and confidence with which we face up to the rest of our day. The Mass lived in this way will never be an isolated incident. It will nourish all our actions and give them a special tone, value and significance.

We always find our Mother Mary in the Mass. How could we take part in the sacrifice without remembering and invoking the Mother of the High Priest and Victim? Our Lady played such an intimate part in the priesthood of her Son during his life on earth that she is eternally united to the exercise of his Priesthood. Just as she was present on Cal­vary, so is she present in the Mass, which is a prolongation of Calvary. She helped her Son on the Cross by offering him to the Father. In the sacrifice of the altar, the renewal of the sacrifice of Christ, she helps the Church to offer herself in union with her Head. Let us offer ourselves to Jesus through the mediation of Mary.  Let us remember Mary during Mass, and she will help us grow in piety and recollection.

Fr. Francis Fernandez

The post Thoughts on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass first appeared on AirMaria.com.

The priesthood in the Catholic Church is identified with many things. The priest can be pastor, teacher, counselor, writer, admin­istrator, or social worker; but the main reason he has been ordained is because of the Eucharist. So true is this that if we would specify the heart of the priesthood we would have to say it is the Eucharist: the Eucharist as Presence and the Eucharist as Sacrifice. A priest makes the Real Presence possible and no one, no king, no ge­nius, not even the will of a thousand people, nor the combined efforts of a whole nation, can substitute for the power of a priest’s consecrated words: “This is My Body. .. This is the chalice of My Blood.”

As the Fathers of the Church do not hesitate to say, there is no less a miraculous change taking place on the altar than took place in the womb of Mary at the moment of the Incarnation. Before she pronounced     her words there was no Christ on earth. The moment she did, He took dwelling in her body. The moment before the words of the priest are pronounced over the elements of bread and wine there is just bread and wine. He pronounces the words, and then divine power changes the substance of bread and wine into the very living Body and Blood of the living God.

No less than the Real Presence, so too the Mass is impossible without the priest. In fact, it is only at the Mass that the Consecration takes place, changing bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. Yet, we know that the Mass is not merely the Eucharistic Consecration. The Mass is not only a means to give us Christ’s Presence, it is also Christ’s Sacrifice.

The Mass is simply and unequivo­cally the sacrifice of Calvary re-of­fered, re-presented. The Mass re­presents Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross in an unbloody manner. Jesus Christ, really present in His human nature and, therefore, with His human will, is capable of offering Himself no less really now than He did nineteen cen­turies ago, because the heart if sacrifice is in the will. Christ’s willingness to die, His readiness to shed His Blood, is no less real now than it was when He actually died. As the Church tells us, the only reason He does not die is because, being immortal and glorified, He cannot die. But the fact that He now has an immortal Body has not deprived Him of a human free will. It is with that will that He re-offers Himself to His Father, not now to merit the grace which had been gained for us on Calvary, but to dispense the grace; to channel what had been gained; to distribute what had been won; to confer that for which He had died.

As the Real Presence is to nour­ish the faith of the priest, so the real Sacrifice of the Mass is to enable the priest to be a priest; one who sacrifices and who is willing to sac­rifice himself. A priest must live up to what his name signifies. one who surrenders himself completely as no one else on earth is expected to sur­render. This means the sacrifice of his time for the people committed to his care. It is really not his time, it is theirs. It means, too, the sacrifice of his talents, the sacrifice of his prefer­ences, conveniences, place of living and form of ministry. It means that a priest is to totally spend himself for the souls that Christ entrusted to his care.

The Church desperately needs priestly vocations, and she will get them on one condition: provided priests are what they are supposed to be, men who do not shrink from hard work, do not hesitate to un­dergo inconvenience and even pain; men whose one preoccupation is to save souls, to bring back sinners or to elevate the weak and the timid to sanctity; men who labor and ask for nothing except God’s love in return. In a word, priests who are not afraid of sacrifice; whose Mass is not only their liturgy but their life. For such priests we should pray, and beg the great High Priest to send such labor­ers into His harvest.
(Servant of God)   Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ

The post A Year of the Priest meditation first appeared on AirMaria.com.

Homily #100403 ( 05min) Play – Fr. Ignatius preaches for the Easter Vigil Mass by reflecting on the rich Liturgy the Church gives us. Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
Ave Maria! Mass readings
1: Gen 1:1-2:2
R: Ps 104:1-2,5-6,10,12-14,24,35
G: Mk 16:1-7

Audio (MP3)

+++

The post Apr 03 – Homily – Fr Ignatius: Easter Vigil Celebration first appeared on AirMaria.com.

Homily #100829 ( 13min) Play – Will we follow Him? Fr. Angelo Geiger preaches on today’s Gospel where Our Lord admonishes us to live a sacrificial, spiritual life and not be worried about things of this world. For as the Gospel states, the Lilies of the field which work not nor spin not are clothed by God more gloriously than Solomon. He points out that to not follow this basic spiritual discipline is to live inconsistently when so many follow harder discipline in the secular corporate world.

Ave Maria! Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost – Mass: EF, Protector Noster – Readings:
1st: gal 5:16-24
Gsp: mat 6:24-33

Audio (MP3)

+++

The post Aug 29 – Homily – Fr Angelo: Will We Follow Him first appeared on AirMaria.com.

Homily #101026 ( 10min) Play – Today is the Memorial of Bl. Bonaventure of Potenza and Fr. Bonaventure preaches on the virtues of this saint, particularly his extraordinary obedience that even took on a miraculous nature. He also points out the role of extraordinary miracles should point out the need for us to continue in the ordinary ways to holiness, that is, doing our daily duties well and partaking in the sacraments.
Ave Maria! Bl. Bonaventure of Potenza – Mass: OF, – Readings:
1st: 1co 1:26-31
Resp: psa 16:1-2, 5, 7-8, 11
Gsp: mat 7:21-23

Audio (MP3)

+++

The post Oct 26 – Homily – Fr Bonaventure: Bl. Bonaventure of Potenza first appeared on AirMaria.com.