Catholic Faith Refresher Course

       The focus of this Season of Lent is the Cross and penance as we imitate Christ's forty days of fasting, like Moses and Elias before Him, and await the triumph of Easter. We fast, abstain from meat on certain days, mortify the flesh, give alms, and think more of charitable works. We ask ourselves "How might I make amends for my sins? How can I serve God in a reparative way? How can I serve others today?" We act upon the answers during Lent, and with holy hope, anticipate these changes to become permanent in our lives.

       We also practice mortifications by "giving up something" that would be a sacrifice to do without. The sacrifice could be anything from a food to television to an activity, and it can entail, too, taking on something unpleasant that we'd normally avoid, for example, going out of one's way to do another's chores, performing "random acts of kindness," etc. We would hope in this manner to give up an habitual sin.

More on the Holy Season of Lent will follow in the days to come.

God is leading Israel in joy by the light of his glory,

with his mercy and justice for company. Baruch 5

We begin this second week of our Advent journey

with this wonderful proclamation of the end of our exile.

We really can take off our robe of misery

and put on the splendor of the glory of God forever.

Let us experience today what it will be like to be

freed from the power of our sins to hold us captive.

Freed from our longing, our desire:

that we might be set free.

“The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.” Ps. 126

-creighton.edu

With Advent the ecclesiastical year begins in the Western churches. During this time the faithful are admonished

•to prepare themselves worthily to celebrate the anniversary of the Lord's coming into the world as the incarnate God of love,

•thus to make their souls fitting abodes for the Redeemer coming in Holy Communion and through grace, and

•thereby to make themselves ready for His final coming as judge, at death and at the end of the world.

Advent comes from the Latin word for an "arrival" or a "coming". Advent means that the Lord is coming. Jesus Christ, our brother in our humanity and our God in His divinity is about to arrive.

Advent is a time of joy tinged with penance. Joy, because we can imagine nothing more sweet than the Christ Child and His Mother Mary's bliss at His coming to light. Penance because we must strive to be properly disposed to receive so great a gift of His presence. In the millennial tradition of the Church, we faithful have done penance before great feasts. Christmas and Easter each have their penitential seasons in anticipation, Advent and Lent. The liturgical color used in the Latin Church for the liturgy during both Advent and Lent is purple, a sign of penance.

The Latin Church also emphasizes the penitential dimension of the season by directing the use of sparse ornaments in church and by legislating that instrumental music should not be used, except to sustain congregational singing. This is a kind of liturgical fast, which makes the joy and celebration of Christmas all that much more powerful by the contrast of the lean and muted season of Advent. Advent is a time of great joy, because we look forward to the beautiful feast of the Nativity, but it is joy stitched through with somber and focused spiritual preparation by doing penance.

The verses are numerous if one cares to learn. At the link below, a comprehensive list of verses is given, along with clearly worded explanations.

www.scripturecatholic.com/purgatory.html

Catholic Teaching on Purgatory

The question for some people is simply whether or not Purgatory really does or does not exist.

The word Purgatory comes from the Latin word, purgare, which means: to cleanse. Purgatory is the state or place of temporary punishment for each soul which died in the state of grace but which, at the time of death, was not totally free from venial sins or which had not yet fully paid for the temporal punishment due to sin, sometimes called satisfaction due for sin.

Purgatory is not a state of positive growth in goodness and in merit. It is the state of purification effected by suffering.

The Council of Florence and the Council of Trent teach:

(1) that there is a Purgatory;

(2) that the souls suffering there can be helped by the prayers of the faithful, especially by the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

"Whereas the Catholic Church, instructed by the Holy Ghost, has, from the sacred writings and the ancient tradition of the Fathers [of the Catholic Church], taught, in sacred councils, and very recently in this Ecumenical Synod, that there is a Purgatory, and that the souls there detained are helped by the suffrages of the Faithful, but principally by the acceptable Sacrifice of the Altar [i.e., the Mass]..." (Trent, Decree Concerning Purgatory, Session 25, Wednesday, December 4, 1563).

October: Month of the Holy Rosary

The month of October each year is dedicated to the Most Holy Rosary. This is primarily due to the fact that the liturgical feast of Our Lady of the Rosary is celebrated annually on October 7. It was instituted to honor the Blessed Virgin Mary in gratitude for the protection that she gives the Church in answer to the praying of the Rosary by the faithful.

The feast was introduced by Pope St. Pius V (1504-1572) in the year 1571 to commemorate the miraculous victory of the Christian forces in the Battle of Lepanto on October 7, 1571. The pope attributed more to the "arms" of the Rosary than the power of cannons and the valor of the soldiers who fought there.

Pious legend tells us that the Rosary as a form of prayer was given to St. Dominic (1170- 1221) by Mary, the Mother of Our Lord, who entrusted it to him as an aid in the conflicts with the Albigensians. The Dominican pope, St. Pius V, did much to further the spread of the Rosary and it thereafter became one of the most popular devotions in Christendom. It was the same Pope St. Pius V, who in 1569 officially approved the Rosary in its present form with the Papal Bull, Consueverunt Romani Pontifices. It had been completed by the addition of the second half of the "Hail Mary" and the "Glory be to the Father" at the conclusion of each mystery.

Current scholarship traces the development of the Rosary to the High Middle Ages where it came into being in various medieval monasteries as a substitute for the Divine Office for the lay monks and devout lay persons who did not know how to read. Instead of the 150 psalms, they would pray 150 "Our Fathers" counting them on a ring of beads known as the crown or "corona." With the growth of popularity of Marian devotion in the twelfth century, the "Psalter of the Blessed Virgin Mary" developed now substituting 150 "Hail Marys" in place of the "Our Fathers."

The 150 "Hail Marys" were subsequently subdivided into fifteen decades by the young Dominican friar, Henry Kalkar (1328-1408), with each decade referring to an event in the life of Jesus and Mary. The Dominican, Alanus de Rupe (1428-1478) further divided the episodes in the history of salvation into the joyful, sorrowful and glorious mysteries. He also attributed the origin of the Rosary, then known as the "Psalter of the Blessed Virgin" to St. Dominic and thus spurred the Dominican Order to make the Apostolate of the Rosary their special concern. The Dominicans have, since then, promulgated the Rosary with notable results.

The practice of dedicating the entire month of October to the Holy Rosary developed toward the end of the last century. Pope Leo XIII (papacy: 1878-1903) strongly promoted the increase of devotion to the Blessed Mother by encouraging the constant use of the Rosary.

by Rev. Matthew R. Mauriello

thanks to: campus.udayton.edu

The birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary announced joy and the approaching salvation of a lost world. Mary was brought into the world not like other children of Adam, infected with the contagion of sin, but pure, holy, beautiful, and glorious, adorned with all the most precious graces fitting for the One predestined to be the Mother of the Saviour. Never did She have the slightest inclination towards anything other than the absolute and immediate Will of God. She appeared indeed in the weak condition of all mortals, but in the eyes of Heaven She already transcended the highest seraphim in purity, humility, charity, and the richest ornaments of grace. God had created Her in the original grace, as in the beginning Adam and Eve had enjoyed that ineffable privilege; after original sin, it was lost for all Adam’s posterity, until the time of the Redemption dawned in Mary. (Cf. I Cor. 15:21-23)

The nations celebrate, often too noisily, the birthdays of the great ones of this earth... How then ought we, Christians, to rejoice in that of the Virgin Mary, Mother of our Salvation, and to present publicly to God the homage of our best praises and thanksgiving for the great mercies He has shown in Her, imploring Her mediation with Her Divine Son! Jesus of Nazareth will not reject the supplications of His most holy Mother, through whom He chose to descend from Heaven; She, the Spouse of the Canticle, is all beautiful and is the One He was pleased to obey while on earth. Her love, care, and tenderness for Him, the title and qualities which She bears, the charity and graces with which She is adorned, and the crown of glory with which She is honored, incline Him readily to receive Her recommendations and petitions.

Devotion to the sorrows of Mary has always been a favorite devotion among Catholics. It has been sanctioned by the Church and introduced into the Missal and Breviary. In order to keep before our minds the inexpressible sufferings endured for us by the Mother of God while she lived here on earth with her Divine Son, the Church observes two feasts in honor of the Seven Dolors of Mary: one on the Friday before Good Friday and the other on September 15. She has enriched with numerous indulgences the Rosary of the Seven Dolors, as well as a number of other devotions to the Mother of Sorrows. How touching is the beautiful hymn, Stabat Mater Dolorosa, which the Church intertwines with the public recitation of the Way of the Cross. The Church spares no pains to induce her children to venerate the sufferings of their Heavenly Mother.

Seven of her Sorrows have been chosen for our special veneration. These are the ones selected for the mysteries of the Rosary of the Seven Dolors. They are:

1. The prophecy of Simeon.

2. The flight into Egypt.

3. The loss of the Child Jesus in the temple.

4. The meeting of Jesus and Mary on the Way of the Cross.

5. The Crucifixion.

6. The taking down of the Body of Jesus from the Cross.

7. The burial of Jesus.

Because of these seven sorrows which pierced her maternal heart, the Mother of God is often represented either as standing beneath the Cross, or as holding the lifeless Body of Jesus on her lap, her heart transfixed by seven swords, according to the prophecy of holy Simeon: "Thine own soul a sword shall pierce" [Luke 2 : 35].

         -www.catholictradition

Queenship of Mary - Feast Aug 22

     Pius XII established this feast in 1954. But Mary’s queenship has roots in Scripture. At the Annunciation, Gabriel announced that Mary’s Son would receive the throne of David and rule forever. At the Visitation, Elizabeth calls Mary “mother of my Lord.” As in all the mysteries of Mary’s life, Mary is closely associated with Jesus: Her queenship is a share in Jesus’ kingship. We can also recall that in the Old Testament the mother of the king has great influence in court.

     In the fourth century St. Ephrem called Mary “Lady” and “Queen” and Church fathers and doctors continued to use the title. Hymns of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries address Mary as queen: “Hail, Holy Queen,” “Hail, Queen of Heaven,” “Queen of Heaven.” The Dominican rosary and the Franciscan crown as well as numerous invocations in Mary’s litany celebrate her queenship.

     The feast is a logical follow-up to the Assumption and is now celebrated on the octave day of that feast. In his encyclical To the Queen of Heaven, Pius XII points out that Mary deserves the title because she is Mother of God, because she is closely associated as the New Eve with Jesus’ redemptive work, because of her preeminent perfection and because of her intercessory power.

See also devotional page HERE on our apostolate site

Did the Holy Church of God hear about the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary for the first time on November 1, 1950? Certainly not! One needs just to read the text by which Our Holy Father Pope Pius XII proclaimed the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary to see that since the most ancient times of the Church, the faithful already professed faith in the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary. Whether in ikons, whether in stained glass windows, whether in the writings of the Fathers, already everywhere, faith in the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary was professed, but it was not yet solemnly defined by Holy Church.

These dogmas, indeed, we must remember, cannot be new truths. The Revelation was wholly completed at the death of the last Apostle. One must therefore look before the death of the last Apostle in the Deposit of Tradition, of Revelation, bequeathed to us, given to us by the Apostles, to find there the truths which we must still believe today. No Pope can invent a new truth which he would like to submit to our Faith. He can only find this truth in the course of centuries, signifying that this truth was already implicitly contained in that Revelation and Faith which the Apostles have given us. This is the teaching of the Church.

Thus when we believe in the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, that is, when we believe that the Good Lord granted that the body of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary be already glorified now, we do nothing else than unite ourselves to the faith of the whole Church, to the Church of all the centuries. And this must be for us a great joy, a great consolation, to think that our Faith today, stronger than ever, more solid than ever, is in union with that of the Catholics of all the centuries.

There is in this dogma of the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary a very precious truth, very useful for our times, for our days. In these days, some want to deny miracles; in our days, some want to deny all supernatural realities. This word “supernatural” contains something somehow mysterious; the supernatural state may be difficult to understand for some faithful, it may be difficult to grasp. Yet it is present in the whole teaching of the Church.

The Feast of the Assumption shows us the very crowning of the work of God, of the supernatural work of God. God wants it for us too, as He did for the Most Blessed Virgin. He wants to “assume” our body, to spiritualize our body in a certain way and to give us all the joys of the spirit and all the joys of our divine filiation.

And how does that change our daily life? How must this supernatural life, this divine adoption, change our daily life? Because we must not see things as we would have seen them if we had merely had our human nature! To know that we are called to live for God, to live in God, to know Him directly, Him Who has created all things, must arouse in our hearts, in our intelligences, a desire of God, a longing to love God, through this divine nature, which is in us by grace, by sanctifying grace, a longing as those aroused throughout all the centuries of the Church from the very beginning of the Christian era.

This is what the mystery of the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary teaches us today. And there shall be a similar crowning for us too. We must expect this, we must hope for this.

Let us ask the Most Blessed Virgin Mary on this day of her Assumption to help us truly understand what our supernatural life is, a participation in the Divine Life. God knows that She knows it, this participation in the Divine Life, She who has given natural life to Our Lord Jesus Christ, through the grace of the Holy Ghost. How much did the Good Lord flood her with spiritual graces! And how much is She capable of making us understand how beautiful, how good, how sweet it is to be united with Our Lord, to know the Good Lord and to live with God!

Let us ask the Most Blessed Virgin Mary to put in our souls, in our hearts, this immense desire, this unquenchable desire, of all the moments of our life, of our whole life, of each week, month and year, to be with God for all eternity.

- Excerpts from a Sermon by Archbp Marcel Lefebvre, 8/15/75