Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Pilgrimage to Rome




Bishop Fernando Arêas Rifan*

I am currently in Rome, "The Eternal City", joining the Summorum Pontificum International Pilgrimage, from which I received the invitation to celebrate the closing Solemn Pontifical Mass at the Basilica of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, next Sunday, the 27th. Today, wednesday, I will be present at the  audience with the Holy Father, Pope Francisco, in St. Peter's Square. Following this I will personally cumpliment the Pope, and will receive from him a special benediction, given to all the beloved ones close to me, as well as my readers.

One of the highlights of this pilgrimage will be the Holy Mass celebrated in St. Peter's Basilica on Saturday, the 26th, hold by Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, the one who on behalf the Pope, erected our Apostolic Administration and officiated my episcopal ordination.

Further a Pontifical Mass will be celebrated by Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of Astana in Kazakhstan, while many other religious acts, such as solemn Vespers, officiated by Monsignor Guido Pozzo, secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, a priestly encounter with Bishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for Promotion of new Evangelization, a Via Crucis on the Palatine hill and an Eucharistic worshiping in Chiesa Nuova will take place there.

All Masses in this pilgrimage will be celebrated in the ancient form of the Roman Rite, as this pilgrimage is addressed to the priests and lay people supporting this liturgical form, that has been given to the whole Church by Pope Benedict XVI, under the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, hence the name of the Pilgrimage.

The ancient form of the Roman Liturgy, also called Extraordinary Form, is part of the catholic liturgical thesaurus and has been used by many saints over the centuries. It is maintained by many religious congregations, parishes, groups and thousands of catholic faithful in all over the world. There are more than 100 places n Brazil where it this form of Liturgy is used, with the permission of local bishops, as it should always be. As you all know, we also keep this in our Apostolic Administration, a faculty bestowed upon us by the Holy See, knowing the appreciation to this liturgical beauty, clear expression of the Catholic Eucharistic dogmas .Therefore, The Holy See recognizes that our sensibility and adherence to this is perfect and legitimate.

This is what then Cardinal Ratzinger expressed:" While there are many motives that might have led a great number of people to seek a refuge in the traditional , the chief one is that they find the dignity of the sacred preserved there (Conference on Chilean bishops, Santiago, 07.13.1988 ). Our presence in this pilgrimage means our support to these Catholics from around the world and at the same time, aims to show them the correct position to keep the traditional liturgy in perfect communion with the Holy Father, the Pope , and the whole Church. Therefore, with clear understanding, the Mass in the extraordinary form can greatly contributes to the correct "ars celebrandi" and the "liturgical peace" in the Church, as desired by Pope Benedict XVI.


* Bishop of the Personal Apostolic Administration St. John Vianney
Campos dos Goytacazes - RJ - Brazil

Saturday, October 19, 2013

HOMILY OF HOLY FATHER FRANCIS - Marian Day

HOLY MASS FOR THE MARIAN DAY ON THE OCCASION OF THE YEAR OF FAITH HOMILY OF HOLY FATHER FRANCIS

 Saint Peter's Square Sunday, 13 October 2013

 In the Psalm we said: “Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvellous things” (Ps 98:1). Today we consider one of the marvellous things which the Lord has done: Mary! A lowly and weak creature like ourselves, she was chosen to be the Mother of God, the Mother of her Creator. Considering Mary in the light of the readings we have just heard, I would like to reflect with you on three things: first, God surprises us, second, God asks us to be faithful, and third, God is our strength.

1. First: God surprises us. The story of Naaman, the commander of the army of the king of Aram, is remarkable. In order to be healed of leprosy, he turns to the prophet of God, Elisha, who does not perform magic or demand anything unusual of him, but asks him simply to trust in God and to wash in the waters of the river. Not, however, in one of the great rivers of Damascus, but in the little stream of the Jordan. Naaman is left surprised, even taken aback. What kind of God is this who asks for something so simple? He wants to turn back, but then he goes ahead, he immerses himself in the Jordan and is immediately healed (cf. 2 Kg 5:1-4). There it is: God surprises us. It is precisely in poverty, in weakness and in humility that he reveals himself and grants us his love, which saves us, heals us and gives us strength. He asks us only to obey his word and to trust in him. This was the experience of the Virgin Mary. At the message of the angel, she does not hide her surprise. It is the astonishment of realizing that God, to become man, had chosen her, a simple maid of Nazareth. Not someone who lived in a palace amid power and riches, or one who had done extraordinary things, but simply someone who was open to God and put her trust in him, even without understanding everything: “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (Lk 1:38). That was her answer. God constantly surprises us, he bursts our categories, he wreaks havoc with our plans. And he tells us: Trust me, do not be afraid, let yourself be surprised, leave yourself behind and follow me! Today let us all ask ourselves whether we are afraid of what God might ask, or of what he does ask. Do I let myself be surprised by God, as Mary was, or do I remain caught up in my own safety zone: in forms of material, intellectual or ideological security, taking refuge in my own projects and plans? Do I truly let God into my life? How do I answer him?

2. In the passage from Saint Paul which we have heard, the Apostle tells his disciple Timothy: Remember Jesus Christ; if we persevere with him, we will also reign with him (cf. 2 Tim 2:8-13). This is the second thing: to remember Christ always – to be mindful of Jesus Christ – and thus to persevere in faith. God surprises us with his love, but he demands that we be faithful in following him. We can be unfaithful, but he cannot: he is “the faithful one” and he demands of us that same fidelity. Think of all the times when we were excited about something or other, some initiative, some task, but afterwards, at the first sign of difficulty, we threw in the towel. Sadly, this also happens in the case of fundamental decisions, such as marriage. It is the difficulty of remaining steadfast, faithful to decisions we have made and to commitments we have made. Often it is easy enough to say “yes”, but then we fail to repeat this “yes” each and every day. We fail to be faithful. Mary said her “yes” to God: a “yes” which threw her simple life in Nazareth into turmoil, and not only once. Any number of times she had to utter a heartfelt “yes” at moments of joy and sorrow, culminating in the “yes” she spoke at the foot of the Cross. Here today there are many mothers present; think of the full extent of Mary’s faithfulness to God: seeing her only Son hanging on the Cross. The faithful woman, still standing, utterly heartbroken, yet faithful and strong. And I ask myself: Am I a Christian by fits and starts, or am I a Christian full-time? Our culture of the ephemeral, the relative, also takes it toll on the way we live our faith. God asks us to be faithful to him, daily, in our everyday life. He goes on to say that, even if we are sometimes unfaithful to him, he remains faithful. In his mercy, he never tires of stretching out his hand to lift us up, to encourage us to continue our journey, to come back and tell him of our weakness, so that he can grant us his strength. This is the real journey: to walk with the Lord always, even at moments of weakness, even in our sins. Never to prefer a makeshift path of our own. That kills us. Faith is ultimate fidelity, like that of Mary.


3. The last thing: God is our strength. I think of the ten lepers in the Gospel who were healed by Jesus. They approach him and, keeping their distance, they call out: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” (Lk 17:13). They are sick, they need love and strength, and they are looking for someone to heal them. Jesus responds by freeing them from their disease. Strikingly, however, only one of them comes back, praising God and thanking him in a loud voice. Jesus notes this: ten asked to be healed and only one returned to praise God in a loud voice and to acknowledge that he is our strength. Knowing how to give thanks, to give praise for everything that the Lord has done for us. Take Mary. After the Annunciation, her first act is one of charity towards her elderly kinswoman Elizabeth. Her first words are: “My soul magnifies the Lord”, in other words, a song of praise and thanksgiving to God not only for what he did for her, but for what he had done throughout the history of salvation. Everything is his gift. If we can realize that everything is God’s gift, how happy will our hearts be! Everything is his gift. He is our strength! Saying “thank you” is such an easy thing, and yet so hard! How often do we say “thank you” to one another in our families? These are essential words for our life in common. “Sorry”, “excuse me”, “thank you”. If families can say these three things, they will be fine. “Sorry”, “excuse me”, “thank you”. How often do we say “thank you” in our families? How often do we say “thank you” to those who help us, those close to us, those at our side throughout life? All too often we take everything for granted! This happens with God too. It is easy to approach the Lord to ask for something, but to go and thank him: “Well, I don’t need to”. As we continue our celebration of the Eucharist, let us invoke Mary’s intercession. May she help us to be open to God’s surprises, to be faithful to him each and every day, and to praise and thank him, for he is our strength. Amen.


 ACT OF ENTRUSTMENT TO MARY Blessed Virgin Mary of Fatima, with renewed gratitude for your motherly presence we join in the voice of all generations that call you blessed. We celebrate in you the great works of God, who never tires of lowering himself in mercy over humanity, afflicted by evil and wounded by sin, to heal and to save it. Accept with the benevolence of a Mother this act of entrustment that we make in faith today, before this your image, beloved to us. We are certain that each one of us is precious in your eyes and that nothing in our hearts has estranged you. May that we allow your sweet gaze to reach us and the perpetual warmth of your smile. Guard our life with your embrace: bless and strengthen every desire for good; give new life and nourishment to faith; sustain and enlighten hope; awaken and animate charity; guide us all on the path to holiness. Teach us your own special love for the little and the poor, for the excluded and the suffering, for sinners and the wounded of heart: gather all people under you protection and give us all to your beloved Son, our Lord Jesus. Amen.

15th October 2013
Saint Teresa of Jesus

Born in Avila, Spain, on March 28, 1515, St. Teresa was the daughter of a Toledo merchant and his second wife, who died when Teresa was 15, one of ten children. Shortly after this event, Teresa was entrusted to the care of the Augustinian nuns. After reading the letters of St. Jerome, Teresa resolved to enter a religious life. In 1535, she joined the Carmelite Order. She spent a number of relatively average years in the convent, punctuated by a severe illness that left her legs paralyzed for three years, but then experienced a vision of "the sorely wounded Christ" that changed her life forever.


Thursday, October 03, 2013

October 03rd 2013 - Saint Therese of Lisieux






St. Therese, "the little flower"

Therese Martin was the last of nine children born to Louis and Zelie Martin on January 2, 1873, in Alencon, France. However, only five of these children lived to reach adulthood. Precocious and sensitive, Therese needed much attention. Her mother died when she was 4 years old. As a result, her father and sisters babied young Therese. She had a spirit that wanted everything.

At the age of 14, on Christmas Eve in 1886, Therese had a conversion that transformed her life. From then on, her powerful energy and sensitive spirit were turned toward love, instead of keeping herself happy. At 15, she entered the Carmelite convent in Lisieux to give her whole life to God. She took the religious name Sister Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. Living a hidden, simple life of prayer, she was gifted with great intimacy with God. Through sickness and dark nights of doubt and fear, she remained faithful to God, rooted in His merciful love. After a long struggle with tuberculosis, she died on September 30, 1897, at the age of 24. Her last words were the story of her life: "My God, I love You!"

The world came to know Therese through her autobiography, "Story of a Soul". She described her life as a "little way of spiritual childhood." She lived each day with an unshakable confidence in God's love. "What matters in life," she wrote, "is not great deeds, but great love." Therese lived and taught a spirituality of attending to everyone and everything well and with love. She believed that just as a child becomes enamored with what is before her, we should also have a childlike focus and totally attentive love. Therese's spirituality is of doing the ordinary, with extraordinary love.

Therese saw the seasons as reflecting the seasons of God's love affair with us.She loved flowers and saw herself as the "little flower of Jesus," who gave glory to God by just being her beautiful little self among all the other flowers in God's garden. Because of this beautiful analogy, the title "little flower" remained with St. Therese.

Her inspiration and powerful presence from heaven touched many people very quickly. She was canonized by Pope Pius XI on May 17, 1925. Had she lived, she would have been only 52 years old when she was declared a Saint.

"My mission - to make God loved - will begin after my death," she said. "I will spend my heaven doing good on earth. I will let fall a shower of roses." Roses have been described and experienced as Saint Therese's signature. Countless millions have been touched by her intercession and imitate her "little way." She has been acclaimed "the greatest saint of modern times." In 1997, Pope John Paul II declared St. Therese a Doctor of the Church - the only Doctor of his pontificate - in tribute to the powerful way her spirituality has influenced people all over the world.

The message of St. Therese is beautiful, inspiring, and simple. Please visit the areas in this section of the Web site to learn more about this wonderful Saint.
 
 
Prayer

O glorious Saint Therese, whom Almighty God has raised up to aid and counsel mankind, I implore your Miraculous Intercession. So powerful are you in obtaining every need of body and soul our Holy Mother Church proclaims you a "Prodigy of Miracles...the Greatest Saint of Modern Times." Now I fervently beseech you to answer my petition (mention specifics here) and to carry out your promises of spending Heaven doing good upon the earth...of letting fall from Heaven a Shower of Roses. Henceforth, dear Little Flower, I will fulfill your plea "to be made known everywhere" and I will never cease to lead others to Jesus through you. Amen.


 
 
 
 
 

St. Therese of Lisieux Basilica and Carmelite Monastery chapel

Tuesday, October 01, 2013

October - Month of the Holy Rosary



To the Carmelites, she is Our Lady of Mount Carmel, cradling her Son in one arm and offering the Brown Scapular with the other. To the Franciscans, she is Our Lady of the Angels, whose serene face looks out from the twelfth-century mural in the Portiuncula. In Dominican (Order of Preachers) religious art, Mary is depicted either as handling the Rosary to Saint Dominic or as Mary, Queen of Preachers, spreading her motherly mantle wide over all the saints of the Order of Preaching Friars. While it is impossible to say that any religious order loves Mary the most, each of the great religious orders honors Our Lady in a way fitting with its charism. The Dominicans are especially known for popularizing that quintessential Marian prayer, the Rosary.


The Dominican habit, too, like that of the Carmelites, incorporates a full-length scapular which symbolizes humility and service and is thus associated with Mary. The white Dominican scapular was added to the canons’ traditional white tunic and cape after Our Lady appeared to a mortally ill Blessed Reginald of Orleans and healed him by anointing. She asked that the scapular be worn by members of the Order from that time onward.

A number of traditional Dominican convent customs are rooted in the Order’s devotion to Mary. Since the earliest days of the Order, it has been the custom to bless the cells in the dormitory with holy water shortly before the friars or the sisters retire. This custom comes from a tradition that Our Lady, accompanied by Saint Cecilia and Saint Catherine of Alexandria, was seen blessing the friars’ dormitory cells with holy water. A few years later, Our Lady appeared to Blessed Jordan of Saxony to tell him that every night when the friars sang the Salve Regina at Compline, she prostrated herself before her Son at the words, “Eia, ergo advocata nostra” (meaning, “Therefore, O [Mary] our advocate”) and interceded for the Dominican Order.

The Rosary was born from medieval popular devotion to Mary, especially the repeating of the “Angelic salutation” from Luke 1:28 (“Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee!”) so as to bring back to Mary the joy she received in the angel’s first greeting. Other medieval practices allowed for meditation on the mysteries of the life of Christ. Dominicans in the 15th and 16th centuries, especially Alan de la Roche, are credited with the popularizing of the Rosary, to the extent that the New Catholic Encyclopedia entry on the Rosary also calls it the “Dominican Rosary.”

The first community prayer each day is our Morning Offering, which give all of works and prayers to the will of God through Mary, followed by three mysteries of the Rosary and the Angelus: “The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary, and she conceived of the Holy Spirit.” Our community custom weaves Marian devotions into our prayer life throughout the day. We pray a community Rosary together every evening and our night prayers begin with a series of prayers to Our Lady.

Regardless of the nature of one’s Marian devotion in the world, once one enters Dominican life, the Blessed Mother of God becomes a friend, mother, and patroness in an entirely new way. Dominicans have a tender love for the Blessed Mother, a pure and chivalrous and childlike love characteristic of the High Middle Ages that gave birth to our Order of Preachers.

"It may justly be said that the Rosary of Mary is, as it were, the foundation on which the very Order of Saint Dominic rests for making perfect the life of its members and obtaining the salvation of others."

Pope Pius XI, In Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 1934

The Rosary  – In the Dominican Tradition

The image of Our Lady handing the Rosary to her white-robed son is a familiar one that reflects a devotion that is continued by the Dominican. The beginning of October brings a time-honored tradition we call Rosary Sunday. On the first Sunday in October in our Saint Joseph House of Prayer, the community members recite the mysteries of the Rosary continually throughout the day. Beginning immediately after Mass, the community take their places for half an hour each before the altar of our Blessed Mother. There, until evening prayer, each community member offers his or her prayers for the needs of the Church and for the conversion of the world.

Tradition has long connected Saint Dominic and his Order with the preaching of the Rosary. Dominic’s followers have been called the “Friars of Mary.” The fifteen-decade Rosary adorns our habit with the frequent reminder that we are united to the Son of God in the living presence of our Blessed Mother.

Pope St. Pius X said: "If you want peace in your heart, in your home, in your country, assemble together every night and say the ROSARY". Many complain that it is a tireless repetition-that they cannot meditate on the mysteries. Our Blessed Mother gave this advice to St. Dominic: "This is why, before doing anything else, priests should try to kindle a love of prayer in people's hearts and especially a love of my rosary. If only they would all start saying it and persevere, God, in His mercy, could hardly refuse to give them His grace. So I want you to preach my Rosary!"

The Brown Scapular


Sabbatine Privilege, Blessing and Investiture

"Those who die wearing this scapular shall not suffer eternal fire!"
-Our Lady to St. Simon Stock

"Wear it devoutly and perseveringly; It is my garment. To be clothed in it means you are continually thinking of me, and I, in turn, am always thinking of you and helping you to secure eternal salvation."

THE BROWN SCAPULAR - A SIGN OF DEVOTION TO MARY

The Brown Scapular is a Roman Catholic devotion to Mary under her title of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. It is worn as a sign of love and devotion for the Mother of God. The Carmelite Order, to which the Scapular belongs, originated on Mt. Carmel in the Holy Land and the Scapular is itself a reflection in miniature of the habit (scapular: a sleeveless outer garment falling from the shoulders) which the monks wear as a sign of their vocation and devotion. Over the years the scapular, at least for lay people, became much smaller in size and made of small pieces of wool cloth suspended front and back.