Friends in Christ,
Welcome to our weekly Sunday update. This Sunday is the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost. The Gospel reading for this Sunday tells how Jesus recalled from death the son of the widow of Naim. As Our Lord approached the city, accompanied by “his disciples, and a great multitude . . . a dead man was carried out, the only son of his mother; and she was a widow: and a great multitude was with her” (Luke 7:11-12). The Gospel makes it clear that what Jesus did was done in the presence of a multitude of witnesses: those following Our Lord and those accompanying the grieving mother. He revealed Himself as the Lord of life before both His followers and the people of Naim. “And there came a fear on them all: and they glorified God, saying: A great prophet is risen up among us: and, God hath visited his people” (Luke 7:16). Those present did not keep what they had seen secret but spread the word “throughout all Judea, and throughout all the country round about” (Luke 7:17). And, in time, throughout all the world, because what eyewitnesses had seen was recorded in the Gospel of Saint Luke.
Calendar of Special Observances
Celebrations are those listed in the Roman Missal of 1962.
DAY, DATE – FEAST (CLASS)
Sunday, Sept. 21 – Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost (II) – Commemoration of St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist
Monday, September 22 – St. Thomas of Villanova (III) – Commemoration of Ss. Mauritius and Companions, Martyrs
Tuesday, September 23 – St. Linus Pope and Martyr (III) – Commemoration of St. Thecla, Virgin and Martyr
Wednesday, September 24 – Ember Wednesday in September (II)
Thursday, September 25 – Feria (IV)
Friday, September 26 – Ember Friday in September (II) – Commemoration of (USA) Ss. Jean de Brebeuf, Isaac Jogues and Companions, Martyrs
Saturday, September 27 – Ember Saturday in September (II) – Commemoration of Ss. Cosmas and Damian, Martyrs
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
The links provided below can be used to download printable copies of the Proper Prayers for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost with English or Spanish translation, followed by commentary by Dr. Michael P. Foley.
Latin Mass Schedule: Sundays
Charlotte Area Latin Masses
Other Diocese of Charlotte Latin Masses
Diocese of Charleston Latin Masses
Note: Travelers are urged to consult parish websites or offices for up-to-date information regarding possible changes in the regular schedule of Sunday Mass times.
Latin Mass Schedule: Weekdays (September 21 - September 27)
Charlotte Area Latin Masses
Other Diocese of Charlotte Latin Masses
Diocese of Charleston Latin Masses
Travelers are advised to contact parish offices to confirm weekday and Saturday Mass times, since local schedules are sometimes subject to change without notice, especially on or around holidays, holy days of obligation and other special feast days.
Liturgical note: This week are the Ember Days, a period of penance and prayer (now voluntary) in the Traditional Latin Mass calendar of 1962. Please see more in the announcement below.
Special Latin Masses (September 29 - October 2)
The following are announced Latin Masses scheduled in the Diocese of Charlotte before the new norms take effect after October 2. Should additional Latin Masses be announced we will include them in future updates.
Monday September 29: Feast of the Dedication of Saint Michael the Archangel (Michaelmas)
Wednesday October 1: Feria (Commemoration of St. Regimus)
Thursday October 2: The Holy Guardian Angels)
Ember Days
This week, following The Exaltation of the Holy Cross, is one of four weeks during the traditional liturgical year designated by the Church to include special days of prayer, abstinence and fasting known as Ember Days.
These fall on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday during each Ember Week associated with a natural season. In addition to the week following the Feast of the Holy Cross (September 14), associated with the coming of autumn, Ember weeks follow the Feast of Pentecost (summer), the Feast of St. Lucy on December 13th (winter), and the first Sunday in Lent, a moveable feast near the beginning of spring.
The origin of Ember Days has been traced both to the Old Testament (Zacharias 8:19) and to the perceived need for intensified prayer at the beginning of each season in the annual cycle of agricultural activity. Intercessory prayers typically address the need for favorable weather and for protection against extreme climatic conditions and potentially catastrophic events.
Embertide Traditional Latin Mass schedule & 1962 fasting disciplines
* The above penances are now voluntary. Partial abstinence is taking meat only once a day, only at the main meal.
September Embertide, the Old Testament and Creation
As the articles by Fr. Rock, FSSP below note, the Ember Days observed during September (near the Jewish New Year) underscore the continuity between the old covenant and the new, as well as the deeply rooted connection of Christianity to the natural world and the agricultural pursuits that have been the subject of special celebrations since the soil of the earth first was broken to receive seed.
Additionally, being that Ember Days are primarily offered in the Traditional Latin Mass of 1962, is there not a more important time to pray and fast this Ember Week for the preservation of the Traditional Latin Mass?
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May our fasts be acceptable to Thee, O Lord; may they atone for our sins and render us worthy of Thy grace, and lead us unto life everlasting.
(Collect of Tuesday in Passion Week)
Announcements
Rescheduled: Doughnuts after Mass at Saint Ann – The normal Third Sunday doughnuts will be moved to Sunday September 28 and combined with our Michaelmas celebration (see below).
NEXT SUNDAY: Michaelmas Feast Celebration – Sunday September 28, 12:30 p.m. Saint Ann. The Carolina Traditional Liturgy Society is organizing a feast celebration after the Saint Ann 12:30 p.m. Sunday Latin Mass on September 28 for the Feast of the Dedication of Saint Michael the Archangel, which occurs the next day. All are invited. Please bring a dish or dessert to share (no signup necessary). Doughnuts will also be provided.
Latin Mass Reception: Sunday September 28 at Our Lady of Grace Parish (Greensboro) – the Latin Mass Community at Our Lady of Grace will be hosting a reception in the Parish Life Center after the last scheduled Sunday Latin Mass (1:30 p.m.), on Sunday September 28. Please bring a dish, dessert or drink to share.
Support a New Children’s Book on Praying the Rosary – The author of a new “Pray & Play” book designed to help young children learn the Rosary has launched a Kickstarter fundraiser to help publish the book. The author, Shelbie Lopez, grew up attending the Traditional Latin Mass and uses the traditional methods of St. John Bosco to teach little children the Rosary while also helping make the family Rosary (with young children) more possible. To learn more and help support the publishing of this book, please click here.
Father Reid’s Homily on Suffering and Charity – We share Father Reid excellent and instructive homily for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost regarding suffering and charity in light of the times and circumstances we are living in today, particularly about the Latin Mass. We encourage all readers who may have missed it to review the text version at this link.
Daily Holy Face Chaplet for Sacred Liturgy (perpetual novena) – For the preservation of the Traditional Latin Mass, it has been recommended to all friends of the sacred liturgy in the diocese to consider continually praying the powerful Holy Face chaplet, under the banner of Our Lady of the Holy Name. To pray the chaplet, please see this link.
St. Michael’s Lent (now thru September 29) – As you may have read in the Catholic News Herald (or seen the posters in parishes) several faithful across the diocese are participating in an ancient penitential practice called St. Michael’s Lent, currently promoted by a group, Exodus 90 and anciently practiced by St. Francis of Assisi. It began August 15 (Assumption) and continues for 40 days ahead of the Feast of St. Michael on September 29. For those who feel called to amplify their prayers or penances for the Latin Mass this season, please click here to learn how to participate.
National Latin Mass Pilgrimage – Saturday October 11, Washington, D.C. The pilgrimage begins at the Cathedral of Saint Thomas More in Arlington and concludes at the Cathedral of Saint Matthew in Washington D.C. To learn more click on this link.
Cardinal Burke’s Prayer for Pope Leo XIV – His Eminence Cardinal Raymond Burke has released a prayer for Pope Leo XIV. Please see the link to the prayers and consider praying this daily for the Holy Father as he leads the Church.
PDF copies can also be accessed at these links: [English] [Español] [Latin]
Holy Face Devotions
Prayers of Reparation to the Holy Face of Jesus are offered each week at the following churches on the indicated days:
Note: Days and times may be subject to change due to holidays.
“Jesus, Your ineffable image is the star which guides my steps. Ah, You know, Your sweet Face is for me Heaven on earth” (from Canticle to the Holy Face by Saint Thérèse de Lisieux, the 19th century Discalced Carmelite nun who took the name in religion, Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face).
Latin Mass and Liturgical News
Saints and Special Observances
Ss. Jean de Brebeuf, Isaac Jogues and Companions, Martyrs is one of the “Proper Feasts Celebrated in the Dioceses of the United States” listed in the 1962 edition of the Roman Missal. The feast may be celebrated either on September 26th or on October 19th. The life of St. Jean de Brebeuf will be sketched here; that of St. Isaac Jogues will be addressed in this space in October.
Jean de Brébeuf was born on March 25, 1593, in Condé-sur-Vire, Normandy. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1617 after completing his university studies and taught at the College of Rouen for several years, surviving an attack of tuberculosis in 1620 that threatened to bring his religious career to an early end. Ordained to the priesthood on February 19, 1622, he subsequently responded to an appeal issued by the Franciscan Recollets for the members of other orders to assist in the evangelization of the inhabitants of North America. Arriving in Québec on June 19, 1625, along with four other Jesuits, he accompanied a group of Montagnais on a hunting expedition that lasted from October through the ensuing winter. During this time, he learned not only how the native people lived but much about the languages that they spoke.
In The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century, Francis Parkman calls Jean de Brébeuf “that masculine apostle of the Faith,--the Ajax of the mission” and describes him as “a tall, strong man, with features that seemed carved by Nature for a soldier, but which the mental habits of years had stamped with the visible impress of the priesthood.” Having survived a disease that normally killed those who contracted it, the Jesuit missionary would display astonishing hardihood and unmatched fortitude throughout his years in New France and especially at the end in his martyrdom.
When a group of Hurons returning to their home territory in July of 1626 offered the Jesuit missionaries the opportunity to accompany them, they at first refused to take Brébeuf, considering him too large to be carried safely in a canoe. They only relented when sufficient payment was provided along with a promise that the Frenchman would not move while in the canoe. When the party approached waterfalls or other impediments that made it necessary to carry the craft overland for some distance, the size and strength of Brébeuf served well and earned the priest the name of Echon (“the man who carries the load”).
Devoting himself to the study of Huron customs and beliefs, Jean de Brébeuf also learned their language, prepared a grammar and phrase book, and translated the catechism for use in proselytizing the native people. He had little success in securing conversions to Christianity before being ordered back to France in July of 1629 due to hostilities between the French and English in Canada. He went back to teaching in Rouen until the restoration of peace allowed him to return to Québec in May of 1633. The Hurons, traveling in a downsized convoy because their numbers had been reduced by an epidemic, were unwilling to carry all of the Jesuit missionaries back to their home country but agreed to take Echon and one other priest, Fr. Anthony Daniel. Later joined by another priest and five lay helpers, the missionaries constructed a cabin just outside the Huron village; and Brébeuf went to work teaching the others the customs and language of the Huron people. In 1635 they undertook the hard work of evangelization, catechizing children during the day and adults at night. At the end of a year, they had baptized a dozen people: four infants and eight adults at the point of death.
Fr. Brébeuf and his companions were frequently in danger of being condemned by the Huron people they lived among and sought to convert to Christianity. When disease or famine struck, the people blamed the new religion the Frenchmen sought to impose on them; clinging to their old beliefs, sometimes it seemed only right that the interlopers should forfeit their lives to make things right again. Ultimately, a council of the Huron nation, convened in March of 1640, determined that all of the Jesuit missionaries should be put to death.
Moving to the mission headquarters at Sainte-Marie, Brébeuf escaped the sentence of death and renewed the work of evangelization with a tribe known as the Neutrals, only to be accused of plotting with the Seneca clan of the Iroquois against the people who had taken him in. He was forced to flee to Québec, where he remained for three years before returning to Saint-Marie. During his absence, the threat posed by the hostile Iroquois people had escalated; and two priests, Fr. Anthony Daniel and Fr. Isaac Jogues, had already been martyred.
On March 15, 1649, Brébeuf and Fr. Gabriel Lalemant left the mission to make their weekly tour of the Huron villages. They were staying that night in the one the missionaries called Saint-Louis when the Iroquois attacked another nearby village. The Huron women and children ran to hide in the forest; the two Jesuits remained with the men, most of whom were baptized Christians by this time. When the Iroquois overwhelmed the village defenses at dawn, the Hurons who remained alive were taken captive along with the two priests. Someone revealed the identity of Jean de Brébeuf as Echon, the most formidable shaman among the cassock-clad foreigners; and he was singled out for especially harsh treatment.
After an initial torture session at Saint-Louis, Brébeuf and Lalemant were stripped and forced to run naked through the snow to the Iroquois village. Other captives had already been assembled there; all were forced to run the gauntlet and were beaten mercilessly. Then the two Jesuits were tied to posts to be killed slowly in a manner meant to maximize the pain inflicted on the condemned. The cruelty of it exceeded even that of the English authorities who, while claiming to be Christians, tortured and executed many more Catholics during the same century. Scalded with hot irons and torched from head to toe, Jean de Brébeuf continued to stand tall, exhorting the Christians present to remain firm in the Faith. The Iroquois responded by ripping off his skin, slicing off his lower lip, shoving a hot torch down his throat, and cutting off his feet. They also poured boiling water over his head to mock the sacramental rite by which some 7,000 native inhabitants of North America had been brought into the Church by the Jesuit mission. After four hours they finally managed to stop his beating heart by ripping it from his chest and eating it.
The bodies of Fathers Brébeuf and Lalemant were recovered five days after their martyrdom and transported to Sainte-Marie for proper burial. Jean de Brébeuf was known to be a visionary whose love of Christ was such that he longed for martyrdom as the only adequate expression of the love he felt for Our Lord. Numerous miracles have been associated with his relics. He was beatified on June 12, 1925, and canonized by Pope Pius XI on June 29, 1930. The twin feast days of September 26th and October 19th are shared by eight Jesuit martyrs in all: Fathers Jean de Lalande, Isaac Jogues, Anthony Daniel, Charles Garnier, and Noel Chabanel; René Goupil, an oblate; Father Jean de Brébeuf and Father Gabriel Lalemant.
Closing Commentary
We offer, in closing, an excerpt from the commentary of Dom Prosper Guéranger, OSB, on the liturgy for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost. It is that portion of his commentary having to do with the Gospel reading. The full commentary is available via the link that follows this excerpt.
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
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. [Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost]