Friends in Christ,
Welcome to our weekly Sunday update. This Sunday is the Third Sunday after Easter. The Gospel reading for this Sunday presents a notable example of the way in which Jesus could sometimes baffle even His closest followers. “A little while,” he tells them, “and now you shall not see me: and again a little while, and you shall see me: because I go to the Father” (John 16:16). The bewildered disciples speculate among themselves about what this might mean but can make no sense of it. Knowing what is in their minds, Jesus says, “Amen, amen, I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice: and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy” (John 16:20).
Our Lord spoke these words on the night of His betrayal and arrest, knowing that He was to die on the following day but would rise from the dead on the third day. His disciples could hardly be expected to understand what was about to happen: Jesus told them so that later they would remember and rejoice in the truth of that which He foretold. “So also you now indeed have sorrow: but I will see you again and your heart shall rejoice. And your joy no man shall take from you” (John 16:22).
That same joy is ours in this season of Easter, knowing already the outcome of those events observed and endured by the followers of Our Lord nearly two thousand years ago: He is risen! Alleluia! He is risen in truth!
Calendar of Special Observances
Celebrations are those listed in the Roman Missal of 1962.
DAY, DATE – FEAST (CLASS)
Sunday, April 26 – Third Sunday after Easter (II)
Monday, April 27 – St. Peter Canisius, Doctor of the Church (III)
Tuesday, April 28 – St. Paul of the Cross, Confessor (III)
Wednesday, April 29 – St. Peter, Martyr (III)
Thursday, April 30 – St. Catherine of Siena, Virgin (III)
Friday, May 1 – St. Joseph the Workman (I)
Saturday, May 2 – St. Athanasius, Bishop, Confessor and Doctor of the Church (III) – Immaculate Heart of Mary (III)
Third Sunday after Easter
The links provided below can be used to download printable copies of the Proper Prayers for the Third Sunday after Easter with English or Spanish translation, followed by commentary by Dr. Michael P. Foley.
Traditional Latin Mass Schedule
Diocese of Charlotte Sunday Masses
Chapel of the Little Flower (757 Oakridge Farm Road, Mooresville, NC)
Note: Only Sunday Latin Masses and Holy Days are offered at the Chapel. This is the only Diocese of Charlotte location which offers the Traditional Latin Mass.
Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, the Little Flower, pray for us!
Diocese of Raleigh Sunday Masses
Diocese of Charleston Sunday Masses
Diocese of Charleston Daily Traditional Latin Masses
*Schedule/cancellation note: Per the Prince of Peace parish bulletin, there are schedule changes/cancellations for the Latin Mass on Monday April 27 (funeral) and Saturday May 2 (First Communion). To see these changes, click here.
As a reminder, travelers are urged to consult parish websites or offices for up-to-date information regarding possible changes in the schedule of Mass times.
Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker - Friday May 1
Chapel of the Little Flower Announcements
Mass Intentions for Sunday
Sunday April 26, 12:00 p.m. - The Valle Family’s Godchildren - Requested by the Valle Family
Donations for the Chapel of the Little Flower
To donate to the Chapel of the Little Flower, please make out a check to “St. Ann Catholic Church” and carefully earmark it for “Latin Mass” or “Chapel of the Little Flower”. It can be mailed to the parish (3635 Park Road, Charlotte, NC 28209). To donate online, please visit the parish’s “Chapel of the Little Flower” online donation portal at this link.
Lost and Found
The Chapel has a growing collection of items left behind after Mass. If one is missing a missal, book, or other item, please see the table in the cry room.
Father Jones’ Contact Info
If one has questions about the Chapel of the Little Flower, that are not related to one’s parish, please email Father Jones directly at: tlmchapel(at)rcdoc.org
Visiting the Chapel of the Little Flower
If you haven’t attended Mass at the Chapel of the Little Flower yet, you are welcome to join us in Eastertide. Seating is adequate at both Masses, and there is plenty of parking; a cry room; open space outside for the kids after Mass. Bulletins from Saint Ann and Saint Thomas Aquinas parishes are usually available.
General Announcements
Plenary Indulgence on Tuesday April 28 – Consecration to Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Wisdom through the Blessed Virgin Mary is the prayer of St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort to be recited and executed by those who have completed preparation for the act of consecration. Per the Raccolta (manual of indulgences), there is a plenary indulgence on Tuesday April 28 (his feast day), under the usual conditions for those who recite this prayer. [Prayer of Consecration to Jesus through Mary]
Feast of Saint Peter of Verona, April 29 – This Wednesday, April 29th, is the Feast of Saint Peter of Verona (also known as Saint Peter Martyr), a 13th century Dominican inquisitor who was martyred while combating the heresies of his time. His spilled blood helped to convert his assassin who was later beatified. To learn more about the great Dominican saint celebrated in this custom please consult the following articles:
LiveMass.net – Want to watch a Latin Mass online? The Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP) has a broadcast apostolate which streams its Latin Masses across the world at various times of the day. To view visit: https://www.livemass.net/
Support Saint Ann and Saint Thomas Parishes – Our parishes remain the anchor of our spiritual and community lives and continue to promote the sacred traditions, devotions, speakers and catechesis important for the spiritual growth of ourselves and our families. They also need our continued financial support (and occasional visits!). Both parishes would appreciate our continued generosity.
Rosary for the Traditional Latin Mass – A Rosary is offered for the restoration of the Traditional Latin Mass in the church on Sundays after the 11:30 a.m. Novus Ordo Mass at Saint Thomas Aquinas Church.
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.
Cardinal Burke’s Prayer for Pope Leo XIV – His Eminence Cardinal Raymond Burke has released a prayer for Pope Leo XIV. Please see the prayer at the links below and consider praying this daily for the Holy Father as he leads the Church. PDF copies can 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).
Traditional Latin Mass and Liturgical News
Saints and Special Observances
Saint Catherine of Siena was one of 13 children born into the family of Jacopo Benincasa and his wife, Lapa di Puccio di Piagente, who are known to have survived to adulthood. Twelve did not. When Catherine and her twin sister, Giovanna, were born on the Feast of the Annunciation, March 25, 1347, their 40-year-old mother had already given birth to twenty-two children. The fact that Lapa had been almost continuously pregnant for more than two decades meant that she had never been able to nurse her own offspring. Catherine was the first. As Giovanna died in infancy and a second Giovanna, born a few years later, did not survive for long, Catherine remained the youngest member of the Benincasa family.
When she was about six years old Catherine had an experience that was to determine the course of her life. She had been to visit her married sister, Bonaventura, and was walking home with her brother, Stefano, and another boy in the twilight at the end of the day. Ahead of them, on the other side of a valley, stood the great stone abbey church of San Domenico. Looking up, Catherine saw Jesus, the Savior of the world, seated on a throne just above the church, dressed like a bishop and wearing the triple crown of the pope. Saints Peter, Paul and John stood beside him. Catherine stopped and stood, enraptured by the vision, as the Lord Jesus smiled lovingly at her and lifted his hand to bless her with the sign of the cross. She might never have moved; but the boys, who had walked on, looked back and saw her rooted to the spot at the top of the street where she had stopped. Stefano called to her but got no response, so he trudged back up the street and took her by the arm to move her along. At his touch, Catherine emerged from her trance and, bursting into tears, wept for the loss of her beatific vision.
This was the first of her many mystical experiences and the beginning of an intimate relationship with Jesus that would continue throughout Catherine’s relatively brief life. As she was growing to womanhood, she came under increasing pressure to find her vocation in marriage; but, having made a secret vow to Christ that she would give herself entirely to Him, she met the efforts of her parents to steer her toward married life with unrelenting resistance. She had been remarkably devout since her mystical vision at the age of six, but now she increased the time she spent in prayer as well as the frequency of her days of fasting. When Bonaventura died, leaving her husband, Niccolo, with the prospect of having to raise numerous children alone, Jacopo and Lapa thought it might only be right for their daughter to take her sister’s place; but she refused. The crisis came when she resisted their campaign on behalf of another highly suitable suitor they wished to bring into the family. A Dominican monk, Fra Tommaso della Fonte, a friend of the family, was called upon to counsel Catherine regarding her Christian duty to respect the wishes of her parents.
Instead, when Catherine revealed to him the secret vow she had made to Christ, he suggested she divest herself of her beautiful hair in order to make herself less attractive to suitors. She did so immediately.
When her mother saw what Catherine had done, she was horrified; her father and brothers were enraged and promised to make her life miserable unless she changed her mind about marriage. Indeed, her family treated her very severely while waiting for the regrowth of her hair to make her marriageable again. They even did all they could to curtail her prayer and other devotional activities in an attempt to reorient her thinking about married life. But the One who had lovingly gazed down on her from above the church of San Domenico had other plans for Catherine.
One night Catherine had a dream in which a throng of saints and martyrs appeared to her, among them St. Dominic with a white lily in his hand, bearing a habit which she recognized as that of the Dominican third-order Sisters of Penitence. “Beloved daughter, take courage,” he told her. “Be afraid of nothing, for you shall surely be clothed in this robe which you desire.” She wept for joy and awakening, her cheeks bathed by tears, resolved to reveal at last the secret of the vow she had made that she would belong to Christ and to Him alone. The whole Benincasa household was grief-stricken at the realization that all hope was lost of seeing her settled in marriage with a good man who would be a valuable addition to their family. But Jacopo, the paterfamilias, knew there was nothing to be gained from opposing the will of God and promised his daughter that never again would the family interfere with her spiritual pursuits.
Three days after her sixteenth birthday Catherine was accepted into the Sisters of Penitence. As a tertiary she was able to continue living at home rather than having to enter a convent. This suited a young woman who had always looked upon her parents as representing Jesus and Mary in her life. She spent the next five years ministering to the poor and the sick in Siena. The lengths to which she went in her ministrations on behalf of those stricken with cancer and other dreaded diseases, in order to relieve their suffering, were especially remarkable. Her humility, cheerfulness and self-denial endeared her to all she met during this period of quiet work in service to the Lord.
After her 21st birthday, Catherine began to expand the ambit of her beneficent influence in the world, putting her mind as well as her hands to work for the Lord. The other tertiary sisters may have taught her to read and write; but the evidence indicates that, of the hundreds of letters she addressed to recipients in the 12 years that remained to her, most were dictated to amanuenses. In these letters she counseled princes and popes, making the case for peace between warring city-states and advancing the cause of reform in the Church. She also traveled widely in order to make personal appeals to those whom she hoped to enlist in her causes. She was instrumental in convincing Pope Gregory XI to leave Avignon and return to Rome, the rightful home of that city’s bishop, the head of the worldwide Church.
Her voluminous correspondence included 382 letters that survived to be considered collectively a monumental work in the literature of Tuscany. The collection of treatises entitled Libro della Divina Dottrina (which bears the English title, Dialogue of Divine Providence) is her spiritual masterpiece. She also composed some 26 prayers in the last year-and-a-half of her life. Exhausted by her labors and weakened by frequent fasting, St. Catherine of Siena died in Rome on April 29th in the year 1380. She was 33 years old. Pope Urban VI celebrated her requiem Mass in the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome where her remains were afterward interred.
Catherine was beatified on December 29th in the year 1460 and canonized six months later, on June 29, 1461, by Pope Pius II. In 1970 Pope Paul VI declared her to be a Doctor of the Church. Her feast day, celebrated in accordance with the traditional Roman Calendar, is April 30th.
Closing Commentary
We close with a commentary from Servant of God Dom Prosper Guéranger about the ancient Feast of the Patronage of St. Joseph (once commemorated during the third week of Easter) and excerpted from his monumental The Liturgical Year, adding the hope that our readers will assist the cause for Guéranger's canonization with their prayers. A link to the full text of the commentary follows the excerpt.
Third Sunday After Easter: The Patronage of St. Joseph
The Easter mysteries are superseded today by a special subject, which is offered for our consideration. The holy Church invites us to spend this Sunday in honoring the Spouse of Mary, the Foster-Father of the Son of God. And yet, as we offered him the yearly tribute of our devotion on the 19th of March, it is not, properly speaking, his Feast that we are to celebrate today. It is a solemn expression of gratitude offered to Joseph, the Protector of the Faithful, the refuge and support of all that invoke him with confidence. The innumerable favors he has bestowed upon the world entitle him to this additional homage. With a view to her children’s interests, the Church would, on this day, excite their confidence in this powerful and ever ready helper.
Devotion to St. Joseph was reserved for these latter times. Though based on the Gospel, it was not to be developed in the early ages of the Church. It is not that the Faithful were, in any way, checked from showing honor to him who had been called to take so important a part in the mystery of the Incarnation; but Divine Providence had its hidden reasons for retarding the Liturgical homage to be paid, each year, to the Spouse of Mary. As on other occasions, so here also; the East preceded the West in the special cultus of St. Joseph: but in the 15th Century, the whole Latin Church adopted it, and, since that time, it has gradually gained the affections of the Faithful. We have treated upon the glories of St. Joseph, on the 19th of March; the present Feast has its own special object, which we will at once proceed to explain.
The goodness of God and our Redeemer’s fidelity to his promises have ever kept pace with the necessities of the world; so that, in every age, appropriate and special aid has been given to the world for its maintaining the supernatural life. An uninterrupted succession of seasonable grace has been the result of this merciful dispensation, and each generation has had given to it a special motive for confidence in its Redeemer. Dating from the 13th century, when, as the Church herself assures us, the world began to grow cold—each epoch has had thrown open to it a new source of graces. First of all came the Feast of the Most Blessed Sacrament, with its successive developments of Processions, Expositions, Benedictions and the Forty Hours. After this followed the devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus (of which St. Bernardine of Sienna was the chief propagator), and that of Via Crucis or Stations of the Cross, with its wonderful fruit of compunction. The practice of frequent Communion was revived in the 16th century, owing principally to the influence of St. Ignatius and the Society founded by him. In the 17th was promulgated the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which was firmly established in the following century. In the 19th, devotion to the Holy Mother of God has made such progress as to form one of the leading supernatural characteristics of the period. The Rosary and Scapular, which had been handed down to us in previous ages, have regained their place in the affections of the people; Pilgrimages to the Sanctuaries of the Mother of God, which had been interrupted by the influence of Jansenism and rationalism, have been removed; the Archconfraternity of the Sacred Heart of Mary has spread throughout the whole world; numerous miracles have been wrought in reward for the fervent faith of individuals; in a word, our present century has witnessed the triumph of the Immaculate Conception—a triumph which had been looked forward to for many previous ages….
…As usual, God revealed this new spiritual aid to a privileged soul, that she might be the instrument of its propagation. It was thus that were instituted several Feasts, such as those of Corpus Christi, and of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In the 16th century, St. Teresa (whose Writings were to have a worldwide circulation) was instructed by heaven as to the efficacy of devotion to St. Joseph: she has spoken of it in the Life (written by herself) of Teresa of Jesus. When we remember that it was by the Carmelite Order (brought into the Western Church in the 13th century) that this devotion was established among us—we cannot be surprised that God should have chosen St. Teresa, who was the Reformer of that Order, to propagate the same devotion in this part of the world. The holy solitaries of Mount Carmel—devoted as they had been, for so many centuries, to the love of Mary—were not slow in feeling the connection that exists between the honor paid to the Mother of God and that which is due to her virginal Spouse. The more we understand St. Joseph’s office, the clearer will be our knowledge of the divine mystery of the Incarnation. As when the Son of God assumed our human nature, he would have a Mother; so also, would he give to this Mother a protector. Jesus, Mary and Joseph—these are the three whom the ineffable mystery is continually bringing before our minds.
The words of St. Teresa are as follows: “I took for my patron and lord the glorious St. Joseph, and recommended myself earnestly to him. I saw clearly … that he rendered me greater services than I knew how to ask for. I cannot call to mind that I have ever asked him at any time for anything which he has not granted; and I am filled with amazement when I consider the great favors which God hath given me through this blessed Saint; the dangers from which he hath delivered me, both of body and soul. To other Saints, our Lord seems to have given grace to succor men in some special necessity; but to this glorious Saint, I know by experience, to help us in all: and our Lord would have us understand that, as he was himself subject to him upon earth—for St. Joseph having the title of father, and being his guardian, could command him—so now in heaven he performs all his petitions. I have asked others to recommend themselves to St. Joseph, and they too know this by experience; and there are many who are now of late devout to him, having had experience of this truth.” [Third Sunday after Easter - Patronage of St. Joseph]
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We wish our readers a blessed Eastertide. Christus Resurréxit! Resurréxit Vere!