Dear Friends in Christ,
Welcome to our weekly Sunday update. This Sunday (September 29, 2024) is the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, but the 29th of September is also the date established on the liturgical calendar for the annual celebration of a 1st-class feast known as The Dedication of Saint Michael the Archangel. The feast is nominally meant to celebrate the sixth-century consecration by Pope Boniface II of a basilica either on the site of the Roman Circus or on the Salarian Way about seven miles outside the city. The basilica itself disappeared more than a thousand years ago, and the feast long ago took on a much broader significance stemming from the veneration of St. Michael the Archangel himself. What came to be known as the Great Feast of Michaelmas was a holy day of obligation from the date of its inception until the eighteenth century. Because of its proximity to the autumnal equinox it became associated with the annual celebration of the fall harvest. In more recent times, as urbanization has displaced the predominantly agricultural character associated with social interaction in the past, the focus of the feast has shifted somewhat to take note of the other archangels, Gabriel and Raphael, as well.
Calendar of Saints and Special Observances
Celebrations are those listed in the Roman Missal of 1962.
DAY, DATE – FEAST (CLASS)
Sunday, September 29 – The Dedication of Saint Michael the Archangel (I); Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost (II)
Monday, September 30 – St. Jerome, Priest, Confessor and Doctor of the Church (III)
Tuesday, October 1 – St. Remigius, Bishop and Confessor (IV)
Wednesday, October 2 – Holy Guardian Angels (III)
Thursday, October 3 – St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, Virgin and Doctor of the Church (III)
Friday, October 4 – St. Francis of Assisi, Confessor, Founder of Franciscans (III)
Saturday, October 5 – Commemoration of St. Placid, OSB, and Others, Martyrs
Dedication of Saint Michael the Archangel – Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
The links provided below can be used to download printable copies of the Proper Prayers for Mass in the Extraordinary Form for both the Dedication of Saint Michael the Archangel and the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost with either English or Spanish translation. In addition, we provide a link to an excellent article by Dr. Michael P. Foley on “Michaelmas Day and its Customs” from New Liturgical Movement.
Latin Mass Schedule: The Dedication of Saint Michael
the Archangel – Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
(September 29, 2024)
Charlotte Area Latin Masses
Other Diocese of Charlotte Latin Masses
Diocese of Charleston Latin Masses
Latin Mass Schedule: Weekdays
Charlotte Area Latin Masses
Other Diocese of Charlotte Latin Masses
Diocese of Charleston Latin Masses
Note: 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.
Announcements
Prayer Request
Please pray for those impacted by Hurricane Helene, especially in our region. Bishop Martin has lifted the Sunday Mass obligation for this Sunday September 29 for those in the western part of the diocese of Charlotte, most impacted by the storm. Thus far, all Latin Masses in the diocese of Charlotte remain on schedule for tomorrow. However, travelers may wish to check the parish website for any last minute announcements before heading out.
Blessing of the Saint Michael Relics after Sunday Latin Mass
This Sunday there will be a blessing and veneration of the stone relic of Saint Michael the Archangel after the 11:30 a.m. Latin Mass at Saint Thomas Aquinas and the 12:30 p.m. Latin Mass at Saint Ann parish. The relic is a stone from a cave in Italy where Saint Michael appeared centuries ago and rock fragments of the cave are considered relics of the Archangel. To learn more please visit the Sanctuary of Saint Michael the Archangel in Italy, please click on this site.
Sunday Coffee and Cookies
Readers are encouraged to help support the weekly service of coffee and cookies made available after the 12:30 p.m. Saint Ann Latin Mass by the Carolina Traditional Liturgy Society. Assistance in setting up, cleaning up, or otherwise supporting this weekly effort would be greatly appreciated.
Happy 40th Birthday Quattuor Abhinc Annos
October 3, 1984 may not seem to be an important date in the history of the Traditional Latin Mass, but it very well could be. For it was on this date that Pope Saint John Paul II, through the Congregation of Divine Worship, published a letter or indult, Quattuor Abhinc Annos, granting universal permission for the Traditional Latin Mass to be again offered throughout the Church, with the local bishop’s permission. Prior to 1984, permissions were local or individualized. The 1984 indult preceded the 1988 Ecclesia Dei and 2007 Summorum Pontificum motu proprios which provided additional access to the Latin Mass.
To read the text of the letter, please visit the Latin Mass Society of the U.K.’s website. One may wish to offer their Mass intentions this week in thanksgiving for greater offerings of the Latin Mass as a result of this indult.
Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face (whose feast is October 3) and Saint John Paul II, pray for us and the protection of the Traditional Latin Mass.
Prayers for the Election
54-Day Rosary Novena: Fr. Reid, has encouraged participation in the 54-Day Rosary Novena already underway in connection with the upcoming national election. The novena began Friday (September 13th) and will conclude on Election Day (November 5th). Participants are asked to pray the Rosary daily for the intention that God’s will may be done in the election. “But also pray,” Fr. Reid urged, “for the respect and protection of life in all its stages; for the sanctity of marriage and families; for the upholding of constitutionally protected religious freedom; and for a return of our nation to God and holiness. And, of course, we should pray for peace in our world.” Fr. Reid also encouraged those who join in the 54-Day Rosary Novena to fast during this period, giving up something to reinforce their dedication to the prayer intentions.
Fr. Chad Ripperger’s Prayer for the Election: Fr. Chad Ripperger, who spoke at Saint Thomas Aquinas last year, has asked the faithful of the United States to pray for our nation as the election approaches. Fr. Ripperger, a Latin Mass priest and founder of the Society of the Most Sorrowful Mother (the Doloran Fathers), is perhaps best known for his work as an exorcist. He has written a special prayer consecrating the election and its outcome to Our Lady. The text of the prayer may be found at the end of this update or downloaded at this link.
Holy Face Devotions
Prayers of Reparation to the Holy Face of Jesus are offered each week at the following churches on the indicated days:
“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
St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, Virgin and Doctor of the Church, was probably the most widely venerated saint of the 20th century. Pope Pius X called her “the greatest saint of modern times.” She is known as St. Thérèse de Lisieux because she lived in the Carmel at Lisieux in Normandy from shortly after her 15th birthday until her death at the age of 24. Near the beginning of her autobiography, she called herself la petite fleur cueillie par Jésus (“the little flower picked by Jesus”); her frequent resort to this metaphor in speaking of herself is the reason she became known as “the Little Flower” throughout the world. Almost unknown to the world at the time of her death in 1897, her fame and popularity increased with astonishing rapidity following publication of her autobiography the ensuing year. Entitled simply Histoire d’une âme (Story of a Soul), the book recounts her spiritual journey from the innocence of childhood in a profoundly devout Catholic family to the difficulties she encountered as a cloistered Carmelite nun facing the approach of death.
Unlike her namesake, St. Teresa of Avila, the sixteenth century foundress of the Discalced Carmelite movement, Thérèse did not compose numerous works of deep theological significance that would stand as classics of Catholic literature for centuries. But her one book, the simple and straightforward story of her own soul, spoke to the spiritual hunger of people at the turn of the twentieth century with the unadorned eloquence of one whose love of Our Lord knew no limits. Her idea of achieving sanctity and getting to Heaven by means of a “little way” struck a responsive chord in the hearts and minds of her readers, and the Little Flower came to be known and loved by millions who found hope and new meaning in their own lives in the concept of the Little Way.
Pope Pius X opened the process which would lead to her canonization by a decree dated June 10, 1914. As she had been dead less than 17 years, the requirement for a 50-year interval between death and beatification had to be waived. She was beatified on April 29, 1923, and canonized by Pope Pius XI on May 17, 1925, less than 28 years after her death. She was canonized exactly five years and one day after her heroine, Jeanne d’Arc, was named a saint; and the two have since been venerated as co-patronesses of the French nation. A century after the death of St. Thérèse, Pope John Paul II completed the honors by naming her a Doctor of the Church in his apostolic letter, Divini Amoris Scientia (The Science of Divine Love) issued on October 19, 1997.
We have scarcely touched on the actual facts of the brief, but eventful, life lived by St. Thérèse de Lisieux; but these may be found in her autobiography and other readily available sources. Still, we can hardly bring this consideration of the saint to a close without first noting a few biographical highlights.
St. Thérèse de Lisieux was born in Alençon on January 2, 1873, and was given the name, Marie-Francoise-Thérèse Martin. Her father, Louis Martin, was a jeweler and watchmaker. Her mother, Marie-Azélie Guérin, was a lacemaker who established her own business at the age of 22. Louis and Zélie had both aspired to a life in religion but had been frustrated in their attempts to gain admission to religious orders. At the time of their marriage, they intended to forego marital relations, but a priest encouraged them to embrace the vocation God had given them. They went on to produce nine children, five of whom survived childhood. Louis and Zélie had five daughters, and all five became nuns. The oldest was Marie, born in 1860, who lived until 1940. The others were Pauline (1861-1951), Léonie (1863-1941), Céline (1869-1959), and Thérèse (1873-1897). Marie, Pauline, Céline and Thérèse were all Carmelites in Lisieux; Léonie was a Visitandine sister at Caen. Louis and Zélie were canonized in 2015, becoming the first spouses to be named saints as a couple.
Marie-Azélie Martin died in 1877 when her youngest daughter was only four years old. Thérèse was profoundly affected by her mother’s death; and, by her own account, for the next ten years she was extremely shy and withdrawn. Shortly after his wife’s death, Louis sold her lacemaking business and moved the family from Alençon to Lisieux where Zélie’s brother, Isidore Guérin, lived with his wife and two daughters. The family took up residence in a large house with a spacious garden, on a hill overlooking the city, called Les Buissonnets. Pauline took on the responsibility of raising her youngest sister. The two were particularly close, and Thérèse always regarded Pauline as her second mother. She felt that she had lost her mother again when Pauline entered into the cloistered life of the Carmel at Lisieux. The prioress, Mother Marie Gonzague, sought to console the nine-year-old girl by writing her a letter in which she called her “my little daughter Thérèse of the Child Jesus.” Thérèse would take on that name when she entered the Carmel herself and found a third mother in the saintly Marie Gonzague.
The loss of Pauline to religion gave rise to an alarming nervous condition which left Thérèse subject to continuous tremors and unable to communicate with those around her. She recovered after gazing at a statue of the Virgin Mary placed in her room. On May 13, 1883, she reported that she had seen the Virgin smile her; but when she told the Carmelite sisters at Marie’s request, she was met with so many questions that she lost faith in her own vision. Three years later, Marie entered the convent, renewing the sense of loss which had overshadowed her sister’s life ever since the death of their mother. On Christmas Eve in 1886, two months after Marie’s departure, Thérèse had a sudden and unexpected intuition of the love of God in “Jesus, who saw fit to make Himself a child out of love for me.” The sadness and bitterness that had plagued her for a decade dissipated in an instant. Thérèse resolved to give her life to Christ and was consumed by the desire to become a Carmelite and to follow her sisters, Pauline and Marie, into the cloister. As she was only fourteen, her wish to be admitted immediately was understandably refused.
In November of the following year, Louis Martin took Thérèse and Céline on a diocesan pilgrimage to Rome. When the pilgrims had an audience with Pope Leo XIII they were warned not to speak to the Holy Father; but Thérèse, defying the order, fell to her knees before the pope and begged him to let her join the Carmelite order without further delay. While her plea was not answered immediately, it did not fall on deaf ears; and five months later, on April 9, 1888, she entered the convent where she would spend the rest of her life. Her long-held desire to be a missionary ended with her entrance to Carmel; instead, she devoted herself to prayer on behalf of missionaries, priests and especially sinners in need of conversion.
In 1893 Pauline was elected prioress of the convent and, as “Mother Agnes,” appointed Thérèse assistant to the novice mistress. Stricken by tuberculosis on Easter weekend in 1896, Thérèse suffered more than even she thought possible before finally succumbing to the disease on September 30, 1897, after saying, “My God, I love you!” She was buried on October 4th in the Carmelite section of the municipal cemetery in Lisieux, but in 1923 her body was returned to the convent for permanent entombment prior to her beatification.
Closing Commentary
We offer, in closing, an excerpt from the commentary of Dom Prosper Guéranger, OSB, on “September 29 – Dedication of Saint Michael the Archangel,” followed by a link to the full text of the commentary from The Liturgical Year.
September 29 – Dedication of Saint Michael the Archangel
The glorious Archangel appears today at the head of the heavenly army: There was a great battle in heaven, Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels. In the sixth century, the dedication of the churches of St. Michael on Monte Gargano and in the Roman Circus increased the celebrity of this day, which had however been long before consecrated by Rome to the memory of all the heavenly Virtues.
The
east commemorates on the sixth of September an apparition of the
victorious Prince at Chone (ancient Collossæ) in Phrygia; while the
eighth of November is the solemnity of the angels, corresponding to our
feast of today, and bearing the title: “Synaxis of Saint Michael prince
of the heavenly host, and of the other spiritual Powers.” Although the
term synaxis is usually applied only to religious assemblies here on
earth, we are informed that in this instance it also signifies the
gathering of the faithful angels at the cry of their chief, and their
union eternally sealed by their victory.
God alone is simple with that unchangeable productive simplicity, which is absolute perfection excluding the possibility of progress; He is pure Act, in whom substance, power, and operation are one thing. The angel, though entirely independent of matter, is yet subject to the natural weakness necessary to a created being; he is not absolutely simple, for in him action is distinct from power, and power of essence. How much greater is the weakness of man’s composite nature, unable to carry on the operations of the intellect without the aid of the senses!
“Compared with ours,” says one of the most enlightened brethren of the angelic doctor, “how calm and how luminous is the knowledge of pure spirits! They are not doomed to the intricate discoursings of our reason, which runs after the truth, composes and analyzes, and laboriously draws conclusions from premises. They instantaneously apprehend the whole compass of primary truths. Their intuition is so prompt, so lively, so penetrating, that it is impossible for them to be surprised, as we are, into error. If they deceive themselves, it must be of their own will. The perfection of their will is equal to the perfection of their intellect. They know not what it is to be disturbed by the violence of appetites. Their love is without emotion; and their hatred of evil is as calm and as wisely tempered as their love. A will so free can know no perplexity as to its aims, no inconstancy in its resolutions. Whereas with us long and anxious meditation is necessary before we make a decision, it is the property of the angels to determine by a single act the object of their choice. God proposed to them, as He does to us, infinite beatitude in the vision of His own Essence; and to fit them for so great an end, He endowed them with grace at the same time as He gave them being. In one instant they said Yes or No; in one instant they freely and deliberately decided their own fate.”