Welcome to our weekly Sunday update. This Sunday (July 21, 2024) is the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost. The Gospel reading for this Sunday begins with the revelation that Jesus wept as he approached Jerusalem and saw the city rising before his eyes: Not because of what he saw with the eyes of a man, but because of that which he foresaw with the mind of God. War with Rome lay in the not-too-distant future: Besieged for five months in 70 A.D., the city and the center of Jewish worship, the Temple, would be utterly destroyed. The cause of this destruction would be the failure of the Jewish people to recognize the presence of the Messiah in their midst: “because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation” (Luke 19:44). The Gospel reading also tells how Jesus went into the Temple and drove out those who desecrated that holy place by buying and selling in the house of God. Perhaps the time has come to weep for our own nation, as preoccupied with buying and selling as were the merchants and customers in the doomed Temple, and burdened with sins so egregious that they cry out to heaven for correction.
Calendar of Saints and Special Observances
Celebrations are those listed in the Roman Missal of 1962 or on the liturgical calendar of Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary.
DAY, DATE – FEAST (CLASS)
Sunday, July 21 – Ninth Sunday after Pentecost (II)
Monday, July 22 – St. Mary Magdalene, Penitent (III)
Tuesday, July 23 – St. Apollinarius, Bishop and Martyr (III) [St. Liborius, Bishop and Confessor]
Wednesday, July 24 – Feria (IV) [St. Christina, Virgin and Martyr (IV)]
Thursday, July 25 – St. James the Greater, Apostle (II) [St. Chrisopher, Martyr]
Friday, July 26 – St. Anne, Mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary (II)
Saturday, July 27 – Feria (IV) [St. Pantaleon, Martyr (IV)] [Our Lady on Saturday (IV)]
Note: The liturgical celebration of St. Praxedes, Virgin, which usually takes place on July 21st in accordance with the traditional Roman Calendar, is displaced this year by the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost.
Ninth 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 the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost with either English or Spanish translation. The English version includes a commentary on the Gospel reading by Msgr. Patrick Boylan (1879-1974). We also offer a link to a New Liturgical Movement article by Dr. Michael P. Foley entitled “Weeping Over Jerusalem: The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost and Two of Its Prayers.”
Latin Mass Schedule: Ninth Sunday after Pentecost (July 21, 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
New Time for Latin Mass at Our Lady of Grace: Beginning this Sunday, July 21st, the Traditional Latin Mass at Our Lady of Grace in Greensboro will begin at 1:30 p.m. every Sunday, instead of 1:00 p.m. Please spread the word about this change in the regular Sunday Mass schedule.
Sacred Art Classes by Deacon Joseph Yellico: The last in a series of three Thursday night classes at St. Ann, taught by Deacon Joseph Yellico in a course entitled “Sacred Art: The Church’s Expression of Truth, Goodness and Beauty,” is scheduled for July 25th at 7:00 p.m. in Classroom 2 of the Allen Building. These excellent lectures have covered various mediums of sacred art, ranging from painting to architecture, while also addressing the doctrine, rich symbolism and philosophical thought involved. Feel free to come explore with Deacon Yellico the vast treasury of the Church's artwork.
Save the Date: Thursday, August 1st at 7:00 p.m. – Feast of the Holy Maccabees: In the traditional liturgical calendar, August 1st commemorates the Holy Maccabees, the seven Old Testament brothers who, along with their mother, were martyred by King Antiochus Epiphanes around 150 B.C. for refusing to eat the flesh of swine, because doing so went against the law of God. Saint Thomas Aquinas Parish will offer its 7:00 p.m. Traditional Latin Mass for this rare commemoration of Old Testament saints who died defending God’s sacred laws and traditions. "But one of them, who was the eldest, said thus: What wouldst thou ask, or learn of us? We are ready to die, rather than to transgress the laws of God, received from our fathers (2 Maccabees 7:2)."
Holy Face Devotions
Prayers of Reparation to the Holy Face of Jesus are offered each week at the following churches on the indicated days:
Latin Mass and Liturgical News
Saints and Special Observances
Saint James the Greater, Apostle, was one of the three men closest to Our Lord throughout His ministry. The others were his brother, John, and Simon Peter whom Jesus renamed Cephas (Képhas), the Aramaic word for rock, to be the rock upon which His Church was to be founded. (Our English Peter is derived from the Latin cognate Petra). The three were simple Galilean fishermen from the country north of Samaria whose speech would have sounded foreign to the people of Judea. Simon Peter and his brother, Andrew, were the first two apostles called by Jesus, as He walked along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, to be “fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19). Walking on, Our Lord saw James and John, the sons of Zebedee, mending their nets in their father’s boat; “and He called them. And they forthwith left their nets and father, and followed Him” (Matthew 4:21-22).
James is called “the Greater” to distinguish him from another apostle of the same name, James the son of Alpheus (Matthew 10:3). In addition, Jesus had a cousin James, named among his “brethren” in the Gospel of Saint Matthew (Matthew 13:55), who was a prominent figure in the early Church at Jerusalem and is called “the brother of the Lord” by Saint Paul (Galatians 1:19).
The privileged status of James and John and Peter is made evident by the fact that only these three among the apostles were selected to accompany Jesus when he ascended the mountain of the Transfiguration. “But I tell you of a truth:” Jesus had said to all twelve apostles, “There are some standing here that shall not taste death, till they see the kingdom of God” (Luke 9-27).
And it came to pass about eight days after these words, that he took Peter and James and John, and went up into a mountain to pray. And whilst he prayed, the shape of his countenance was altered, and his raiment became white and glittering. And behold two men were talking with him. And they were Moses and Elias, appearing in majesty. And they spoke of his decease that he should accomplish in Jerusalem (Luke 9:28-31).
What an extraordinary conversation must that have been to overhear! One can easily comprehend how these three fishermen-turned-fishers-of-men failed to understand the import of what was being said in their presence.
Jesus gave names to all three of the apostles who were closest to him. To Simon he gave the name Peter. The brothers, James and John, he called Boanerges, meaning “The sons of thunder” (Mark 3:17). It is uncertain whether, in doing so, he meant to say something about their fisherman father, Zebedee, or about the sons of the fisherman themselves.
Again, only James and Peter and John were allowed by Jesus to accompany Him when He went to the home of the ruler of the synagogue because the man’s daughter was said to be dead. “Fear not, only believe,” Jesus told the ruler. “And he admitted not any man to follow him, but Peter, and James, and John the brother of James” (Mark 5:36-37). Mark’s reference to John as “the brother of James” suggests a certain precedence accorded James, probably because he was the elder of the Boanerges. Jesus went into the room where the girl lay, seemingly dead, and told her, “Talitha cumi, which is, being interpreted: Damsel (I say to thee) arise. And immediately the damsel rose up, and walked” (Mark 5:41-42).
James and his brother incurred a mild rebuke from Our Lord when, presuming on the closeness of their association with Him, they approached Jesus to ask that when He came into His kingdom they might “sit, one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left hand, in thy glory” (Mark 10:37). Hearing of this, the other ten apostles were hardly amused; their displeasure created an opportunity for Jesus to remind all twelve that they were called to serve and not to be served.
James and John were rebuked again by Our Lord when Jesus and his disciples were denied accommodation in a Samaritan town and the sons of thunder asked, “Lord, wilt thou command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them” (Luke 9:54). Turning, Jesus admonished them, “You know not of what spirit you are. The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save” (Luke 9:55).
When one of his disciples marveled at the structures of the Temple complex and Jesus responded by foretelling the utter destruction of all, it was the trio of Peter and James and John who approached Him apart to ask, “Tell us, when shall these things be?” (Mark 13:4). Jesus proceeded to present an apocalyptic vision of the things to come, telling the three, “Take you heed therefore; behold I have foretold you all things” (Mark 13:23).
Finally, on the night that He was betrayed, Our Lord led His disciples into the Garden of Gethsemani to pray but took Peter and James and John with him to keep watch while He prayed apart in fear for His own life. Pausing three times in his agony, He found them sleeping, finally rousing them with the news of His imminent arrest: “Rise up, let us go. Behold, he that will betray me is at hand” (Mark 14:42).
When after the resurrection of Our Lord, the growth of the cult of Christ began to cause the king uneasiness, Herod decided to take action: “And he killed James, the brother of John, with the sword” (Acts 12:2).
There is much more that could be said of Saint James, but this is all that Scripture tells us. The feast day of Saint James the Greater, Apostle and Martyr, is celebrated on July 25th.
Other Noteworthy Saints
This week not only features the feast of Saint James the Greater, but also the feast of Saint Mary Magdalene on Monday July 22 and the patronal feast day of Saint Ann Parish, that of Saint Ann, the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary, on Friday July 26.
These two saints also have a distant connection, as tradition holds that Saint Mary Magdalene brought the relics of Saint Ann to France when she, her brother Saint Lazarus, and sister Saint Martha (whose feast day will be next Monday July 29) were exiled from the Holy Land by boat and ended up on the coast of France.
We share additional commentary on these two saints:
St. Anne - Mother the Blessed Virgin Mary
A Superb Article on St. Mary Magdalene
Closing Commentary
In closing, we offer commentary on the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost excerpted from The Liturgical Year of Dom Prosper Guéranger, OSB, followed by a link to the full text. This week’s commentary focuses on the fall of Jerusalem prophesied by Jesus and the destruction of the Temple in the terrible siege conducted by the Roman military in 70 A.D.
Ninth Sunday After Pentecost
The lamentation over Jerusalem’s woes is, in the Western Church, the subject of today’s Gospel; and it gave its name to this ninth Sunday after Pentecost, at least among the Latins. We have already observed that it is easy to find, even in the Liturgy as it now stands, traces of how the early Church was all attention to the approaching fulfillment of the prophecies against Jerusalem, that ungrateful City, upon which our Jesus heaped his earliest favors. The last limit put by mercy upon justice has, at length, been passed. Our Lord, speaking of the ruin of Sion and its Temple, had foretold that the generation that was listening to his words should not pass until what he announced should be be fulfilled. The almost forty years accorded to Juda, that he might avert the divine wrath, have had no other effect than to harden the people of deicides in their determination of not accepting Christ as the Messiah. As a torrent which, having been long pent back, rushes all along the fiercer when the embankment breaks, vengeance at length burst on the ancient Israel; it was in the year 70 that was executed the sentence himself had passed, when delivering up his King and God to the Gentiles, he cried out: His blood be upon us and upon our children!
Even as early as the year 67, Rome irritated by the senseless insolence of the Jews, had deputed Flavius Vespasian to avenge the insult. The fact of this new General being scarcely known was, in reality, the strongest reason for Nero’s approving of his nomination: but to the hitherto obscure family of this soldier, God reserved the empire, as a reward for the service done to divine justice by this Flavius and his son Titus. Later on, Titus will see and acknowledge it—that it is not Rome, but God himself, who conducts the war and commands the legions. Moses, ages before, had seen the nation, whose tongue Israel could not understand, rushing, like an eagle, upon his chosen people and punishing them for their sins. But no sooner has the Roman eagle reached the land where he is to work the vengeance, than he finds himself visibly checked by a superior power; and his spirit of rapine is held back, or urged on, just precisely as the prophets of the Lord of hosts had spoken it was to be. The piercing eye of that eagle, as eager to obey as it was to fight, almost seemed to be scrutinizing the Scriptures. It was actually there that he found the order of the day for the terrible years of the campaign.
As an illustration of this, we may mention what happened in the year 66. The army of Syria, under the leadership of Cestius Gallus, had encamped under the walls of Jerusalem. Our Lord intended this to be nothing more, in His plan, than a warning to his faithful ones, which he had promised them when foretelling the events that were to happen. He had said: When ye shall hear of wars, and seditions, and rumors of wars, be not terrified; these things must first come to pass; but the end is not yet presently. But, when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed about with an army, then know, that the desolation thereof is at hand. The Jews had been, for years, angering Rome by their revolts; but she bore with it all, if not patiently, contemptuously; but when, in one of these seditions, Roman blood had been spilled, then she was provoked, and sent her legions. Her army, however, had first of all to furnish Jesus’ disciples with a sign; he had promised them that this sign should consist in her compassing of Jerusalem, then withdrawing for a time; this would give the Christians an opportunity of quitting the accursed city. The Roman proconsul had his troops stationed so near to Jerusalem that it seemed as though he had but to give the word of command, and the war would be over; instead of that, he gave the strange order to retreat, and throw up the victory which he might have for the wishing it. Cestius Gallus seemed to men to have lost his senses; but no, he was following, without being aware of it, the commands of heaven: Jesus had promised an escape to his loved ones; he fulfilled his promise by this unwitting instrument. [Ninth Sunday after Pentecost]