Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Dear Friends in Christ,

Welcome to our weekly Sunday update. This Sunday 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 Special Observances

Celebrations are those listed in the Roman Missal of 1962.

DAY, DATE – FEAST (CLASS)

Sunday, August 10 – Ninth Sunday after Pentecost (II) – Commemoration of St. Laurence, Martyr

Monday, August 11 – Ss. Tiburtius & Susanna, Virgin, Martyrs (IV)

Tuesday, August 12 – St. Clare, Virgin (III)

Wednesday, August 13 – Ss. Hyppolitus & Cassian, Martyrs (IV)

Thursday, August 14 – Vigil of the Assumption (II) – Commemoration of St. Eusebius, Confessor

Friday, August 15 – The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (I)

Saturday, August 16 – St. Joachim, Father of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Confessor (II)


Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

The links provided below can be used to download printable copies of the Proper Prayers for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost with English or Spanish translation, followed by commentary by Dr. Michael P. Foley.


Latin Mass Schedule: Sundays

Charlotte Area Latin Masses

  • 11:30 a.m., Saint Thomas Aquinas

  • 12:30 p.m., Saint Ann

Other Diocese of Charlotte Latin Masses

  • 8:30 a.m., Saint John the Baptist (Tryon)

  • 1:00 p.m., Church of the Epiphany (Blowing Rock)

  • 1:30 p.m., Our Lady of Grace (Greensboro)

Diocese of Charleston Latin Masses

  • 12:00 p.m., Prince of Peace (Taylors SC)

  • 1:00 p.m., Our Lady of the Lake (Chapin SC)

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 (August 11 - August 16)

Charlotte Area Latin Masses

  • Saint Ann – Wednesday, 6:00 p.m.

  • Saint Thomas Aquinas – Thursday, 7:00 p.m.

  • Saint Ann – Friday, 7:00 a.m.

Other Diocese of Charlotte Latin Masses

  • Our Lady of the Mountains (Highlands) – Thursday, 9:30 a.m.

  • Saint John the Baptist (Tryon) – Friday, 8:30 a.m.

  • Church of the Epiphany (Blowing Rock) – Friday, 9:30 a.m.

Diocese of Charleston Latin Masses

  • Prince of Peace (Taylors SC) – Monday-Friday, 12:00 p.m.

  • Prince of Peace (Taylors SC) – Saturday 8:00 a.m.

Note: The normal schedule for daily Latin Masses at Prince of Peace resumes this Monday August 11.

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.


Feast of the Assumption: Friday August 15

The following are announced Latin Masses for the Feast of the Assumption (a Holy Day of Obligation). If more Masses are scheduled, we will include them in future updates.

  • Saint Ann, 7:00 a.m.

  • Saint John the Baptist (Tryon), 8:30 a.m.

  • Church of the Epiphany (Blowing Rock), 6:00 p.m

  • Our Lady of Grace (Greensboro), 6:30 p.m.

  • Prince of Peace (Taylors SC), 12 noon

  • Our Lady of the Lake (Chapin SC), 6:30 p.m.


Announcements

Holy Hour Thank You – We thank everyone who attended Saint Ann parish’s Holy Hour for the Latin Mass last Sunday and Fr. Reid’s for leading the Holy Hour and Rosary. Let us continue praying for the Traditional Latin Mass by praying the Holy Face chaplet daily (see below announcement).

Mary Days Talks (August 15-22) – Saint Thomas Aquinas Parish's annual week-long Mary Days talks on the Blessed Virgin Mary begins this Friday August 15 (Feast of the Assumption) and concludes Friday August 22 (Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary). Talks will part of a homily at Mass, 7:00 p.m. daily (Novus Ordo). The 7:00 p.m. Mass on Thursday August 21st will be a Traditional Latin Mass. To learn more click on this link.

Daily Holy Face Chaplet for Sacred Liturgy (perpetual novena) – For the protection of the 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.

National Latin Mass Pilgrimage – Saturday October 11, Washington, D.C. 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 consider praying this daily for the Holy Father as he leads the Church.

Prayer for Pope Leo XIV: Vicar of Christ on Earth and Shepherd of the Universal Church

O Holy Virgin Mary, Mother of the Lord of Heaven and of Earth, Our Lady of Guadalupe, guide and protect the Roman Pontiff, Pope Leo XIV. Through your intercession, may he receive in abundance the grace of the Successor of Saint Peter: the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity of our Bishops and of all our brothers and sisters in the Mystical Body of your Divine Son. Unite Pope Leo’s heart to your Immaculate Heart, leading him to rest his heart ever more securely in the glorious-pierced Heart of Jesus, so that he may confirm us in the Catholic faith, in the worship of God in spirit and truth, and in a good and holy Christian life.

In the tumult of the present time, keep Pope Leo securely within the hollow of your mantle, in the crossing of your arms, protecting him from Satan, the Father of Lies, and from every evil spirit. Implore Our Lord to grant him, in particular, the wisdom and courage to be a true Shepherd of the Church throughout the world. With you, I place all my trust in Christ, the Good Shepherd, Who alone is our help and salvation. Amen.

Heart of Jesus, formed by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mother, have mercy upon us!

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Queen of the Apostles, pray for us!

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us!

Pope Saint Leo the Great, pray for us!

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:

  • St. James (Concord) – Monday, 10-10:30 a.m. (in the cry room)

  • St. Mark – Tuesday, 10:00 a.m. & 5:30 p.m. (new schedule as of July 29)

  • St. Thomas Aquinas – Tuesday, 6:00 a.m.

  • St. Ann – Tuesday, 7:30 a.m. (following 7:00 a.m. Novus Ordo Mass)

  • St. Michael the Archangel (Gastonia) – Tuesday, 8:30 a.m. (following 8:00 a.m. Novus Ordo Mass)

  • St. Vincent de Paul – Tuesday, 8:40 a.m.

  • Holy Spirit (Denver) – Tuesday, 10-11:00 a.m. (following the 9:15 a.m. Novus Ordo Mass)

  • Saint Elizabeth of the Hill Country (Boone) – Third Tuesday, at 6:45 p.m. after Mass in the Youth Room

  • St. John the Baptist (Tryon) - First Saturday, 9:30 a.m. (after 8:30 a.m Latin Mass)

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

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was declared to be a dogma of the Catholic Church by Pope Pius XII on November 1, 1950. In his apostolic constitution entitled Munificentissimus Deus, the pope confirmed what Christians had believed for many centuries:

We pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever-Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.

Left unsaid by the pope was exactly what exactly the formula “assumed body and soul” involved. In choosing not to be more specific, he left unresolved a question about the Assumption that remains with us today: Did Mary, “having completed the course of her earthly life,” experience the separation of body and soul that is death – or was she, alone among all the men and women who have ever lived, spared death and transported directly to Heaven?

One answer to the question unposed by the pope would be that the Blessed Mother of Our Lord did, in fact, experience that separation universally associated with death, but that her body and soul were subsequently reunited in a resurrection, like that of her son, prior to being taken into Heaven. This has the appeal of recognizing that she was “only human” but like Jesus Himself was able to conquer death. Some have found a Scriptural basis for this view in what God said to the serpent in the Garden: “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel (Genesis 3:15).

The other answer – that Mary did not die but simply went straight to Heaven when she had “completed the course of her earthly life” – may seem to be more consistent with another Marian dogma pronounced a century before that of the Assumption. In the papal bull, Ineffabilis Deus, issued in 1854, Pope Pius IX declared the Blessed Virgin to be unique among all mankind:

We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.

As the consequence of original sin, incurred by Adam and Eve and their progeny unto the end of time, was death, one might believe that because Mary was “preserved from all stain of original sin” she was singularly exempted from the consequence imposed on the rest of humanity.

What are we to believe, since the Church leaves the actual details of the Assumption to our discretion? An early legend held that Mary did in fact die in the presence of all the Apostles except Thomas. He, having missed the obsequies and perhaps even doubting her demise, insisted that her coffin be opened, so that he could view the remains. The others, choosing to indulge “doubting Thomas,” did as he asked, only to discover that the coffin, like the tomb in which Our Lord had been laid, was empty.

Pope St. John Paul II, who was greatly devoted to Our Lady, believed that, like Our Lord, she had risen from the dead before her Assumption into Heaven. The opinion of the faithful has been divided on the matter from the beginning and will presumably remain so until that day when our souls are reunited with our bodies at the Final Judgement. Nevertheless, there seems to be a growing consensus in favor of the idea that Mary died, as all of us will, but rose again, as Jesus had done – unlike the rest of us who will not rise in our bodies until that last day.

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is celebrated by the Church each year on the 15th of August.

(Note: The article by David Clayton for New Liturgical Movement, linked below, presents one individual’s evolving view and includes photographs of a number of paintings that show the different ways the Assumption has been portrayed over many centuries.)

[Reports of the Death of the Virgin Mary...Are True!]


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]