Dear Friends in Christ,
Welcome to our weekly Sunday update. This Sunday (September 8, 2024) is the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost.
It falls this year on the date fixed by the Church for celebrating the
Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Gospel reading for the
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost tells how Jesus healed a man afflicted
by dropsy, a painful and potentially debilitating condition
characterized by the excessive collection of fluid in bodily tissues.
The nature of the ailment is of secondary importance; the significance
of the event is to be found in two details regarding its setting: (1)
The miracle was performed on the sabbath day, in defiance of the Mosaic
Law, out of compassion for the sufferer. (2) It was done in the
presence of notable religious figures who were bound to disapprove of
what Jesus did. The Gospel reading tells us, “Jesus went into the house
of one of the chief of the Pharisees, on the sabbath day to eat bread,”
adding rather ominously, “that they watched him” (Luke 14:1). They
were waiting for Him to do what He did – heal a man as an act of charity
– so that they could condemn Him once again for violating the sabbath.
Sunday is also the 459th anniversary of the establishment of Catholicism in today's United States. Please see our historical piece at the conclusion of this update.
Calendar of Saints and Special Observances
Celebrations are those listed in the Roman Missal of 1962.
DAY, DATE – FEAST (CLASS)
Sunday, September 8 – Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost (II) – Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (II)
Monday, September 9 – Commemoration of St. Gorgonius, Martyr
Tuesday, September 10 – St. Nicholas of Tolentino, Confessor (III)
Wednesday, September 11 – Commemoration of Ss. Protus and Hyacinth, Martyrs
Thursday, September 12 – Most Holy Name of Mary (III)
Friday, September 13 – Feria (IV)
Saturday, September 14 – Exaltation of the Holy Cross (II)
Note: The commemoration of St. Adrian, Martyr, which usually takes place on September 8th, in accordance with the traditional Roman Calendar, is displaced this year by the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost and the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Sixteenth 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 Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost with either English or Spanish translation. The English version includes a brief commentary on the Gospel reading excerpted from In Conversation with God by Fr. Francis Fernandez-Carvajal. We also offer a link to a New Liturgical Movement article by Dr. Michael P. Foley on “The Overstepping Collect of the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost.”
Latin Mass Schedule: Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost (September 8, 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
St. Thomas Aquinas First Sunday Food and Fellowship Rescheduled
Because the 20th Annual Diocese of Charlotte Eucharistic Congress was being held August 30-31, the First Sunday Food and Fellowship gathering at Saint Thomas Aquinas was rescheduled for the second Sunday of the month (September 8th), following celebration of the 11:30 a.m. Traditional Latin Mass.
Prince of Peace 50th Anniversary Homecoming Picnic
The
50th Anniversary Homecoming Picnic at Prince of Peace in Taylors, South
Carolina, scheduled to begin at 11:30 a.m. this Sunday (September 8th),
will affect the availability of parking for those attending the
Traditional Latin Mass at noon. Overflow parking will be available at
Eastside High School, 1300 Brushy Creek Road, half-a-mile from the
church. Those who find it necessary to park at the remote location will
need to allow at least 10-12 minutes for the additional walk-time
required to reach the church. Additional information is available via
the following link: [Prince of Peace Homecoming Picnic]
Assistance for Jacksonville Carmelite Sisters Affected by Hurricane Debbie
Last winter we shared a National Catholic Register article about the traditional Carmelite sisters who moved from Buffalo, New York, to Jacksonville, Florida, in search of “silence and solitude.” Unfortunately, a few months after the Carmelites settled into their new convent, the house sustained significant damage during Hurricane Debbie and will require a new roof. We share this as an opportunity to perform an act of charity on behalf of these religious sisters who depend on alms for their subsistence. During their move from New York to Florida, the Jacksonville Carmelites were hosted by Saint Ann Parish for an overnight stay in Charlotte. At the new location in Jacksonville, the Carmelite convent is probably the nearest to Charlotte of any traditional contemplative religious community. To help the sisters, please click here.
Next Sunday: Donuts and Coffee at Saint Ann Parish
Next Sunday September 15, Saint Ann Hospitality Ministry and the parish are sponsoring a new 3rd Sunday donuts and coffee after the weekend Masses in the plaza – including after the 12:30 p.m. Latin Mass.
We are looking for a family or two that could assist us next weekend in either serving the donuts after Latin Mass or helping to clean up around 2:45 p.m. This is a great way to give back to the parish that has offered the Traditional Latin Mass for over 15 years (and counting)!
If you can help please contact us.
Prayers for the Election
54-Day Rosary Novena
In this weekend’s edition of Saint Ann’s Friday Five, Fr. Reid encouraged everyone to pray a 54-Day Rosary Novena for the upcoming election. It begins this Friday September 13 and concludes Election Day November 5. The novena consists of praying a Rosary daily consecutively for 54 days. The prayer intention is: That God’s will may be done in the upcoming election. Father also encourages everyone to fast from something during this time to demonstrate to God how serious one is about the prayer intention.
Fr. Chad Ripperger’s Pray for the Election
Additionally, exorcist Fr. Chad Ripperger (who spoke at Saint Thomas Aquinas last year) is asking the faithful to pray for the country and has written a special prayer consecrating the election and results to Our Lady. We provide the prayer at the end of this update and it can also be 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
The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary has been celebrated by Christians for fifteen centuries or more as an event of world-historical and, indeed, cosmic proportions. The birth of Mary Immaculate made possible the birth of the One who was to come, the Savior of the world, Son of God Himself, Our Lord Jesus Christ. While there is nothing to be found in the canonical gospels regarding the birth of Our Lady, Tradition holds that she was the daughter of Joachim and his wife, Anne. Their story is told in the Protoevangelium of James, an apocryphal text which has existed as we know it today since the second century of the Christian era.
Like other notable couples in the history of the people of God (Abram and Sarai, Elcanna and Anna, Zachary and Elizabeth) Joachim and Anne were facing the onset of old age in a state of childlessness. Fearing that they had fallen out of favor with God, they devoted themselves to prayer and fasting until, at last, an angel appeared to Anne and told her, “The Lord has heard your prayer, and you shall conceive, and shall bring forth, and your seed shall be spoken of in all the world.”
Later, according to the same text, “Joachim brought the child to the priests, and they blessed her, saying: ‘O God of our fathers, bless this child, and give her an everlasting name to be named in all generations.’” Mary would later exclaim, in her encounter with Elizabeth described in the first chapter of the Gospel According to Saint Luke, “My soul doth magnify the Lord. And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid; for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed” (Luke 1:46-48). Mary’s parents decided, along with the priests of the Temple, that the child should be given to God as a consecrated virgin. Her eventual marriage to Joseph was understood from the start to be a chaste union that would produce no children – and yet, at the start, there was already a Child.
The Protoevangelium of James is not a canonical gospel; that is to say, it is not unequivocally held by the Church to be the result of divine inspiration. Nevertheless, over the past eighteen hundred years, it has provided essential background for the life of a central figure in the history of the Church: Mary, the Mother of God. The Church has been celebrating her birth since at least the sixth century, as evidenced by the inclusion in a compilation of that period a hymn to be sung at Marymas. The earliest documentation of a liturgical commemoration has to do with the sixth century dedication of the Basilica Sanctae Mariae ubi nata est (“Basilica of Saint Mary where she was born”). Originally built in the fifth century, the basilica was located on the site in Jerusalem where the home of Joachim and Anne was believed to have stood.
The Feast of the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary was widely celebrated in Eastern churches in the seventh century, and September 8th came to be accepted by consensus as the appropriate date for the commemoration of the Virgin’s birth. When the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was finally pronounced by Pope Pius IX in 1854, he established December 8th as the date on which Joachim and Anne conceived their daughter because it preceded the long-accepted date of her birth by exactly nine months.
Closing Commentary
We offer, in closing, an excerpt from the commentary of Dom Prosper Guéranger, OSB, on “September 8 – The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” followed by a link to the full text of the commentary from The Liturgical Year.
September 8 – The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Let us celebrate the Nativity of the Virgin Mary; let us adore her Son, Christ our Lord. Such is the invitation addressed to us today by the Church. Let us hearken to her call; let us enter into her overflowing joy. The Bridegroom is at hand, for his throne is now set up on earth; yet a little while, and he will appear in the diadem of our human nature, wherewith his Mother is to crown him on the day of the joy of his heart, and of ours. Today, as on the glorious Assumption, the sacred Canticle is heard; but this time it belongs more to earth than to heaven.
Truly a better Paradise than the first is given us at this hour. Eden, fear no more that man will endeavor to enter thee; thy Cherubim may leave the gates and return to heaven. What are thy beautiful fruits to us, since we cannot touch them without dying? Death is now for those who will not eat of the fruit so soon to appear amid the flowers of the virgin earth to which our God has led us.
Hail, new world, far surpassing in magnificence the first creation! Hail blessed haven, where we find a calm after so many storms! Aurora dawns; the rainbow glitters in the heavens; the dove comes forth; the ark rests upon the earth, offering new destinies to the world. The haven, the aurora, the rainbow, the dove, the ark of salvation, the Paradise of the heavenly Adam, the creation whereof the former was but a shadow: all this art thou, sweet infant, in whom already dwell all grace, all truth, all life.
Thou art the little cloud, which the father of prophets in the suppliant anguish of his soul awaited; and thou bringest refreshment to the parched earth. Under the weakness of thy fragile form, appears the Mother of fair love and of holy hope. Thou art that other light cloud of exquisite fragrance, which our desert sends up to heaven. In the incomparable humility of thy soul, which knows not itself, the Angels, standing like armed warriors around thy cradle, recognize their Queen.
O Tower of the true David; citadel withstanding the first shock of Satan’s attack, and breaking all his power; true Sion, founded on the holy mountains, the highest summits of virtue; temple and palace, feebly foreshadowed by those of Solomon; house built by Eternal Wisdom for herself: the faultless lines of thy fair architecture were planned from all eternity. Together with Emmanuel, who predestined thee for his home of delights, thou art thyself, O blessed child, the crowning point of creation, the divine ideal fully realized on earth.
Let us, then, understand the Church when, even on this day, she proclaims thy divine maternity, and unites in her chants of praise the birth of Emmanuel and thine own. He who, being Son of God by essence, willed to be also Son of man, had, before all other designs, decreed that he would have a Mother. Such, consequently, was the primordial, absolute character of that title of mother, that in the eternal decree, it was one with the very being of the chosen creature, the motive and cause of her existence, as well as the source of all her perfections natural and supernatural. We too, then, must recognize thee as Mother, even from thy very cradle, and must celebrate thy birthday by adoring thy Son our Lord.
Inasmuch as it embraces all the brethren of the Man-God, thy blessed maternity sheds its rays upon all time, both before and after this happy day. God is our king before ages: he hath wrought salvation in the midst of the earth. “The midst of the earth,” says the Abbot of Clairvaux, “admirably represents Mary. Mary is the center of the universe, the ark of God, the cause of creation, the business of ages. Towards her turn the inhabitants of heaven and the dwellers in the place of expiation, the men that have gone before us, and we that are now living, those who are to follow us, our children’s children and their descendants. Those in heaven look to her to have their ranks filled up; those in purgatory look for their deliverance; the men of the first ages, that they may be found faithful prophets; those that come after, that they may obtain eternal happiness. Mother of God, Queen of heaven, Sovereign of the world, all generations shall call thee blessed, for thou hast brought forth life and glory for all. In thee the Angels ever find their joy, the just find grace, sinners pardon; in thee, and by thee, and from thee, the merciful hand of the Almighty has reformed the first creation.”
[September 8 The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary]
Mary Immaculate, living tabernacle of the Divinity, where the eternal Wisdom lies hidden to be adored and served by angels and men, Queen of heaven and of earth, beneath whose sway are subject all things that are lower than God, Patroness of the United States of America, sorrowful and mindful of our own sinfulness and the sins of our nation, we come to thee, our refuge and hope.
Knowing that our country cannot be saved by our own works and mindful of how much our nation has departed from the ways of thy Son, we humbly ask that thou wouldst turn thine eyes upon our country to bring about its conversion.
We consecrate to thee the integrity of the upcoming election and its outcome, so that what is spiritually and morally best for the citizens of our country may be accomplished, and that all of those who are elected would govern according to the spiritual and moral principles which will bring our nation into conformity with the teachings of thy Son.
Give grace to the citizens of this land so that they will choose leaders according to the Sacred Heart of thy Son, that His glory may be made manifest, lest we be given the leaders we deserve. Trusting in the providential care of God the Father and thy maternal care, we have perfect confidence that thou wilst take care of us and will not leave us forsaken.
O Mary Immaculate, pray for us. Amen
(Composed by exorcist Fr. Chad Ripperger)
Sunday September 8 is not only the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, it is the nativity of Catholicism in the United States as the first parish of this country was established 459 years ago in Saint Augustine, Florida.
On this date, Pedro Menédez de Avilés, Captain-General of the Spanish Indies Fleet, after a two-month harrowing voyage from Spain, disembarked from his ship onto this new soil, and giving thanks to God, kissed a cross planted in the ground by his chaplain (America's first "pastor"), Fr. Fransico Lopez de Mendoz Grajales, as the Te Deum was chanted.
Menédez, the newly appointed governor of this first permanent European settlement in today's United States, proclaimed the land “Nombre de Dios”, in the Name of God. Fr. Lopez then offered a Mass in thanksgiving, followed by a feast with the Timucuan natives who were present to see these new arrivals and this “new” religion – hence the first Thanksgiving Day in America’s history.
The settlement and parish were named after Saint Augustine, for it was 12 days earlier, on his feast day August 28, 1565, that Menédez first sighted the land known as La Florida (the name La Florida already being given by Ponce de Leon on Easter Day 1513 during his exploration voyage near the same location).
Thus September 8, 1565 began the first permanent European settlement in today's United States of America, the first Thanksgiving, the first parish Mass, and as historian Michael V. Gannon wrote in The Cross in the Sand,
'It was also the beginning of the parish of Saint Augustine and of the permanent service of the Catholic Church in what is now the United States."
Gannon continues, "From that place, for 198 uninterrupted years, priests and laymen would carry Christianity and civilization into the wild interior: first diocesan, then Jesuit, and finally Franciscan missionaries would drop their lamps of faith and knowledge into the darkness as far as Virginia to the north, and Texas in the west, and write their names into one of the least known but most heroic chapters of American and Catholic history."
Happy birthday to the Catholic Church in the United States America!
Our Lady of La Leche and Saint Augustine, pray for us!