Dear Friends in Christ,
Welcome to our weekly Sunday update. This Sunday (June 30, 2024) is the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost. This Sunday’s Gospel reading relates the miracle of the four thousand fed in the wilderness. An Episcopal chaplain of a Protestant school once explained the miracle to his seventh-grade religion class in this way: There were among the four thousand some who had more food than they needed, and Jesus simply shamed them into sharing what they had in abundance. A thoroughgoing materialist, this chaplain could not conceive of Our Lord Himself producing the food required to feed four thousand. And yet, according to Mark’s Gospel, Jesus said the people had nothing to eat and some would faint on the way home if required to undertake the journey without receiving sustenance. The materialist dismissal of the miracle assumes that Jesus knew about the available food and was simply less than truthful in what He said. But true faith teaches us to believe that Jesus is Truth itself and that He who made the world can come up with a meal when the occasion calls for something to eat. “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall not hunger” (John 6:35).
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, June 30 – Sixth Sunday after Pentecost (II) [External Solemnity of Ss. Peter and Paul (II)]
Monday, July 1 – The Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ (I)
Tuesday, July 2 – The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (II) [Commemoration of Ss. Processus and Martinian, Martyrs]
Wednesday, July 3 – St. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, Martyr (III)
Thursday, July 4 – Feria (IV) [Commemoration of All Holy Popes (IV)] [Jesus Christ the High Priest (III)]
Friday, July 5 – St. Anthony-Mary Zaccaria, Confessor, Founder of the Barnabites (II) [Sacred Heart of Jesus (III)]
Saturday, July 6 – Feria (IV) [Immaculate Heart of Mary (III)] [St. Maria Goretti, Virgin and Martyr (IV)]
Sixth 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 Sixth Sunday after Pentecost with either English or Spanish translation. The English version includes a commentary on the Gospel reading by Dom Prosper Guéranger (1805-1875). A link is also provided for the Proper Prayers of the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, since the bishops of the United States have authorized celebration of the feast on June 30th, one day after the date it occupies on the liturgical calendar. Looking back to the day before the regular feast day, we also offer a link to an article in New Liturgical Movement by Gregory DiPippo on “The Vigil of Ss Peter and Paul.”
Latin Mass Schedule: Sixth Sunday after Pentecost (June 30, 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
First Sunday Potluck at Saint Thomas Aquinas: Next
Sunday (July 7th) will be First Sunday Food and Fellowship at Saint
Thomas Aquinas following the regularly scheduled 11:30 a.m. Latin Mass.
All are invited to come break bread and have a good time!
Traditional Silent Retreat with Fr. Lawrence Carney: From Friday July 19 through Sunday July 21, the Legion of Mary in Raleigh will sponsor a silent retreat at the Catholic Conference Center in nearby Hickory, NC, for both men and women (ages 18 and up). The retreat will be led by Fr. Lawrence Carney of the Diocese of Wichita. Fr. Carney, who visited St. Thomas Aquinas Parish last year, has written two books on the Holy Face devotion published by TAN Books: Preparation for Total Consecration to the Holy Face of Jesus: How God Draws the Soul into the Purgative, Illuminative, and Unitive Ways and Secret of the Holy Face: The Devotion Destined to Save Society.
The theme of the retreat will be Total Consecration to the Holy Face and Growth in the Interior Life. A Traditional Latin Mass will be offered during the retreat. The cost is $300 per participant (double occupancy) or $330 (single occupancy). To register contact Tammy Huffman at Luvr1mary@gmail.com or (919) 744 6998. Additional information about the retreat and the registration form are available here.
**New Time for Our Lady of Grace Sunday Latin Mass: Beginning Sunday July 21, the Traditional Latin Mass at Our Lady of Grace in Greensboro will have a new start time of 1:30 p.m. every Sunday. Please spread the word about this schedule change.
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
Saints Peter and Paul have been connected by popular devotion since the early days of Christianity. Evidence of this combined veneration has been found in writings on the walls of the catacombs in Rome. The two saints have been honored on the same date, June 29th, since at least as early as the fourth century. In his History of the Church, written in the early decades of that century, Eusebius noted that Peter and Paul had been martyred in Rome “at the same time” during the Neronian persecution. Writing near the end of the same century, St. Jerome went further, claiming in De Viris Illustribus that the two had been put to death on the same day. This year, the bishops of the United States have authorized celebration of their joint feast day this Sunday, June 30th, as the External Solemnity of Ss. Peter and Paul.
Saint Irenaeus (whose feast is this Wednesday July 3), in his second-century work, Adversus Haereses, credited Peter and Paul with having been the co-founders of the Church at Rome. They might aptly be called co-founders of the Christian religion, provided we keep in mind that Christ Himself is the source and substance of Christianity. Certainly, the two were united in their zeal to spread the salvific message of Christ crucified and resurrected from the dead; but they could hardly have differed more widely in terms of their personalities and the circumstances of their lives.
Saint Peter was almost certainly the older of the two. Given the name Simon when he was born in the Galilean town of Capernaum, he was the son of a fisherman named Jonah and worked on his father’s boats, plying the waters of the inland Sea of Galilee, until Jesus called him to be a fisher of men. It is likely he had little or no formal education and may have been illiterate in spite of the fact that two canonical letters in the New Testament carry his name. He is mentioned by name so many times in the Gospels, and in the Acts of the Apostles, that we are able to derive from the things he said and did a fully developed portrait of the man. Impetuous at times, headstrong at others, subject to strong emotions and never afraid to speak his mind, he was fiercely loyal to Our Lord and the first among His followers to recognize Jesus as the “Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). Arising from somnolence in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night Jesus was betrayed, his anger aroused, he drew his sword to strike out in violence. But as the events of that night unfolded, he withdrew in fear and then succumbed to bitter remorse at his failure even to acknowledge his association with the prisoner. In an emotional meeting with the resurrected Jesus, again on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Peter purged his triple denial of Our Lord with a threefold assertion of his love. Following the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the one-time fisherman proved to be a bold, and sometimes imperious, leader of the burgeoning community of believers: the first Bishop of Rome, he became the Rock upon which the Church was founded.
While Saint Peter was likely somewhat older than Jesus, Saint Paul was probably a few years younger than Our Lord. Unlike the untutored son of a Galilean fisherman who would one day become the first Bishop of Rome, Paul (born Saul) was the son of a Roman citizen in the Hellenized Mediterranean coastal city of Tarsus. His family was able to send him to Jerusalem to be educated in the rabbinical school of the famous scholar of the Judaic Law, Gamaliel. Paul emerged from his studies a rigid defender of Jewish orthodoxy dedicated to exposing those not strictly observant with regard to the Law. His zeal was such that he took a particular interest in ferreting out and calling to account followers of the emerging new Way espoused by those who proclaimed Jesus to be the long-expected Messiah. His conversion was a hard case. Unlike Peter who cast aside his nets immediately to follow when Jesus called, Paul had to be knocked off his high horse. It was on the road to Damascus, where he was going to arrest adherents of the heterodox cult, that Paul was struck down as by a bolt of lightning out of the blue and heard a voice demanding, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” (Acts 9:4). Blinded by the blast of light, Paul was led into the city by those who accompanied him on his mission to the Syrian city. He remained unable to see for three days until the Lord sent a disciple named Ananias to cure him and see that he was baptized.
Unlike his more impulsive counterpart, Simon Peter, who was sometimes inclined to act first and weigh the consequences later, Paul tended to think things through, following the frequently circuitous path of his own reasoning to its logical conclusion. He used the power of his thought to win untold converts to the Faith. As the author of half the books in the New Testament, he has continued to bring new believers into the fold even into our own time. He was also an indefatigable traveler who narrowly escaped death at the hands of men and the elements of nature on several occasions. Like Peter, he made it to Rome eventually, but only after decades spent traversing the world to carry the Good News of Christianity to every nation.
Closing Commentary
In closing, we offer an excerpt from the commentary on the Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul, Apostles in The Liturgical Year of Dom Prosper Guéranger, OSB, followed by a link to the full text.
June 29 - St. Peter and St. Paul, Apostles
Since the terrible persecution of the year 64, Rome had become for Peter a sojourn fraught with peril, and he remembered how his Master had said to him, when appointing him Shepherd of both lambs and sheep: Follow thou me. The Apostle, therefore, awaited the day when he must mingle his blood with that of so many thousands of Christians, whom he had initiated into the faith, and whose Father he truly was. But before quitting earth, Peter must triumph over Simon the Magician, his base antagonist. This heresiarch did not content himself with seducing souls by his perverse doctrines; he sought even to mimic Peter in the prodigies operated by him. So he proclaimed that on a certain day, he would fly in the air. The report of this novelty quickly spread through Rome, and the people were full of the prospect of such a marvellous sight. If we are to believe Dion Chrysostom, Nero seems even to have entertained at his court this wonderful personage, who pledged himself to soar aloft in mid-air. More than that, the emperor would even with his own presence honor this rare sight. The imperial lodge was reared upon the Via Sacra, where the scene was to be enacted. But cruel for the impostor did this deception prove. “Scarce had this Icarus begun to poise his flight,” says Suetonius, “than he fell close to Nero’s lodge which was bathed in his blood.” The gravest writers of Christian antiquity are unanimous in attributing to the prayer of Peter this humiliation inflicted on the Samaritan juggler in the very midst of Rome, where he had dared to set himself up as the rival of Christ’s Vicar.
~
The filial devotedness of the Christians of Rome took alarm, and they implored Saint Peter to elude the danger for a while, by instant flight. “Although he would have much preferred to suffer,” says Saint Ambrose, Peter set out along the Appian Way. Just as he reached the Capuan gate, Christ suddenly presented himself, seemingly about to enter the city. “Lord, whither goest thou?” cried out the Apostle. “To Rome,” Christ replied, “to be there crucified again.” The disciple understood his Master; he at once retraced his steps, having now no thought but to await his hour of martyrdom.