Dear Friends in Christ,
Welcome to our weekly Sunday update. This Sunday (October 20, 2024) is the Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost. In the Gospel reading for this Sunday, the Pharisees conspire with the Herodians to entrap Jesus by asking him, “Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not?” In seeking evidence of disloyalty to the reigning regime, they are establishing the basis for the charge they will ultimately use to bring about His condemnation by the Roman civil authority. Jesus outmaneuvers his interrogators with his response: “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” This reading seems especially relevant to the current situation in our country with the national election already underway. There has been much talk about taxes and perhaps not enough discussion of how the money we render unto Washington is spent. There has also been much talk of “reproductive rights” but very little talk about the most basic right of all: the right to life of innocent unborn children put in jeopardy by the moral insensitivity of others. May God have mercy on our nation for its continuing failure to protect the lives of the most innocent among us.
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, October 20 – Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost (II)
Monday, October 21 – Commemoration of St. Hilarion, Abbott and of St. Ursula and others, Virgins and Martyrs
Tuesday, October 22 – Feria
Wednesday, October 23 – St. Anthony Mary Claret, Bishop and Confessor (III)
Thursday, October 24 – St. Raphael, Archangel (III)
Friday, October 25 – Commemoration of Ss. Chrysanthus and Daria, Martyrs; (USA) St. Isidore the Farmer, Confessor (III)
Saturday, October 26 – Commemoration of St. Evaristus, Pope and Martyr
Note: The feast day of St. John Cantius, Priest and Confessor (III), celebrated on October 20th in most years, is supplanted this year by the Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost.
Twenty-Second 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 Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost with either English or Spanish translation. In addition, we provide a link to a New Liturgical Movement article by Dr. Michael P. Foley entitled “Thinking Out Loud? The Collect of the Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost.”
Latin Mass Schedule: Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost
(October 20, 2024)
Charlotte Area Latin Masses
Other Diocese of Charlotte Latin Masses
Diocese of Charleston Latin Masses
Note: Travelers are urged to consult parish websites or offices for up-to-date information regarding possible changes in the regular schedule of Mass times.
Latin Mass Schedule: Weekdays
Charlotte Area Latin Masses
Other Diocese of Charlotte Latin Masses
Diocese of Charleston Latin Masses
Note: Travelers are urged to consult parish websites or offices for up-to-date information regarding possible changes in Mass times.
All Saints and All Souls Day Latin Masses (as announced)
We share the currently announced Latin Masses for the Feasts of All Saints and All Souls. If more Masses are announced, we will post them in the days ahead.
Friday November 1 – All Saints (Holy Day of Obligation)
Saturday November 2 – All Souls
Pray for Our Priests
At the Eucharistic Congress, Carolina Traditional Liturgy Society launched a "Pray for our Priests" campaign where we invite everyone to pledge to pray many Hail Marys for our priests. We have collected over 27,000 Hail Marys so far. We now ask you to add your Hail Marys to all of the ones that have been pledged or already been prayed since the Eucharistic Congress.
As we all know, there is a constant spiritual battle between angels and demons going on around us. Prayer is a great weapon in battle.
During a recent talk, Living Through these Trying Times: Faith in Trials (1/5), Father Chad Ripperger (at the 13 minute mark), says that we have to pray for the protection of our clergy and to pray in a very specific way.
Father noted that we should specifically pray to Our Lady and give her our prayers for our priests and also ask her to protect and hide us - and our prayers - from the demons, to prevent them from undermining the effects of the prayers (click here to listen).
To participate in this prayer campaign, please visit our website to add your pledges (you can return again and add more). Our goal is 150,000 Hail Marys for the 133 Diocesan priests before the end of the liturgical year on November 30th. Please offer as many prayers as your heart will allow!
Add Your Hail Marys Here (or visit our website)
Oremus!
Announcements
3rd Sunday Doughnuts at Saint Ann – Saint Ann parish will be sponsoring doughnuts and coffee after all Masses this Sunday, including the 12:30 p.m. Latin Mass.
Disaster Relief – Catholic Charities
is requesting monetary donations to support disaster relief efforts in
western North Carolina in the wake of the widespread damage caused by
Hurricane Helene. The following website has been established to
facilitate the donation of funds to help survivors recover from the
catastrophic flooding caused by the storm: Donate to Disaster Relief for Western North Carolina. One can also give directly to the parishes who are assisting those affected. [Saint Elizbeth of the Hill Country, Boone] [Saint Bernadette, Linville] Please continue to pray for those who lost their lives or their homes or were otherwise affected by the recent storm.
Sunday’s 12:30 p.m. Mass intention at Saint Ann – Mass this Sunday October 20 at 12:30 p.m. will be offered for the repose of the soul of Count Riprand of Arco-Zinneburg, the great-grandson of the last King of Bavaria, Ludwig III who lived in Charlotte for several years. Count Arco married Archduchess Maria Beatrice of the von Habsburg family, the granddaughter of Blessed Karl of Austria and they lived in Charlotte in the 1980s where they started a property development company.
In
2018, the couple, now living in Austria, paid a visit to Charlotte and
attended Saint Ann’s Latin Mass. Sadly Count Arco passed away in 2021
but the family visited Saint Ann again to organize a memorial Mass for
the Count, for the benefit of his local friends and colleagues. We
invite readers to please consider praying this Sunday for the repose of
the soul of Count Arco, our small connection to Blessed Karl and
Catholic royalty.
Prayers at the Cemetery –
Saint Ann Homeschool Ministry invites everyone to come to Belmont Abbey
Cemetery on Sunday, November 3rd at 3:00 p.m. (after 12:30 p.m. Latin
Mass) to pray for the Souls in Purgatory. Father will lead the prayers.
After the prayers they will serve “soul cakes” (doughnuts), coffee, and
other treats. Water, coffee, and napkins will be provided.
Prayers for the Election – The following special prayer initiatives have been launched in anticipation of the national election scheduled to take place on November 5th:
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
The Battle of Lepanto was a naval engagement of profound historical significance fought on October 7, 1571. The victory of the Christian forces under the command of Don John of Austria, sailing to the east from Sicily, turned back an invasion by the Ottoman Turks seeking to conquer Europe for Islam. Pope St. Pius V, who had called on the people of Rome to process through the streets of the city praying the Rosary, gave credit for the victory of the Holy League to the Blessed Virgin Mary. He established October 7th as the feast of Our Lady of Victory, a name that was subsequently changed to Our Lady of the Rosary. As we have shared several articles about the battle and the liturgical commemoration of the Christian victory over the centuries since it was fought, we offer here the famous poem by G. K. Chesterton that tells the story as only he could tell it.
Lepanto
By G. K. Chesterton
White founts falling in the courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard,
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips,
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,
They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,
And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross,
The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;
The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;
From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,
Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,
Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall,
The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall,
The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,
That once went singing southward when all the world was young,
In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid,
Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade.
Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,
Don John of Austria is going to the war,
Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold
In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold,
Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,
Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.
Don John laughing in the brave beard curled,
Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world,
Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.
Love-light of Spain—hurrah!
Death-light of Africa!
Don John of Austria
Is riding to the sea.
Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri’s knees,
His turban that is woven of the sunset and the seas.
He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease,
And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees,
And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring
Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.
Giants and the Genii,
Multiplex of wing and eye,
Whose strong obedience broke the sky
When Solomon was king.
They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn,
From temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn;
They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea
Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be;
On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl,
Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl;
They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,—
They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound.
And he saith, “Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide,
And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide,
And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest,
For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west.
We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun,
Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done,
But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know
The voice that shook our palaces—four hundred years ago:
It is he that saith not ‘Kismet’; it is he that knows not Fate ;
It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey in the gate!
It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,
Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth.”
For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
Sudden and still—hurrah!
Bolt from Iberia!
Don John of Austria
Is gone by Alcalar.
St. Michael’s on his mountain in the sea-roads of the north
(Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.)
Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift
And the sea folk labour and the red sails lift.
He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone;
The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone;
The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes
And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,
And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room,
And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom,
And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,
But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea.
Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse
Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips,
Trumpet that sayeth ha!
Domino gloria!
Don John of Austria
Is shouting to the ships.
King Philip’s in his closet with the Fleece about his neck
(Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.)
The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin,
And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.
He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon,
He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon,
And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey
Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day,
And death is in the phial, and the end of noble work,
But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.
Don John’s hunting, and his hounds have bayed—
Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid
Gun upon gun, ha! ha!
Gun upon gun, hurrah!
Don John of Austria
Has loosed the cannonade.
The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke,
(Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.)
The hidden room in man’s house where God sits all the year,
The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.
He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea
The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery;
They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark,
They veil the plumèd lions on the galleys of St. Mark;
And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs,
And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs,
Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines
Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.
They are lost like slaves that swat, and in the skies of morning hung
The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young.
They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on
Before the high Kings’ horses in the granite of Babylon.
And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell
Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell,
And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign—
(But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!)
Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop,
Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate’s sloop,
Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds,
Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds,
Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea
White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.
Vivat Hispania!
Domino Gloria!
Don John of Austria
Has set his people free!
Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath
(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)
And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,
Up which a lean and foolish knight forever rides in vain,
And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade....
(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)
Source: The Collected Poems of G. K. Chesterton. United Kingdom: C. Palmer, 1927.
Closing Commentary
We offer, in closing, an excerpt from Dom Prosper Guéranger’s commentary on the “Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost.” A link to the full text from The Liturgical Year follows. The commentary is followed by Fr. Chad Ripperger’s “Consecration of the Election to the Blessed Virgin Mary.”
Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost
According to Honorius of Autun, the Mass of today has reference to the days of Antichrist. The Church, foreseeing the reign of the man of sin, and as though she were actually undergoing the persecution, which is to surpass all others—she takes her Introit of this twenty-second Sunday from the Psalm De profundis.
If, unitedly with this prophetic sense, we would apply these words practically to our own personal miseries, we must remember the Gospel we had eight days ago, and which, formerly, was the one appointed for the present Sunday. Each one of us will recognize himself in the person of the insolvent debtor, who has nothing to trust to but his master’s goodness; and in our deep humiliation, we shall exclaim, If thou, O Lord, mark iniquities, who shall endure it?
St. Paul, in the Church’s name, again invites our attention to the near approach of the Last Day. But what, on the previous Sunday, he called the evil day, he now, in the short passage taken from his Epistle to the Philippians, which has just been read to us, calls, and twice over, the day of Christ Jesus. The Epistle to the Philippians is full of loving confidence; its tone is decidedly one of joy; and yet it plainly shows us that persecution was raging against the Church, and that the old enemy was making capital of the storm, to stir up evil passions, even amidst the very flock of Christ. The Apostle is in chains; the envy and treachery of false brethren intensify his sufferings; still, joy predominates in his heart over everything else, because he is come to that perfection of love, wherein divine charity is enkindled by suffering more even than by the sweetest spiritual caresses. To him, to live is Christ, and to die is gain; he cannot make up his mind which of the two to choose—death, which would give him the bliss of being with his Jesus—or life, which will add to his merits and his labors for the salvation of men. What are all personal considerations to him? His one joy, for both the present and the future is that Christ may be known and glorified, no matter how! As to his hopes and expectations, he cannot be disappointed, for Christ is sure to be glorified in his body by its life and by its death!
Hence, in Paul’s soul, that sublime indifference, which is the climax of the Christian life; it is, of course, a totally different thing from that fatal apathy, to which the false Mystics of the 17th century pretended to reduce the love of man’s heart. What tender affection has not this convert of Damascus for his brethren, once he has reached this point of perfection! God, says he, is my witness, how I long after you all, in the bowels of Jesus Christ! The one ambition which rules and absorbs him is that God, who has begun in them the work, which is good by excellence—the work of Christian perfection (such as we know had been wrought in the Apostle himself) may be continued and perfected in them all, by the day when Christ is to appear in his glory. This is what he prays for—that the wedding garment of those whom he has betrothed to the one Spouse, in other words, that charity may beautify them with all its splendor for the grand Day of the eternal nuptials.
Now, what is the sure means whereby charity is to be perfected in them? It must abound, more and more, in knowledge and in all understanding of salvation, that is, in Faith. It is Faith that constitutes the basis of all supernatural virtue. A restricted, a diminished, Faith could never support a large and high-minded charity. Those men, therefore, are deceiving themselves, whose love for revealed truth does not keep pace with their charity! Such Christianity as that believes as little as it may; it has a nervous dread of new definitions; and out of respect for error, it cleverly and continually narrows the supernatural horizon. Charity, they say, is the queen of virtues; it makes them take everything easily, even lies against Truth; to give the same rights to error as to Truth is, in their estimation, the highest point of Christian civilization grounded on love! They quite forget that the first object of charity being God, who is substantial Truth, he has no greater enemy than a life; they cannot understand how it is that a Christian does not do a work of love by putting on the same footing the Object beloved and His mortal enemy!
The Apostles had very different ideas: in order to make charity grow in the world, they gave it a rich sowing of truth. Every new ray of Light they put into their disciples’ hearts was an intensifying of their love; and these disciples, having by Baptism become themselves light, they were most determined to have nothing to do with darkness. In those days, to deny the truth was the greatest of crimes; to expose themselves, by a want of vigilance, to infringe on the rights of truth, even in the slightest degree, was the height of imprudence. When Christianity first shone upon mankind, it found error supreme mistress of the world; having, then, to deal with a universe that was rooted in death, Christianity adopted no other plan for giving it salvation than that of making the Light as bright as it could be; its only policy was to proclaim the power which truth alone has for saving man, and to assert its exclusive right to reign over this world. The triumph of the Gospel was the result; it came after three centuries of struggle; a struggle, intense and violent, on the side of darkness which declared itself to be the supreme and was resolved to keep so; but a struggle most patient and glorious on the side of the Christians, the torrents of whose blood did but add fresh joy to the brave army, for it became the strongest possible foundation of the united Kingdom of Love and Truth.
[Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost]
CONSECRATION OF THE ELECTION TO 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 wilt take care of us and will not leave us forsaken.
O Mary Immaculate, pray for us. Amen
Fr. Chad Ripperger
To download a PDF copy of this prayer please visit this link.
Consagración de las elecciones a la Santísima Virgen Maria
Inmaculada
María, tabernáculo vivo de la Divinidad, donde la eterna Sabiduría se
encuentra escondida para ser adorado y servido por los angeles y los
hombres, Reina del cielo y de la tierra, bajo cuya influencia están
sometidas todas las cosas bajo la jerarquía de Dios, patrona de los
Estados Unidos de America, adoloridos y conscientes de nuestra
pecaminosidad y de los pecados de nuestra nación, recurrimos a ti, tu
que eres nuestro refugio y esperanza.
Sabiendo
que nuestra nación no puede ser salvada por nuestros propios medios y
conscientes de lo mucho que nuestra nación se ha alejado de los caminos
de tu Hijo, te suplicamos humildemente, que pongas tú mirada en nuestra
nación y traigas hacia ella su conversión.
Te
consagramos la integridad de las próximas elecciones y sus resultados,
para que sean alcanzados todo lo que sea mejor en principios morales y
espirituales, y para que todos aquellos que sean electos gobiernen de
acuerdo a la espiritualidad y los principios morales que traerán de
vuelta a nuestra nación a una conformidad con las enseñanzas de tu Hijo.
Dales la gracia a los cuidadanos de esta nación para que elijan líderes de acuerdo al Sagrado Corazón de tu Hijo, de tal manera que su gloria sea manifestada, y que se nos den los lideres que merecemos. Confiados del cuidado providencial de nuestro Dios Padre y de tu maternal cuidado, tenemos la perfecta confianza de que cuidaras de nosotros y no nos dejarás desamparados.
Oh Maria Inmaculada, ruega por nosotros, Amén