Dear Parishioners,
This weekend we celebrate the Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time. What if all of us here today embraced the role of prophet! How would our world, our community, our lives be changed? These are the challenges this weekend’s readings place before us. May our minds and hearts be open to seeing ourselves in them.
Next weekend we will celebrate the Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time. The readings next weekend will call us to a renewed understanding of the complementarity of married love. God created man and woman as partners and equals who, at their best, will live faithfully all their days. In marriage, couples bear witness to God’s command to love one another and to form community.
October: The Month of the Holy Rosary. It is hard to believe that it is already October (well at least it will be on Monday!) I would encourage you to do all that you can to redouble your efforts to pray at least SOME of the Holy Rosary each day. Obviously most cannot do all twenty mysteries each day, but I hope that you would be able to once in a while. Next Sunday would be the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, except it is on a Sunday. The following is from an article presented by Catholic News Agency. I think most of us know about this already, but in case you don’t, I think this is an appropriate beginning for the Month of October.
Known for several centuries by the alternate title of “Our Lady of Victory,” the feast day takes place in honor of a 16th century naval victory which secured Europe against Turkish invasion. Pope St. Pius V attributed the victory to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who was invoked on the day of the battle through a campaign to pray the Rosary throughout Europe.
The feast always occurs one week after the similar Byzantine celebration of the Protection of the Mother of God, which most Eastern Orthodox Christians and Eastern Catholics celebrate on October 1 in memory of a 10th-century military victory which protected Constantinople against invasion after a reported Marian apparition.
Pope Leo XIII was particularly devoted to Our Lady of the Rosary, producing 11 encyclicals on the subject of this feast and its importance in the course of his long pontificate.
In the first of them, 1883’s “Supremi Apostolatus Officio,” he echoed the words of the oldest known Marian prayer (known in the Latin tradition as the “Sub Tuum Praesidium”), when he wrote, “It has always been the habit of Catholics in danger and in troublous times to fly for refuge to Mary.”
“This devotion, so great and so confident, to the august Queen of Heaven,” Pope Leo continued, “has never shone forth with such brilliancy as when the militant Church of God has seemed to be endangered by the violence of heresy … or by an intolerable moral corruption, or by the attacks of powerful enemies.” Foremost among such “attacks” was the battle of Lepanto, a perilous and decisive moment in European and world his- tory.
Troops of the Turkish Ottoman Empire had invaded and occupied the Byzantine Empire by 1453, bringing a large portion of the increasingly divided Christian world under a version of Islamic law. For the next hundred years, the Turks expanded their empire westward on land, and asserted their naval power in the Mediterra- nean. In 1565 they attacked Malta, envisioning an eventual invasion of Rome. Though repelled at Malta, the Turks captured Cyprus in the fall of 1570.
The next year, three Catholic powers on the continent – Genoa, Spain, and the Papal States – formed an alli- ance called the Holy League, to defend their Christian civilization against Turkish invasion. Its fleets sailed to confront the Turks near the west coast of Greece on October 7, 1571
Crew members on more than 200 ships prayed the Rosary in preparation for the battle – as did Christians throughout Europe, encouraged by the Pope to gather in their churches to invoke the Virgin Mary against the daunting Turkish forces.
Some accounts say that Pope Pius V was granted a miraculous vision of the Holy League’s stunning victory. Without a doubt, the Pope understood the significance of the day’s events, when he was eventually informed that all but 13 of the nearly 300 Turkish ships had been captured or sunk. He was moved to institute the feast now celebrated universally as Our Lady of the Rosary.
“Turkish victory at Lepanto would have been a catastrophe of the first magnitude for Christendom,” wrote military historian John F. Guilmartin, Jr., “and Europe would have followed a historical trajectory strikingly different from that which obtained.”
During these troubling times, especially may we all “fly to the Mother of God for her protection.” Saying the Rosary is one of the best ways for doing that!
Hurricane Florence: Certainly not as bad (from most reports) as the hurricanes last year that hit the Houston area and Puerto Rico, there was still wide-spread damage … and the Catholic Church is standing up to help. I received this letter this week from Archbishop Carlson:
To the Faithful of the Archdiocese of St. Louis,
I know I speak for everyone in the Archdiocese of St. Louis when I say how deeply saddened I am by the deaths and the devastation that individuals in the Carolinas and surrounding states are experiencing in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence. I ask the Lord to carry those who are suffering and who have lost so much.
To help provide immediate and long-term aid to those recovering from this natural disaster, I am asking our nearly 200 parishes in 11 counties to participate in a second collection at all Masses this coming weekend and the weekend after (September 29-30, 2018 and October 6-7, 2018).
Catholic Charites of St. Louis will forward 100% of funds raised to Catholic Charities USA for distribution among the Catholic Charities agencies providing relief in the hurricane-impacted communities.
I will be offering a Mass for those who died in this tragedy, as well as their loved ones who are mourning. I ask you to please join your prayers to mine for our neighbors who must now rebuild their lives.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Most Reverend Robert J. Carlson Archbishop of St. Louis
Considering that this was just received on Monday of this week, and since no one will be prepared to contribute to a second collection this weekend, there will NOT be a second collection this weekend, rather NEXT WEEKEND, October 6 and 7. Please put your contribution in a plain envelope and mark it Hurricane Relief. If paying by check, please make the check out to Saint Monica, and put HURRICANE RELIEF in the memo line. Thank you.
Have a great week. Fall is upon us. May it be a peaceful time.
Faithfully yours,
Fr Joe Weber