Our Lady of Fatima

Today is marked as an anniversary in the 1917 apparitions of Our Lady at Fatima, Portugal. Our Lady warned that soon an atheistic form of government, life, and society would spread through out the world, and that the Holy Father and Church would have much to suffer unless there was a conversion to Christ through her Immaculate Heart.

We now see the increasingly aggressive forms of secularism, and the attacks on life, the family, and religious freedom. 

For five months the mother of Christ had first appeared to three children to make a series of requests and predictions about prayer, penance, war and peace. She pleaded that we amend our lives and turn to Christ, through her Immaculate Heart, She also asked especially for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart.

The solar miracle accompanied her last appearance on October 13, 1917, included one of the most dramatic public miracles of modern times, a well-documented event known today as the “Miracle of the Sun.” On that day, 70,000 people watched as the sun appeared to make three circles and “dance” in the sky in a zig-zag pattern.

We were all asked in particular to pray the Rosary daily, work towards our own personal sanctification, to do reparation for offences against God, penance, and the practice of attending Mass on the first Saturday of five consecutive months.

Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost

"... which is the great commandment in the Law? Jesus said to him, 

‘You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and with your whole soul, and with your whole mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. 

And the second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself." 

Extract from today's Gospel - Matt 22:34-46 

Mass at 5pm, St Patrick's Church, College Rd, Kilkenny,

Celebrant: Rev Thomas O’Toole CC

Feast of the Holy Rosary

The Battle of Lepanto

O God, Whose only-begotten Son, by His life, death and resurrection, has merited for us the grace of eternal salvation, grant, we beseech You, that, 

meditating on those mysteries in the most holy rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 

we may imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise.

Today we recall the countless conversions and miracles that have been attributed to the intercession of Our Lady through praying the Most Holy Rosary. There is however one particular historical event, which caused the Pope to institute this feast, on this day, in the Churches calendar.

The feast was instituted after the naval victory of Lepanto. A victory in which the combined papal, Spanish, Venetian, and Genoese fleets, under Don John of Austria, conquered the Turkish fleet on 7 Oct., 1571. On the same day, the first Sunday of October in 1571, processions had been made at Rome by the members of the Rosary confraternity praying for the intersession of Our Lady of the Rosary. St. Pius V, upon hearing of the victory ordered that a commemoration of the Rosary should be made by the Church on this day. It was of great importance as being the first great defeat of the infidels on the sea.

At the request of the Dominican Order Gregory XIII in 1573 allowed this feast to be kept in all churches which possessed an altar dedicated to the Holy Rosary. In 1671 the observance of this festival was extended by Clement X to the whole of Spain, and somewhat later Clement XI after the important victory over the Turks gained by Prince Eugene on 6 August, 1716 (the feast of our Lady of the Snows), at Peterwardein in Hungary, commanded the feast of the Rosary to be celebrated by the universal Church. A set of "proper" lessons in the second nocturn were conceded by Benedict XIII. Leo XIII has since raised the feast to the rank of a double of the second class and has added to the Litany of Loreto the invocation "Queen of the Most Holy Rosary". 

On this feast, in every church in which the Rosary confraternity has been duly erected, a plenary indulgence toties quoties is granted upon certain conditions to all who visit therein the Rosary chapel or statue of Our Lady. This has been called the "Portiuncula" of the Rosary.

Thurston, Herbert. "Feast of the Holy Rosary." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 13. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912.

Vailhé, Siméon. "Lepanto." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910

San Martino - Venice, Italy. Battle of Lepanto Crucifix 

At 'the Battle of Lepanto', a certain Sebastiano Venier commanded the Venetian fleet. The image above depicts a 14th Century wood crucifix is called the 'Lepanto Cross' by the Venetians. Ship builders and Venetian soldiers in the nearly adjacent 'Arsenale' were devoted to the crucifix. It was moved to San Martino after the destruction of the nearby church of the Madonna dell’Arsenale. The local tradition is that it was carried on a Venetian galley at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, Europe’s great victory against the Ottoman Empire. 

It was the custom that all Catholic vessels carried a crucifix at the quarterdeck, from which the custom of saluting the quaterdeck in-fact originates in our modern naval services. This battle was also the largest (and probably the last on this scale) naval battle in which galleys were used.

Transitus of St. Francis of Assisi

The chapel of the Transitus is a simple stone building, which served as the infirmary for the first friary now with the basilica of Our Lady of the Angels.

Saint Francis died during the evening of October 3. The Church observes the feast of Saint Francis on October 4, the day of his death.

"Two years thereafter he fell sick unto death, and was fain to be carried into the Church of St Mary-of-the-Angels, that he might give up the breath of life in the same place where God had breathed into him the breath of the life of grace. Being there (laid on the earth, sprinkled with ashes, and covered with an old habit,) he exhorted the Friars to be poor and lowly, and to cleave to the faith of the Holy Church of Rome. (He then caused the Gospel of St John to be read from the words Now before the feast of the Passover to the end,) after which he began to recite the 141st Psalm: I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and in uttering the words, the righteous wait for me, till Thou deal bountifully with me, he gave up the ghost... "

This human and liturgical event is solemnly remembered each year by Franciscans, to honour their holy Father's entrance into the joy of being with the Most Blessed Trinity.

O God, you granted our blessed Father Francis the reward of everlasting joy: 

grant that we, who celebrate the memory of his death,

may at last come to the same eternal joy; 

through Christ our Lord. Amen.

The church of Our Lady of the Angels - Portiuncula, now enclosed in the Basilica

Interior of the church.

SIXTEENTH SUNDAY after PENTECOST

 

"For everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, 

and he who humbles himself shall be exalted."

 Extract from today's Gospel - Luke 14:1-11

Mass at 5pm, St Patrick's Church, College Rd, Kilkenny,

Celebrant: Rev Thomas O’Toole CC

 

Today is also the feast of the Guardian Angels. It is not commemorated in the Mass (in the 1962 Missal), but it is fitting that especially today we remember the presence of our, and all the Holy Angels.

 

O God, Who in thine unspeakable Providence hast been pleased to give thine holy Angels charge over us, to keep us, mercifully grant unto our prayers, that we be both ever fenced by their wardship here, and everlastingly blessed by their fellowship hereafter. 

Mass in Glenmore parish church - Friday 6pm.

There will be Mass this Friday evening in Glenmore parish church (St. James) at 6pm, (nr. New Ross) celebrated by Fr. Anthony O'Connor PP.

The Mass will be that of the feast day, i.e. St. Jerome. It will be Fr.O'Connors second public Mass using the 1962 missal, and the first in his parish since the liturgical changes of the late 1960's and 70's.

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecos

Bow down Thine ear, O Lord, to me and hear me: save Thy servant, O my God, that trusteth in Thee: have mercy on me, O Lord, for I have cried to Thee all day.  Give joy to the soul of Thy servant; for to Thee, O Lord, I have lifted up my soul..

Mass at 5pm, St Patrick's Church, College Rd, Kilkenny, Sunday 25^th September

Celebrant: Rev Thomas O’Toole CC

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Behold, O God, our protector, and look on the face of Thy Christ; for better is one day in Thy courts above thousands. How lovely are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! my soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord.

Mass at 5pm, St Patrick's Church, College Rd, Kilkenny, Sunday 18^th September

Celebrant: V. Rev Anthony O’ Connor PP

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Have regard, O Lord, to Thy covenant, and forsake not to the end the souls of Thy poor: arise, O Lord, and judge Thy cause, and forget not the voices of them that seek Thee. O God, why hast Thou cast us off unto the end: why is Thy wrath enkindled against the sheep of Thy pasture?

Mass at 5pm, St Patrick's Church, College Rd, Kilkenny, Sunday 11^th September

Celebrant:  Rev Thomas O’Toole CC

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

Incline unto my aid, O God: O Lord, make haste to help me: let my enemies be confounded and ashamed, who seek my soul.  Let them be turned backward and blush for shame, who desire evils to me.

Mass at 5pm, St Patrick's Church, College Rd, Kilkenny, Sunday 4^th September

Celebrant:  Rev Thomas O’Toole CC