Our Lady of Fatima

From ZENIT.ORG

BENEDICT XVI'S ACT OF CONSECRATION OF PRIESTS

"May the Church Be Thus Renewed by Priests Who Are Holy"

FATIMA, Portugal, MAY 12, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a Vatican translation of the Act of Entrustment and Consecration of Priests to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, prayed today by Benedict XVI at the conclusion of the celebration of vespers with the religious, seminarians and diocesan priests at the Church of the Most Holy Trinity in Fatima.

The encounter was dedicated to the priesthood in this Year for Priests.

* * *

Immaculate Mother,
in this place of grace,
called together by the love of your Son Jesus
the Eternal High Priest, we,
sons in the Son and his priests,
consecrate ourselves to your maternal Heart,
in order to carry out faithfully the Father’s Will.

We are mindful that, without Jesus,
we can do nothing good (cf. Jn 15:5)
and that only through him, with him and in him,
will we be instruments of salvation
for the world.

Bride of the Holy Spirit,
obtain for us the inestimable gift
of transformation in Christ.
Through the same power of the Spirit that
overshadowed you,
making you the Mother of the Saviour,
help us to bring Christ your Son
to birth in ourselves too.
May the Church
be thus renewed by priests who are holy,
priests transfigured by the grace of him
who makes all things new.

Mother of Mercy,
it was your Son Jesus who called us
to become like him:
light of the world and salt of the earth
(cf. Mt 5:13-14).

Help us,
through your powerful intercession,
never to fall short of this sublime vocation,
nor to give way to our selfishness,
to the allurements of the world
and to the wiles of the Evil One.

Preserve us with your purity,
guard us with your humility
and enfold us with your maternal love
that is reflected in so many souls
consecrated to you,
who have become for us
true spiritual mothers.

Mother of the Church,
we priests want to be pastors
who do not feed themselves
but rather give themselves to God for their brethren,
finding their happiness in this.
Not only with words, but with our lives,
we want to repeat humbly,
day after day,
Our “here I am”.

Guided by you,
we want to be Apostles
of Divine Mercy,
glad to celebrate every day
the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar
and to offer to those who request it
the sacrament of Reconciliation.

Advocate and Mediatrix of grace,
you who are fully immersed
in the one universal mediation of Christ,
invoke upon us, from God,
a heart completely renewed
that loves God with all its strength
and serves mankind as you did.

Repeat to the Lord
your efficacious word:
“They have no wine” (Jn 2:3),
so that the Father and the Son will send upon us
a new outpouring of
the Holy Spirit.
Full of wonder and gratitude
at your continuing presence in our midst,
in the name of all priests
I too want to cry out:
“Why is this granted me,
that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Lk 1:43).

Our Mother for all time,
do not tire of “visiting us”,
consoling us, sustaining us.
Come to our aid
and deliver us from every danger
that threatens us.
With this act of entrustment and consecration,
we wish to welcome you
more deeply, more radically,
for ever and totally
into our human and priestly lives.

Let your presence cause new blooms to burst forth
in the desert of our loneliness,
let it cause the sun to shine on our darkness,
let it restore calm after the tempest,
so that all mankind shall see the salvation
of the Lord,
who has the name and the face of Jesus,
who is reflected in our hearts,
for ever united to yours!

Amen!

© Copyright 2010 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Another great Catholic video

I found a great blog entry over at the American Papist blog. Once again, in our tech savvy culture and with the instruments of social communications so easily in our grasp here is a good example of some people over in Illinois getting together and evangelizing through mass media.

It is a video advertising the Illinois Catholic Prayer Breakfast but it is a great presentation (in sound-bite form) of the Catholic Faith:

I've always been impressed by the work of Grassroots films who produced the great Fishers of Men video which I blogged about earlier.

But the company that produced this video was Spirit Juice Studios which fills in a void in Catholic PR and visual/web media. I look forward to seeing some of their other products.

Back to the clip itself, Thomas Peters had this to say in response:

"The phrase “Simply Catholic” comes from Cardinal George’s book The Difference God Makes, which I (perhaps providentially) read on my flight into Chicago. The phrase represents the Cardinal’s proposed solution to the struggle between orthodox and liberal wings of the Church, or more accurately, the perversion of orthodoxy which can happen on both the left and right sides of the Church.

Orthodoxy, of course, inasmuch as it represents the objective adherence to the truths of our Catholic faith and applied to our own times, is being “Simply Catholic.” Thus being simply Catholic does not represent a “lowest-common-denominator” approach, but calls all Catholics to fully embrace and live the saving truths contained in the Church’s deposit of faith. It represents a very high standard, not a low one."

What a great message and once again, another great Catholic video!

Nice video made at Kenrick Seminary

At the end of next week I will be leading a group of priests to the Shroud of Turin. There will of course be a blog entry on that. But as I was searching around on Youtube for video of the shroud I came across this very well done video (presumably by seminarians) of a 'walk-through' of Kenrick Seminary in St. Louis. I think it hits the nail on the head. The video leads you through the doors of the seminary to a deeper look at the face of Christ in a display of the Shroud. It then leads you to the heart of the mystery: a deeper encounter with the living God in the tabernacle of the seminary chapel.

[ The video has since been removed by the user for unknown reasons. But the concept was spot on.]

If there is anyone out there who has ever felt God calling them to be a priest or has ever thought of taking the step to enter the seminary to find out - this closer encounter with Christ is the heart and soul of seminary formation. Do not be afraid to 'cast out into the deep' and to 'seek His face'.

Holy Land

This past holy week and Easter I was on pilgrimage to the Holy Land with a group of priest friends from the Casa. It was an awesome journey through the places our Lord walked. What made it more special was that we were there at the time of year we commemorate the most important events of His saving work.

We flew to Tel-Aviv and rented a car and drove up to Galilee. There we stayed for five days under the shadow of the Mount of Beatitudes at Tabgah where Jesus feed the five thousand with loaves and fishes.

Galilee is incredibly beautiful:

We rented boats and went out onto the Sea of Galilee:

We went to Nazareth (Jesus' hometown):

There at the Basilica of the Annunciation we offered mass at the place where the Angel Gabriel declared to Mary that she would conceive and bear a son and that she was to name Him Jesus. If you read the latin on the front of the altar you see the faith filled declaration about the incarnation: Verbum Caro HIC Factum Est - the Word was made flesh HERE!

We also stood on the precipice from which the people of Nazareth tried to throw Jesus . . . but He passed through their midst (Luke 4:30):

We even went to Megiddo (i.e. armegeddon), although we didn't see any apocalyptic visions:

On Wednesday of Holy Week we made the journey "up to Jerusalem". We stayed on the Mount of Olives and walked across the Kidron valley to get into Jerusalem. On Holy Thursday we visited the Church of St. Peter in Gallicantu (cock-crow) where Jesus was imprisoned and Peter denied Him:

On Good Friday we did the Via Crucis (way of the cross) down the Via Dolorosa (the traditional route of Jesus when He carried His cross to Calvary.

On Holy Saturday we spent the night in the Holy Sepulcher (the Church which covers the site of Calvary and the tomb of Jesus)

On Easter Monday and Tuesday we offered mass at the empty tomb and at Calvary hill.

The words of Archbishop Fulton Sheen when speaking about the mass seem appropriate to quote here:

"On the cross our Blessed Lord was looking forward to you, hoping that one day you would be giving yourself to Him at the moment of consecration. Today, in the Mass, that hope our Blessed Lord entertained for you is fulfilled. When you assist at the Mass He expects you now actually to give Him yourself.

Then as the moment of consecration arrives, the priest in obedience to the words of our Lord, "Do this for a commemoration of me," takes bread in his hands and says "This is my body"; and then over the chalice of wine says, "This is the chalice of my blood of the new and eternal testament." He does not consecrate the bread and wine together, but separately.

The separate consecration of the bread and wine is a symbolic representation of the separation of body and blood, and since the Crucifixion entailed that very mystery, Calvary is thus renewed on our altar. But Christ, as has been said, is not alone on our altar; we are with Him. Hence the words of consecration have a double sense; the primary signification of the words is: "This is the Body of Christ; this is the Blood of Christ;" but the secondary signification is "This is my body; this is my blood."

This is Fr. Matthew Kauth, one of our group, offering the mass at the Latin altar on Calvary:

The trip was very spiritually fruitful and was definitely the most meaningful of all my travels!

Catch-up blog: Clergy Conference

Though I didn't post many things for awhile on this blog, many things have transpired in the past year which I thought would be interesting to write about. This entry hopefully will be the first in a series of 'catching-up' to the present.

In January, during the winter break, I attended a priest conference hosted by both the Australian and American Confraternity of Catholic Clergy. They hosted it on the occasion of the year of the priest here in Rome. I took the opportunity to go to something right in my back yard (or the front yard depending how you want to describe the Vatican!).

We had a huge turn out of priests from many English speaking countries. The speakers were all top-notch and included personages such as: Fr. Jospeh Carola S.J., Fr. Uwe Michael Lang, Cong. Or., and even His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI's Master of Ceremonies, Msgr. Guido Marini!

We had a beautiful Solemn High Mass at St. John Lateran celebrated by Cardinal Cañazares and accompanied by a talented schola cantorum who sang Haydn's Missa Cellensis. Here is a picture of me sitting next to the pope's 'cathedra'.

If you look closely enough at this one you can see me getting ready to distribute communion to the faithful.

We also had a nice mass in St. Peter's Basilica with Archbishop Burke presiding. The schola sang Palestrina's Missa Tu es Petrus - How appropriate! After the mass, Archbishop Burke invited us all over the Apostolic Segnatura for a tour. I was intrigued by the office signs designating whose office was who's:

I guess there's no mistaking who belongs in these offices!

While we were in the Cancelleria we passed by the Roman Rota, but we didn't go in. But I did get a photo at the doorway of one of the Rotal Studios:

One of the nights of the conference was set aside for the Banquet. The conference was hosted at the Domus Sanctae Martae in Vatican City where the Cardinals live during a conclave. At that Banquet they set out for us the papal china:

All around, it was a great conference.

It is Finished!

During this season of Lent when we hear the passion of our Lord, from the cross Jesus declares "It is finished!" meaning the work of redemption and salvation of all humanity and in fact all of creation. Today, however, I uttered those same words in a somewhat lesser light and they became the expression of a decidedly smaller victory. What caused them to be uttered? It was the fact that I have finally finished my License Thesis.

A huge Thank-you to all who have prayed for me as I wrote. I just had it printed today. However, the copies weren't done before 12:30 and so the Secretaria at the University closed before I could get them there, so I will have to wait till Monday to consign :-(. But it is finished all the same!

The only things which remain for me are to finish this semester's classes and to prepare for my Comprehensive exams.

Awesome Priest Video!

I just came across an awesome video about the priestly ordinations that took place this past year in New York. It includes the words of Archbishop Dolan which are powerful both in content and in delivery.

The video was made by the same people who made the "Fishers of Men" video.

Check it out: