Sts. Joachim and Ann

Good Evening.
Today is the feast of St. Ignatius Loyola.  Unfortunately, I didn't realize it until it was too late to make it St. Ignatius in Concord Hill.  I was awake....I just couldn't get out of bed :)  Ah well.  More time in purgatory for me.

The music was accompanied by a piano located to the left of the Sanctuary.
Music:
Gathering:  Come to the Water
Offertory:  Come to Me and Drink
Communion:  Be Not Afraid
Closing:  Sing of the Lord's Goodness
Mass Setting:  Mass of the Lounge Glory

Father wore vestments designed by Henry Matisse (They looked similar to Fall of Icarus).  He also brought a print of a painting by Matisse as a homily prop.  Father used Penitential Rite A and Eucharistic Prayer II.  No bells though.  The Our Father was sung with handholding.

Homily:
Because Jesus was fully divine, He experienced the joys of Heaven all the time.  But because of His human nature, Jesus needed to pray.  We need to pray but we often times find it hard to pray.  We find other things that take up our time and we never get to prayer.  Prayer is supposed to be sweet, but we get distracted when we pray.  The Apostleship of Prayer  has practical ways of integrating prayer into our daily lives.  If you think of a triangle, one point is the Morning Offering.  Which Father forgot as he tried to say it and led to an interesting exchange with a parishoner.  In the Morning Offering, one offers everything of day to God.  Father recommended putting the text of the prayer across from the commode. The Lord doesn't care what you are doing with your body as long as your soul is with Him (Sooo....I could say be doing something naughty, but as long as I'm praying it's ok???).  The next point on the triangle is self-sacrifice and offering up our suffering to God.  Father said something in Latin I didn't catch but the translation was "As I burn, I profit."  Basically suffering is profitable.  The top point of the triangle is daily review.  How have you acknowledged God in your day and how have you not acknowledged God in your day?  God perfects our best of what we have to offer (I have a dissertation He needs to get crack-alackin on).  The daily sacrifice of suffering is more powerful than quick prayer.

Pictures:

Sts. Joachim and Ann

View From the Back Pew.

Was there some contest in the 1970s-1980s to make Catholic

Churches as plain as possible???

Tabernacle

Mary and Joseph

Sts. Joachim and Ann?

Maybe.  They seem awfully young.

I thought Tradition had them being really old when Mary was born.

Like God helped them get pregnant old.

Station VIII

Baptism and Eucharist

Reconciliation

Confirmation and ?

Anointing of the Sick

Holy Order

Matrimony

Cross

 Book

Eucharist

Cross

Forgiveness

Link:
Website of Sts. Joachim and Ann

Treasures of the Church - Relics!

On July 22 and 23, St. Francis de Sales hosted a special exhibition of over 150 relics of the Saints for people to come and reverence.  The relics have been touring through a special ministry through the Companions of the Cross called Treasures of the Church.

Before being allowed to reverence the relics, Father Carlos gave a brief talk about the relics.  Father told us that we would be able to experience the living God through the relics.  God works through relics.  Saints are a giant billboard pointing to God.  If you give God your heart fully and completely, you will feel the presence of the living God.  But you need to have more than the desire; you must remove the obstacles in your life that block God.  (It's my dissertation...I know it...).  God requires permission.  He doesn't just barge in (He might get farther if He did)  In this instance you have power over God.  There are four things that common major obstacles.

1. Refusal to attend Sunday Mass every Sunday.
2. Refusal to go to Confession  (Dear priests, perhaps if Confession was available longer than 30 minutes a week.....)
3. Refusal of full disclosure of one's sins.  This forfeits all Sacramental Graces.
4. Refusal to extend forgiveness to others who have wronged us.  To refuse forgiveness is so unlike God, that He? or the Unforgiver can't stand to be around the other...

Evidence for the veneration of relics comes from

• 2 Kings 13:20-21
• Matthew 9:20-22
• Acts 19:11-12

The healing occurs through a material object.  The vehicle is touching.  The cause of healing is God by means of the relic.  It's not magic.  Saints are models and intercessors.

There are different types of relics.  A first class relic is the body/blood of the Saint.  A second class relic was an object owned personally by the Saint.  For some saints, like St. Edith Stein, this is all we have because she was killed in a concentration camp.  A third class relic was something the Saint touched or an object touched by a relic specifically for devotion.  I have a 3rd class relic of St. Francis of Assisi.  It's a 3rd class relic because it was set on his tomb.  

A relic is kept in a container known as a theca.  It is sealed with wax that bears the seal of the one authorized to provide relics and string.  If the wax seal or the strings are broken, then the relic is no longer verified and can't be publicly venerated.  Relics also come withe a document that tells you who and what the relic is as well as who authorized it.  The seal on the document should match the seal on the theca.  Ex ossibus is bone.  Ex indumentis is clothes.  

Why do we divide up the saints?  It is a way of respecting the Saints.  It also comes from the early Church when Mass was held in secret in the Catacombs.

Sainthood is a decision; a choice.  It is the first vocation of all.

Father then invited us upstairs to see the relics and to let one call out to us and that would be the Saint(s) that we should pray to and that had taken an interest in us...

Father did spend a great deal of time talking about St. Maria Goretti

It was very awesome and I'm glad I went.  I didn't really feel drawn to any particular saint.  Lots of people were there praying and asking for intercession.  I'm sorry to say I did not.  I'm terrible at prayer, I just don't get it.  I did not ask for anything because sometimes the answer is no and I will shatter if there is another no.

Pictures:
I am an idiot.  I rented a $1700 macro lens so I could take really nice close up pictures of the relics for some of my readers.  Some of whom I know won't get the opportunity to see such an exhibition.  I took 151 pictures.  On Sunday morning I was distracted and I thought I had switched memory cards out of my camera, leaving the relic pictures safely at home.  Uhm.  I deleted them.  :(  I managed to recover 122  pictures.  But St. Mark is gone.  and I'm not sure who else.  :(  sniff.

Links:

Video from KTVI (How does Canon Wiener look so not sweaty?  I thought I was going to die..please donate to the Oratory so they can get AC....eventually....)

Thoughts from St. Louis Catholic

St. Joachim - Old Mines

Many parishes in the Archdiocese are having their patronal feasts this week.  On Monday, it is the feast of St. James and on Tuesday it is the Feast of Sts. Joachim and Anne.  Therefore, this week I headed out to St. Joachim in Old Mines.  I attended the 10 am Mass on July 24.

St. Joachim is an old brick country church.  It is rather simple on the inside.

Music was accompanied by a piano and a harmonica.  The choir loft was not used but the musicians were off to the side in front.
Music:
Opening:  O Bless the Lord
Offertory:  If God Is For Us
Communion:  Seek Ye First
Closing:  Lead Me Lord

Father chanted the Opening and Closing Prayers as well the Preface for the Liturgy of the Eucharist.  He used Eucharistic Prayer for Reconciliation I.  There were bells at the Consecration.  Oh.  And Father wore this stole over his Chasuble.

The homily was given by the Deacon.  We are celebrating the Feast of St. Joachim and Anne today.  Not just St. Joachim because you always mention the wife when you have a married couple.  However, we are using the Sunday Readings because the Readings were made to mingle; mingle in love.  Although the names of Mary's parents, Joachim and Anne, are not in the Gospel, we know their names from Sacred Tradition.  Jesus' Grandparents are important.  All grandparents are important.  They set the Faith forward.  They set the Foundation.  Family is the nucleus of society.  God made them male and female, not male and male or female and female. :O  Satan is at work destroying God's beauty: the family.  Those in marriage need to set an example of holy life.  Jesus is the pearl of great price.  We need to get rid of those things (sin) that keeps us from Jesus.  It is an awesome privilege to receive Jesus in the Eucharist.  In Kings, the guy was able to ask for anything he wanted.  What would you ask for?  God knows what we need.  It is never too late to turn our lives around and remove that which keeps us from the pearl of great price through the Sacramental life of the Church.

Pictures:

St. Joachim

View from the Side?

Holy Spirit

 

St. Anne & St. Joachim 

Station VIII

Link:
Website of St. Joachim
Exterior Shots and History from Rome of  the West (sorry I forgot to check :) )