Daughters of Mary - 'God of Mercy and Compassion'

A Lenten hymn sung beautifully by the Daughers of Mary, Mother of Our Savior.

Homily of Father Jay Scott Newman - 'Forty Days of Preparation'

  Homily of Reverend Jay Scott Newman
 
Pastor

St. Mary's Catholic Church

Greenville, South Carolina

March 7, 2011

Comparing Christianity and the New Paganism

By Dr. Peter Kreeft

The most serious challenge for Christianity today isn't one of the other great religions of the world, such as Islam or Buddhism.

Nor is it simple atheism, which has no depth, no mass appeal, no staying power. Rather, it's a religion most of us think is dead. That religion is paganism — and it is very much alive.

Paganism is simply the natural gravity of the human spirit, the line of least resistance, religion in its fallen state.

The "old" paganism came from the country. Indeed, the very word "paganism" comes from the Latin pagani, "from the fields" or "country-dwellers." Country people were the last to be converted to Christianity during the Roman Empire, the last to abandon their ancestral roots in pre-Christian belief. Today, country people are the last to abandon Christianity for the "new" paganism, which flourishes in the cities.

The old paganism was a far greater thing than the new. In fact, Chesterton brilliantly summarized the entire spiritual history of the world in this one sentence: "Paganism was the biggest thing in the world, and Christianity was bigger and everything since has been comparatively small."

There were at least three elements in the old paganism that made it great. And all three are missing in the new paganism.

Pope Benedict Opens Lenten Season

From Vatican Radio

Pope Benedict officially opens the Lenten season with a traditional Ash Wednesday afternoon procession and mass here in Rome. Each year on this day, the Pope crosses the Tiber river and goes to the Church of Saint Anselm on the Aventine hill where he joins the Benedictine friars and other religious for a moment of prayer. Afterwards, the Holy Father and his entourage of cardinals and bishops proceed just down the street to the basilica of Saint Sabina to celebrate mass and for the blessing and imposition of ashes on the faithful.

The Basilica of Santa Sabina as it’s known here is nestled amidst orange groves and gardens hidden behind old stone walls. It is one of the oldest churches in Rome, dating as far back as about the year 422. Santa Sabina became one of the so-called station churches where Rome’s early Christian community would gather for processions and liturgies in Lent and other periods holy to the Christian calendar.

The priory of the Dominican order is attached to Santa Sabina and most of the friars and religious there participate in the Ash Wednesday services with the Pope. Tracey McClure popped in and asked the order’s procurator general, Fr. Robert Ombres, to accompany her to the basilica for a peek inside... 

Father Robert Barron on the Purpose of Lent

One of our favorite modern evangelists, Father Robert Barron, with a very succinct reflection on the purpose of Lent.

From the Pastor - 'The Privilege of Lent'

A weekly column by Father George Rutler

The privilege of Lent provides an opportunity to adjust a little more to the glory of God. On Ash Wednesday we link with the man who asked Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?" (Mark 10:17). The splendor of heaven is offered to all, but it is not granted to all without a true longing for it.  That desire begins with recognition of the brevity of life on earth and cooperation with God’s grace.

The harmony of history is an indication that God wants His yoke of obedience to be easy and its burden light (cf. Matthew 11:30).  If it becomes difficult and heavy, the conspiring agent is pride. The forty days of Lent belong to the elegant symmetry by which God shows His graciousness: for forty days Moses was on the mount to receive the Law, and again after the sin of the Golden Calf; Elijah was on Horeb; Jonah was with the Ninevites; Ezekiel lay on his side in penance; Jesus was with Satan in the wilderness, and spent the same length of days teaching His disciples after He rose from the dead.

On Wednesday, the imposition of ashes is a primal declaration of mortality.  The death of anyone who truly desires to be part of God’s plan telescopes the forty days into Ash Wednesday and Easter. That became clear once again this past week with the death of one of our rectory family, Argentina Rivera.  She had come to this country from Guayaquil in Ecuador and reared a family here, including her devoted daughter, Janet, who also assisted in our rectory and now serves the Archdiocese.  Argentina was well enough to rejoice in Janet’s beautiful wedding.  For many years Argentina helped our parish in countless ways, keeping the rectory in order, recording accounts, and lovingly taking care of the sacred vestments and altar linens.  For her this was a work of love and not a burden.  She made our rectory laundry room into a small shrine with images of many saints who had worked for the Lord.  At the vigil on the night before her funeral, a large number of family and friends sang beautiful Spanish hymns.  Her needlework was masterful, and every time my cassock loses a button I shall remember how much Argentina was like the disciple who died in Joppa: “The grieving widows who were her friends showed St. Peter ‘coats and garments which Dorcas made while she was with them’ ” (Acts 9:39).

May these quickly passing forty days make us worthy of the love of our friends here and the love of God above.  As the friends of Argentina sang, “Que los Ángeles en coro te reciban / En la ciudad santa de Jerusalén . . . May the choirs of angels receive you in the holy city of Jerusalem.”

Father George W. Rutler is the pastor of the Church of our Saviour in New York City. His latest book, Cloud of Witnesses: Dead People I Knew When They Were Alive, is available from Crossroads Publishing.

Message of His Holiness Benedict XVI for Lent 2011

"You were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him." (cf. Col 2: 12) 

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The Lenten period, which leads us to the celebration of Holy Easter, is for the Church a most valuable and important liturgical time, in view of which I am pleased to offer a specific word in order that it may be lived with due diligence. As she awaits the definitive encounter with her Spouse in the eternal Easter, the Church community, assiduous in prayer and charitable works, intensifies her journey in purifying the spirit, so as to draw more abundantly from the Mystery of Redemption the new life in Christ the Lord (cf. Preface I of Lent).

1. This very life was already bestowed upon us on the day of our Baptism, when we "become sharers in Christ’s death and Resurrection", and there began for us "the joyful and exulting adventure of his disciples" (Homily on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, 10 January, 2010). In his Letters, St. Paul repeatedly insists on the singular communion with the Son of God that this washing brings about. The fact that, in most cases, Baptism is received in infancy highlights how it is a gift of God: no one earns eternal life through their own efforts. The mercy of God, which cancels sin and, at the same time, allows us to experience in our lives "the mind of Christ Jesus" (Phil 2: 5), is given to men and women freely.The Apostle to the Gentiles, in the Letter to the Philippians, expresses the meaning of the transformation that takes place through participation in the death and resurrection of Christ, pointing to its goal: that "I may come to know him and the power of his resurrection, and partake of his sufferings by being molded to the pattern of his death, striving towards the goal of resurrection from the dead" (Phil 3: 10-11). Hence, Baptism is not a rite from the past, but the encounter with Christ, which informs the entire existence of the baptized, imparting divine life and calling for sincere conversion; initiated and supported by Grace, it permits the baptized to reach the adult stature of Christ.

A particular connection binds Baptism to Lent as the favorable time to experience this saving Grace. The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council exhorted all of the Church’s Pastors to make greater use "of the baptismal features proper to the Lenten liturgy" (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum concilium, n. 109). In fact, the Church has always associated the Easter Vigil with the celebration of Baptism: this Sacrament realizes the great mystery in which man dies to sin, is made a sharer in the new life of the Risen Christ and receives the same Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead (cf. Rm 8: 11). This free gift must always be rekindled in each one of us, and Lent offers us a path like that of the catechumenate, which, for the Christians of the early Church, just as for catechumens today, is an irreplaceable school of faith and Christian life. Truly, they live their Baptism as an act that shapes their entire existence.