I write this column as the last one before I retire as Pastor of St. Mary’s. As I said to Bishop Caggiano at Confirmation last Sunday, I have been privileged and blessed to be the Pastor of St. Mary’s for these past three years and two months. This is has been one of the most…
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Growth and Restoration
I am starting an article for publication that will be titled “Organic Development of the Traditional Roman Rite—as we speak.” I want to share with our parishioners who love the Liturgy only briefly why I think it possible and salutary that the Traditional Roman Mass should continue to grow organically. For some it will seem…
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Corpus Christi
The most beautiful thing now in Saint Mary’s Church is the Rood and the Rood Beam. The restoration of the Rood was something that I wanted to do as soon as I became pastor. When the renovation of seven years ago began, I suggested to Fr. Markey that we put in a rood beam. This…
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Trinity Sunday
The Easter Cycle feasts of the Church are all glorious in their very own way. We celebrated the feast of Pentecost last weekend: the empowerment of the Church by the descent of the Holy Spirit on Mary and the Apostles in the Upper Room. And it is that same Spirit who empowers the Church to…
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Pentecost Sunday
Our Bible Study group this year studied Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans. When we finished this study of this truly seminal text, we decided to read the first 9 chapters of The Confessions of Saint Augustine. I suggested this because this book has meant so much to me personally, and also because I taught…
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A May Potpourri
May is Mary’s month, and we shall have the traditional Crowning of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Solemn Mass today, which also happens to be the secular observation of Mother’s Day. A good fit of sacred and secular. That this lovely tradition survived the post-Vatican II “cleansing” is a minor miracle and shows the…
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First Holy Communions
Last weekend 21 young boys and girls made their First Holy Communion. This weekend at the 11:30 Mass 11 more of our young people will receive the Body of Christ for the first time. This is an important day in the life of these children. To receive our Lord, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity into…
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Fourth Sunday after Easter
We think of ourselves as members of Saint Mary’s parish church, and we love our parish that is so unique in so many ways. But as I have said many times, we are also all members of the larger family that is the Diocese, and that Bishop Frank Caggiano is our Father in God and…
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The Beauty of Thy Peace
One of the recent “movements” is the Slow Food Movement. This began as a protest against “fast food”. This protest is not merely against fast food on culinary grounds but also against the whole notion of eating on the run, eating fast. Slow Food takes food seriously and in a sense religiously, recalling, at least…
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St. Leo the Great
I write this on the feast of St. Leo the Great, Pope and Confessor. Only two popes carry the designation “Great”: St. Leo and St. Gregory. They were bishops of Rome during a most trying time in the history of the West, when the Roman Empire was falling apart and the barbarian invasions were beginning…
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