Our Lady of Hope Blog

My Dear Friends,

After two weeks of an exclusive Jesus, we return to a more inclusive Jesus in today’s gospel. He teaches that when you hold a banquet you should invite the poor, the lame, the crippled and the blind. The Holy Mass is such a banquet. Jesus invites the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind to come to the wedding feast of the Lamb. In other words, Jesus is inviting those who are sinners to the wedding banquet. No one is ever excluded from the celebration of Mass.

My Dear Friends,

Today’s gospel talks about salvation. How many will be saved? Jesus’ response says that only a few will enter through the narrow gate. What is the narrow gate? It is the sacrificial love that comes from the heart in following Jesus and his commandments. Wide is the path of destruction, for it comes when we live selfishly and seek a life of pleasure. The most damning aspect of the gospel is that Jesus closes the door and says to those outside that he does not know us.

My Dear Friends,

August has two of the most beautiful feast days in honor of our Blessed Mother; the Assumption and the Queenship of Mary. Besides these two important feast days, the Catholic Church calendar in August also celebrates the Dedication of the Basilica of Mary Major on August 5th. We also have memorials of seven saints that have a strong devotion to the Blessed Mother, beginning with St. Alphonsus Liguori (August 1st), St. Peter Julian Eymard (August 2nd), St. John Mary Vianney (August 4th), St. Dominic (August 8th), St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe (August 14th), St. John Eudes (August 19th), and St. Bernard (August 20th).

My Dear Friends,

A ciborium is the vessel that holds the Hosts that will be consecrated at Mass as well as holding them in the tabernacle when there are extra Hosts. When I first arrived at Our Lady of Hope in January 2022, Father Ruminski had shared with me that he had some parishioners donate to have two of the ciboria (plural) at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church refurbished. The ciboria look beautiful and worthy of holding the Precious Hosts for Holy Communion.

My Dear Friends,

Tomorrow we celebrate the feast day of St. John Vianney, the Cure of Ars. St. John Vianney is the patron saint of parish priests. When his neighboring priests of the diocese became jealous of him, they passed around a petition accusing St. John Vianney of many things and asked people to sign it so that they could send it to the bishop and have St. John Vianney removed from the parish in Ars. Somehow the petition arrived at Ars, and when St. John Vianney saw it, he immediately signed the letter.

My Dear Friends,

Yesterday, Sat, Jul 26, we celebrated the memorial of Sts. Joachim and Anne, the parents of the Blessed Mother. It was St. Anne that conceived Mary immaculately in her womb. It is a great privilege for St. Anne to be the one who conceived our Blessed Mother, for it is Mary that brought forth our salvation in Jesus Christ. St. Anne is a very powerful saint for that very reason, and many call upon her intercession and are granted an answer to her prayers.

My Dear Friends,

St. Luke shares with us this little scene about Martha and Mary. These are the sisters of Lazarus, who we meet in the Gospel of St. John. In this little scene in St. Luke’s Gospel, we see the same dynamic as St. John; Martha is anxious and Mary has chosen the better part. Martha speaks to our Lord in a manner that many of us could relate to; Martha tells Jesus what to do. How many times do we go to the Lord and tell him what we want and what he needs to do?

My Dear Friends,

Today we hear the parable of the Good Samaritan. Before we condemn the priest and the Levite for avoiding taking care of the victim, we must first understand the law of Moses. Touching a dead body would make you unclean, and the person is unclean would have to go through several steps of ritual purity to make himself clean once again. Since priests and Levites provided a role in the community for the Jews, they would want to avoid a body in such a state, not knowing of the body was dead or alive in order not to have to go through the purity laws.

My Dear Friends,

July is upon us. I love July, except for the heat. There are many wonderful feast days in July on the Roman calendar. St. Thomas the Apostle (July 3rd), St. Benedict (July 11th), St. Kateri Tekakwitha (July14th), St. Bonaventure (July 15th), Our Lady of Mount Carmel (July 16th, and the Mount Carmel festival at the Mount Carmel Church in Town Plot section of Waterbury), St. Mary Magdalene (July 22nd), St. James the Apostle (July 25th), St. Joachim and St. Anne (July 26th), St. Martha, now with St. Mary and St. Lazarus (July 29th), and St. Ignatius of Loyola (July 31st).

My Dear Friends,

This past Friday, June 27th, we celebrated the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This solemnity is always the Friday after the Corpus Christi (the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ), which is always after the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. These days are all united in some way that focuses on the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, our Lord Jesus Christ. I did write some bulletin articles on Pope Francis’s encyclical on the Sacred Heart.

My Dear Friends,

Today is the great feast day commonly called Corpus Christi, the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Not only do we receive our Lord’s Body and Blood, but we also receive his Soul and Divinity. The word concomitant is used in our theology to explain that since we receive our Lord’s Soul and Divinity we also receive the Divinity of the Father and the Holy Spirit. We participate in the life of the Trinity when we are baptized, but as we are nourished with the Holy Eucharist in Holy Communion, we also participate in the life of the Trinity every time we receive Holy Communion. The Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist is a central article of our Catholic faith and a great mystery.

My Dear Friends,

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. It is the greatest of all mysteries in our faith precisely because it is the life of God himself, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. All other mysteries flow from this mystery. God existed for all time because he exists outside of time. Indeed, he created time when he created the heavens and the earth, the sun and the moon and all living creatures. God did not need to create; he chose to create because of love.

My Dear Friends,

Today we celebrate the great feast day of Pentecost, the commemoration of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and the beginning of the Church. During the Easter season we focus, of course, on the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ. It is true that Jesus speaks of the Spirit throughout the Easter season in our Scriptures, but it is only today that we have a specific day in our liturgical calendar devoted to the third Person of the Most Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit.

My Dear Friends,

In our Catholic faith, certain months are devoted to certain saints or to our Lord. March is for St. Joseph. May is for our Blessed Mother. October is for the Rosary. January is for the Holy Family. September is for the Archangels. The month of June is devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Sacred Heart is a beautiful devotion in order to foster a love for our Lord’s heart and his love and for reparation for our own sins as we call upon our Lord’s heart for mercy.