St Jean-Marie Vianney . . .

Benediction with the monstrance used by St Jean Vianney

Dear Jesus, we thank you for the joy and happiness

brought to us by the Most Holy Eucharist.

Come and slake our thirst, satisfy our hunger.

Deepen our desire to receive you in this Sacrament of your Love,

so that we might become one with you for ever.

Amen.

Today we keep the memorial of St Jean-Marie Vianney. He was born near Lyons in 1786 and from an early age wanted to become a priest.

After his ordination in 1815 he was sent to the village of Ars and was Parish Priest there for forty years.

He was most noted for his great love and devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. As a Spiritual Director he attracted big numbers and spent many hours in the confessional.

He was canonised in 1925 by Pope Pius XI and declared Patron of Parish Priests.

St Jean Vianney's confessional.

Lord God, we thank you for the beauty and grace
of the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
Give us deeper faith in the power of this sacrament
to purify and renew our soul,
and grant us greater confidence in your boundless mercy.
Amen.

Why do we venerate relics? . . .

Somebody asked me to write a few words about relics . . .

What do we express when we venerate relics?

When we venerate the relics of the Saints we profess our belief in several doctrines of our Catholic faith;

1. The belief in eternal life for those who have faithfully witnessed to Christ and the Gospel.

2. The truth in the resurrection of the body for all on the last day.

3. The belief in the intercession of the Saints in heaven because of their intimate relationship with Christ.

4. The doctrine of the beauty of the human body and the respect which all should show to the bodies of the living and the dead.

5. The truth of our closeness to the Saints because of our connection with the Community of Saints.

Happy Feast Day . . .

Tomorrow is the Feast of Sts Joachim and Anne, parents of Our Lady, and of course our parish feast day.

As it falls on a Sunday this year, we won't be celebrating the feast at Mass.

Very little is actually known about the parents of Our Lady and most of the stories we hear come from legend and tradition. What is important is that the parents of Mary provided such a good model for her and as such can be a very good model for all parents. If you'd like to read a little more about St Joachim and St Anne, please follow the link here.

We can still celebrate the feast day in our own way and what better way than to ask St Ann to intercede for us.

Good St. Anne,

you were especially favoured by God

to be the mother of the most holy Virgin Mary,

the Mother of our Saviour.

By your power with your most pure daughter

and with her divine Son,

kindly obtain for us the grace and the favour we now seek.

Please secure for us also forgiveness of our past sins,

the strength to perform faithfully our daily duties

and the help we need to persevere in the love of Jesus and Mary.

Amen

Saint Joseph the Worker

The Memorial of St Joseph the Worker has been celebrated in the Church since 1955. Today the Church, inspired by St Joseph's example and under his fatherly care commemorates in a particular way the human and supernatural value of work.

In the Gospel of today's Mass we see again how Jesus is 'identified' in Nazareth by his occupation; 'Is he not the carpenter's son? Is not his mother Mary?' In another place we are told that Jesus practised the same trade as St Joseph, therefore it is reasonable to conclude that man's work by being taken up by God's only Son, has been sanctified, and can be something redemptive, through being united to Christ who Redeemed the World.

Today we meditate with St Joseph's help on the many aspects of love, esteem and gratitude for our job.

St Joseph the Worker, pray for us and bless our work.

Christ's Passion . . .

In the remaining days of Lent we come ever closer to the fundamental mystery of our faith, namely the Resurrection of the Lord. During these days we should take time to accompany Jesus in our prayers, along his painful road to Calvary culminating in his Crucifixion and death. We should not forget, as we walk with him, that we too were part of the 'crowd' in all those horrors for, 'He was bearing our faults in his own body on the Cross.' (1 Peter 2: 24)

This custom of meditating on our Lord's Passion began in the early days of Christianity. the Evangelists have dedicated a great part of their writings to it and have given vivid accounts of the events.

St Thomas Aquinas wrote that 'The Passion of Christ is enough to serve as a guide and model throughout our lives.' St Thomas - About the Church. Once, when St Thomas visited St Bonaventure, he asked how he had gained such sound doctrine as the one he had set out in his works. St Bonaventure showed him a crucifix, which was blackened with the kisses he had given it, and explaining said, 'This is the book that tells me what I should write; the little I know I have learned from it.' (St Alphonsus Liguori, Meditations on Christ's Passion). Looking at the crucifix the saints learned how to suffer and truly love our Lord.

The Passion of our Lord should be a regular theme in our daily prayer and we should always carry a crucifix on our person. St Josemaria writing in 'The Way' said, 'As a Christian, you should always carry a crucifix with you. And place it on your desk. And kiss it before going to bed and when you wake up; and when your poor body rebels against your soul, kiss it again.'

By meditating on our Lord's Passion we will receive many rewards; firstly, it will help us to detest all sin, since 'He was wounded for our sins.' (Isaiah 53:5); secondly, we will grow in love for our Lord; and thirdly, it is in our Lord's suffering that we find proof of His immense love for us.

Let us ask Our Lady of Sorrows to draw us ever closer to her Son and to show us how to meditate on His sufferings which won for us our salvation.

Our Lady of Sorrows,

pray for us.

Laborare est orare ..

Even a humble priest has to get out there with his shovel and clear a pathway.

Despite the snow a few courageous souls managed to make it to Mass on Monday and Tuesday. Today we celebrated the optional Memorial of St Blaise and we followed tradition with the blessing of throats at the end of Mass.

As there were only a few at Mass and they had made such an effort to get here, we all enjoyed a cup of coffee together afterwards to help them on their homeward journey.

Saint of the Day

I see that today is the feast day of St Peter Chanel. Not, as someone recently remarked, 'the patron Saint of exclusive perfumes' rather the protomartyr of the South Seas.

St Peter Chanel was born in 1803 at Clet in the diocese of Belley, France. He was set on missionary work and in 1831, he joined the newly formed Society of Mary (Marists). In 1836, St Peter was appointed Superior of a small group of missionaries sent to evangelise the inhabitants of the New Hebrides in the Pacific.

St Peter went to the Island of Futuna. He and his companions were at first well received by the pagans and their king who had only recently forbidden canabalism. Although they were intitially very succesful St Peter later came to arouse the anger of the King and three years after his arrival, he was clubbed to death by those he had come to save. Within a few months of his death the entire island was converted to Christianity.

The Church gives us saints to be models and an example for us all in our daily life; they were ordinary people like us, doing ordinary things in an extraordinary way, not that I'm suggesting we all rush off to a distant island where we might come to a rather nasty end!