By tradition, the Catholic Church dedicates each month of the year to certain devotions. I often like to use my weekly letter to describe some of them. The month of October is dedicated to the Holy Rosary, one of the best known of all Catholic devotions. October includes the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary (October 7). the best way to celebrate the month is, of course, is to [pray the Rosary.
During this month of October we are able to celebrate the Feasts of two great female saints – St. Therese of Lisieux (on October 1st) and Teresa of Avila (on October 15th) of whom we have relics of both, or the two Teresa’s of SMV! (We are also blessed with a Shrine Altar to Saint Therese, a gift of the Oliver family) Because of these connections, I thought I’d share brief outlines of their lives, as inspirations for us today.
Let me sing praises to our Adult Choir. These dedicated people are parishioners (mostly) and give their time to celebrate and enhance the principal liturgies here at SMV.Our Youth Choir has 19 singers of various ages. It should be at least 30 strong. Nevertheless, it is probably the best sounding Youth Choir SMV has ever had. When I hear our congregation sing, I hear a lot more than average voices singing. The Adult Choir meets on Thursday evenings at 7:00 pm. The Youth Choir meets on Sundays immediately after the 10:30 Mass.Come sing with us.
Last Sunday, I used our Shrine of St. Thomas More as a homily illustration. Since we also have a Shrine to St. Therese the "Little Flower" at our church (a memorial from the Olivers) and her reelic, and also since her Feast Day was last Tuesday, I thought I would make her the subject of this week's article.