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May 9, 2025“Annutio vobis Gaudium magnum! Habemus Papem!” “I announce to you a great joy! We have a Pope!” With these words the world was first introduced to our new Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV. Our pope’s first homily today was very good indeed. It reminded me of a blend between John Paul II and Benedict XVI. I love its pure Christocentrism, its clear message without ambiguity or vagueness..Read More
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May 2, 2025As we transition from Lent and Easter into the upcoming liturgical seasons, I’d like to address some important “Ordinariate Etiquette” reminders to enhance our worship and community life at St. Mary the Virgin. These points, raised since my last housekeeping note, are simple but vital for our shared reverence and safety.Read More
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April 25, 2025Our Liturgical celebration for today, Divine Mercy Sunday, reflects the devotional elements of Divine Mercy—We no longer look for Jesus among the dead, for He is alive and has become the Lord of Life. In a series of revelations to St. Maria Faustina Kowalska in the 1930s, our Lord called for a special feast day to be celebrated on the Sunday after Easter. In obedience to her spiritual director, Saint Faustina Kowalska wrote a diary of about 600 pages recording the revelations she received about God’s mercy. Even before her death in 1938,the devotion to The “Divine Mercy” had begun to spread.Read More
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April 11, 2025Please see your bulletin for all the Holy Week Dates, Times and Events. HAPPY EASTER!!Read More
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April 4, 2025Our Church (like every other Catholic Church in the world) looks different today. All the Shrines and the figures on our Rood Screen are veiled in Purple cloth. Why is this? Catholics veil statues, crucifixes, and other sacred images, particularly during the final two weeks of Lent (beginning on the Fifth Sunday of Lent, or “Passion Sunday”), as part of an ancient liturgical tradition. This practice, known as “Passiontide veiling,” carries both symbolic and spiritual significance.Read More
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March 28, 2025Why is today, the Fourth Sunday of Lent, called “Laetare” Sunday? The name comes from the first words of the Entrance Antiphon for Mass, “Laetare Jerusalem” — “Rejoice, O Jerusalem”. The fourth Sunday marks the half-way point of the Lenten season, even though the Thursday before Laetare Sunday is the actual middle day of Lent.Read More
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March 21, 2025Lenten fasting is a cornerstone of Lent and rediscovering traditional Catholic fasting for Lent is making a comeback. The Lenten Fast began under the Apostles themselves and was practiced in various forms. St. Augustine in the fourth century remarked, “Our fast at any other time is voluntary; but during Lent, we sin if we do not fast.” At the time of St. Gregory the Great at the beginning of the 7th century, the fast was universally established to begin on what we know as Ash Wednesday. While the name “Ash Wednesday” was not given to the day until Pope Urban II in 1099, the day was known as the “Beginning of the Fast.”Read More
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March 14, 2025In the Gospel account of the Transfiguration which is read today, the 2nd Sunday in Lent, Jesus takes three of his closet companions with Him up the mountain. The outcome is miraculous. Their Savior is speaking with the representatives of the entire faith of Israel - Moses and Elijah. Moses was believed to have single handedly written the Law; Elijah represented all the Prophets. His disciples must have remembered Jesus saying that he came not to abolish the Law and the Prophets but to fulfill. Peter experienced this moment with great awe.Read More
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March 7, 2025Ready or not, welcome to Lent! On Friday nights in Lent, the Catholic Church of St. Mary the Virgin, like the vast majority of Catholic Church’s all over the world, will walk the Stations of the Cross, beginning at 6:00 PM, ending with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, and followed by a meatless meal at @ 6:45 PM. (There is a sign up sheet about these meatless meals in the Narthex by the Baby Bottle display.) We will have our usual Exposition and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament on Fridays in Lent. Confessions during Lent are heard from 4:00 - 4:55PM (as per usual) and then, after the closing prayers and transfer of the Sacrament from the Monstrance at 5:00PM, Confessions will also be heard from 5:10PM - 5:55PM before Stations and Benediction.Read More
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February 28, 2025With today being “Quinquagesima” (one of my most favorite of ecclesiastical words to say!) Sunday, it’s time to look to Ash Wednesday this week, followed by our Friday Night Stations of the Cross and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.Read More
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February 21, 2025Today is the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter. It is the Patronal Festival for the North American Ordinariate. It takes the place of the usual Septuagesima Sunday for Ordinariate Parishes. An Ordinariate patronal feast day refers to the special feast day celebrated by a particular “Ordinariate” within the Catholic Church, usually commemorating the saint or title associated with that specific jurisdiction, which in the case of the “Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter” in the United States and Canada.Read More
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February 14, 2025With the Feast of Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary (aka Candlemas) last Sunday, Christmas has definitively come to an end, and we have sung our last “Alleluia" until Easter. You can see their “burial” spot off to the side of the patio as you enter the Church. The grocery stores now remind us that (the secular/pagan versions of) St. Valentine’s and St. Patrick’s Day are upon us. By the time St. Patrick’s Day comes around this year, the Catholic Church will be well into Lent. Then, in turn, the wonderful season of Easter with its feasting and joy in the Resurrection of Our Lord will be upon us. It is a busy four months, but thankfully, the Church, in her wisdom, has given us a pause these next three weeks — before Lent, we enter into Gesimatide.Read More
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February 7, 2025Two or three times a year, I like to use this column as a vehicle for ‘Housekeeping” issues. These are mundane issues in some ways, but important for us to pay attention to. I like to refer to these as some “Ordinariate Etiquette” examples for us to implement. Each of these has been brought to my attention (since my last article about this) in one way or another, and I thought this letter on the last Sunday of Epiphany would be the most appropriate way to address all them before we move into the busy liturgical seasons of Lent and Easter.Read More
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February 2, 2025If you are on the Parish “email list’ you will have received an email last week about today’s celebration of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple/The Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary/Candlemas. This feast celebrates the ceremony of purification of Our Lady on the fortieth day after the birth of our Lord, and of the presentation of offering of our Lord to the Eternal Father in the Temple, as also prescribed in the Law of Moses for first-born male children.Read More
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January 25, 2025Last week I wrote that a good way to use these few weeks of "Epiphanytide" is by doing some Spiritual Reading, Well, putting my money where my mouth is, I have been reading (or re-reading) some of the great books by Msgr. Ronald Arbuthnott (I love that middle name) Knox.Read More
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January 23, 2025Sunday, February 2nd: Feast of the Presentation of the Lord. Also known as Candlemas, this feast commemorates three distinct but related historical events in the life on the Holy Family. It marks the day when Mary and Joseph brought baby Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem, exactly 40 days after his birth. the Mosaic Law required them to consecrate their firstborn son to God (Exodus 13). Additionally, the law required Mary to submit to ritual purification forty days after childbirth (Leviticus 12:2-8).Read More -
January 17, 2025“The Epiphany season, also known as Epiphanytide or the time of Sundays after Epiphany is a liturgical period, celebrated by many Christian Churches which immediately follows the Christmas Season. It begins on the Epiphany and ends at various points (such as Candlemas, which will be covered in a future letter) as defined by those denominations. The typical liturgical color or the day of Epiphany is white, and the typical color for Epiphany season is green.Read More
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January 11, 2025It has been my great honor to teach the RCIA (now OCIA, but I am having a hard time getting used to that!) classes here at St. Mary the Virgin. Because we are a small parish, our group might be more aptly named “Seekers Classes” because people come seeking different things. Some are unbaptized adults, seeking baptism and confirmation, becoming part of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. Some are baptized Catholics who have left the Church before receiving all their sacraments and are looking for First Communion and/or Confirmation. And some are Catholics who received their sacraments, but left the Church to follow a different way, and are now coming back into the Church and want to relearn what they didn’t get in their initial religious education. And some have been faithful Catholics who just want to brush up on their faith.Read More -
January 3, 2025Most of you probably know much, but some (myself included) know very little about it. EPIPHANY comes from the Greek word epiphaneia meaning “manifestation” and being a Christian holiday commemorating the first manifestation of Jesus to the Gentiles, represented by the Magi, (most of us probably knew this but read on) and the manifestation of His divinity, as it occurred at his baptism in the Jordan river and at his first miracle, at Cana in Galilee.Read More -
December 25, 2024For centuries now, every twenty-five years the Church sets aside a graced time of Jubilee. These Jubilee Years are “a significant moment in the life of the Church in which she celebrates the year of messianic favor inaugurated by Christ through his Incarnation and Paschal Mystery” (cf. Lk 4:19, St. John Paul II, Tertio Millennio adveniente, nos. 11-16). The Year of our Lord 2025 is just such a Jubilee, and so it stands apart as a new opportunity to receive the Lord’s mercy, to give gratitude for his Holy Church.Read More
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