The Ecclesia Dei Commission on 18th January 2003, stated that it is possible to satisfy the precept of hearing Sunday Mass by assisting at a Mass celebrated by a priest of the Society of Saint Pius X.
Msgr. Camille Perl of Ecclesia Dei wrote in a letter to Una Voce America in 2003:
"...Points 1 and 3 in our letter of 27 September 2002 to this correspondent are accurately reported. His first question was "Can I fulfill my Sunday obligation by attending a Pius X Mass" and our response was: "1. In the strict sense you may fulfill your Sunday obligation by attending a Mass celebrated by a priest of the Society of St. Pius X." (Source: http://www.cfnews.org/sspx-obl.htm)
I would like to recommend this book which is especially appropriate for All Souls Day:
"If we, by our prayers and sacrifices, freed a soul from purgatory, we would then have another intercessor for us in heaven." - Venerable Solanus Casey
Every day we have another opportunity to pray for the holy souls in purgatory - author, speaker, and purgatory expert Susan Tassone gives you a unique tool to do just that. Day by Day for the Holy Souls includes prayers, teachings about purgatory, real-life stories, Susan's own wisdom, meditations, quotes from the saints, and more. You can use this book however you like - as a daily devotional, as a year round novena, to follow the liturgical seasons.
So, please above all vote for the candidates that are pro-life. Pro-life of course also means being anti-poverty and caring for the less fortunate in society but opposition to abortion should be our #1 concern. The Church teaches that it is a mortal sin to vote for a politician that supports abortion if there is a candidate running who is against abortion (read more)
According to the exit polls from the 2012 Presidential election, 51% of Catholics voted in favor of the pro-abortion, anti-Catholic Obama while 49% voted in favor of the pro-life candidate. Even more discouraging is the continued trend in which states that contain large number of Catholics - even the majority of the state’s population - have consistently voted for anti-Catholic Democrats (and anti-Catholic Republicans at times). Why is it that New England is a Democratic stronghold even though 36.6% of Connecticut’s population is Catholic? Why is 37.1% of New York is made up of Catholics when the state always elects abortion supporters?
Catholics - the country's largest religious group with one-quarter of the population - have supported the winner of the popular vote in every presidential election since 1972.
To see how your politicians have voted, please see the National Right to Life legislative scorecard. Democrats for Life also has a list of some pro-life candidates. Let us stand up for the right of every little unborn child; let us further the Kingdom of God. I advise all people to vote against the pro-abortion candidates NARAL has endorsed for Congress. Check out Priests for Life for a lot of endorsement information.
Press Release of SSPX-Italy
ALBANO, ITALY – 10-31-2013
In a notification dated October 14 of this year, Bishop Marcello Semeraro, Ordinary of the Diocese of Albano Laziale (Italy), made particularly odious statements about the Society of St. Pius X, for the purpose of keeping the faithful away from Masses celebrated by our Society and from the religious instruction given to young people, declaring that the Society was not “an institution of the Catholic Church”.
Bishop Semeraro cannot be unaware of the fact that the Society of St. Pius X was erected with the approval of the Bishop of Fribourg (Switzerland) on November 1, 1970, and that this establishment was ratified by Rome with a decree issued by Cardinal Wright, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy on February 18, 1971. [see the SSPX's founding documents]
The house itself of the Society in Albano, with its semi-public oratory for the administration of the sacraments, was canonically erected by the decree of Bishop Semeraro’s predecessor, Bishop Raffaele Macario on February 22, 1974 (Protocol n. 140/74).
Despite the problems with the ecclesiastical authorities that developed following the deviations in the Faith and the liturgy brought about by the Second Vatican Council, and notwithstanding the illegitimate attempts to suppress our Society because of its fidelity to the Tradition of the Church, the Holy See itself, through the Roman Ecclesia Dei Commission, affirmed that one can perform one’s Sunday duty “by attending a Mass celebrated by a priest of the Society of St. Pius X” (January 18, 2003) and, as everyone knows, it no longer considers the bishops of that same Society to be not in communion with the Catholic Church.
It is very odd that Bishop Semeraro should intervene in this way when he has made himself the champion of ecumenism in his diocese. In 2009 he granted the Church of San Francesco in Genzano, which was built with the labors and sacrifices of our ancestors for Catholic worship, to schismatics and heretics. On January 28 of this year he organized an ecumenical vigil in the cathedral to pray with persons who are certainly not “in communion with the Catholic Church”, such as an Evangelical Lutheran pastor and an Orthodox bishop.
In the month of November alone, three [ecumenical] meetings are scheduled in the diocese, and the bishop will preside at one of them, thus supporting religions that deny truths of the Faith that have been defined by the Church and spreading the false doctrine of indifferentism, which says that every religion is helpful for salvation. He does not seem to care that this openly contradicts the teaching of the perennial Magisterium of the Church, in particular of Pope Pius XI in his encyclical, Mortalium animos.
Moreover from March 26 to 28 of this year the house of the Somaschi Fathers in Albano hosted the First Forum of Christian Homosexuals, at which the practice of sodomy was defended in principle as an act of true love!
All this is possible in the diocese... but not attending the Masses or classes of those who hand down the Church’s Tradition in doctrine and the liturgy!
This blatant inconsistency is an obvious symptom of the terrible crisis that is affecting the whole Church and that was manifested again recently in the last Synod, in which, under the pretext of mercy, there was discussion of the possibility of changing the Sixth Commandment of God and of abandoning the indissolubility of Christian marriage!
The Society of St. Pius X, following the example of its founder, will continue to transmit in its entirety the deposit of the Catholic Faith and morals, openly taking sides against all the errors that try to distort it, without fear of threats or of unjust canonical sanctions, because neither Bishop Semeraro nor any other member of the ecclesiastical hierarchy will ever be able to change this deposit. As St. Peter said, “It is better to obey God rather than men.”
All who wish to receive the sacraments as the Church has always administered them, or to receive authentic catechetical instruction for their children, adult formation, spiritual direction and comfort for the sick will always be welcome in our chapels.
Society of St. Pius X, District of Italy
Today is the Eve of All Saints Day (i.e., Halloween), and tomorrow is the Feast of All Saints, a Holy Day of Obligation in many countries. So, please remember to attend Holy Mass tomorrow. Failure to attend Mass without a good reason is a mortal sin. Prepare for Halloween the Catholic Way.
Gregory III (731-741) consecrated a chapel in the Basilica of St. Peter to all the saints and fixed the anniversary for 1 November. A basilica of the Apostles already existed in Rome, and its dedication was annually remembered on 1 May. Gregory IV (827-844) extended the celebration on 1 November to the entire Church. The vigil seems to have been held as early as the feast itself. The octave was added by Sixtus IV (1471-84).
Its observance as a fast day is ancient, as the Catholic Encyclopedia states: "Pope Nicholas I (d. 867), in his answer to the Bulgarians, speaks of the fast on the eves of Christmas and of the Assumption...The Synod of Seligenstadt in 1022 AD mentions vigils on the eves of Christmas, Epiphany, the feast of the Apostles, the Assumption of Mary, St. Laurence, and All Saints, besides the fast of two weeks before the Nativity of St. John."
This day of fasting would remain for centuries. Fasting and abstinence, along with Holy Days of Obligation, were, in practice, highly varied depending on each nation and territory. We see this liturgical diversity in the various colonies. For instance, Catholics in the colonies in Florida and Louisiana observed these fasting days:
“The fasting days were all days in Lent; the Ember days; the eves of Christmas, Candlemas, Annunciation, Assumption, All Saints, the feasts of the Apostles except St Philip and St James and St John, and the Nativity of St John the Baptist; all Fridays except within twelve days of Christmas and between Easter and Ascension, and the eve of Ascension.”
“…all days in Lent except Sunday; eves of Christmas, Whit Sunday, St Mathias, St John the Baptist, St Peter and St Paul, St James, St Lawrence, Assumption, St Bartholomew, St Matthew, St Simon and St Jude, All Saints, St Andrew, and St Thomas.”
“In the United States of America all the days of Lent; the Fridays of Advent (generally); the Ember Days; the vigils of Christmas and Pentecost, as well as those (14 Aug.) of the Assumption; (31 Oct.) of All Saints, are now fasting days. In Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, and Canada, the days just indicated, together with the Wednesdays of Advent and (28 June) the vigil of Saints Peter and Paul, are fasting days.”
“In 1951 the U.S. bishops standardized regulations calling for complete abstinence from meat on Fridays, Ash Wednesday, the vigils of Assumption and Christmas, and Holy Saturday morning for everyone over age seven. On the vigils of Pentecost and All Saints, meat could be taken at just one meal. Fast days, applying to everyone between 21 and 59, were the weekdays of Lent, Ember days, and the vigils of Pentecost, Assumption, All Saints, and Christmas. On these fast days only one full meal was allowed, with two other meatless meals permitted which together did not make up one full meal. Eating between meals was not permitted, with milk and fruit juice permitted. Health or ability to work exempted one.”
Wolfgang (d. 994) + Bishop and reformer. Born in Swabia, Germany, he studied at Reichenau under the Benedictines and at Wurzburg before serving as a teacher in the cathedral school of Trier. He soon entered the Benedictines at Einsiedeln (964) and was appointed head of the monastery school, receiving ordination in 971. He then set out with a group of monks to preach among the Magyars of Hungary, but the following year (972) was named bishop of Regensburg by Emperor Otto II (r. 973-983). As bishop, he distinguished himself brilliantly for his reforming zeal and his skills as a statesman. He brought the clergy of the diocese into his reforms, restored monasteries, promoted education, preached enthusiastically, and was renowned for his charity and aid to the poor, receiving the title Eleemosynarius Major (Grand Almoner). He also served as tutor to Emperor Henry II (r. 1014-1024) while he was still king. Wolfgang died at Puppingen near Linz, Austria. He was canonized in 1052 by Pope St. Leo IX (r. 1049-1054). Feast day: October 31.
Find out about a new traditional religious community, the Dominican Friars of Steffeshausen, Belgium, and see how you can help them... or even join the Third Order of St. Dominic.
A video has just been published about a new foundation of traditional Dominican friars in Belgium and the Third Order that they are offering to the faithful.
This new community of traditional Dominican friars was founded on November 15, 2013, in Steffeshausen, a little village in the southeast corner of Belgium. They were invited there by the villagers after the death of their parish priest, who had kept the traditional Mass and was persecuted by his bishop some 25 years ago. They offered the church and rectory built by this priest to these friars as a first home for their fledgling community. Bishop Alfonso de Galarreta, who assists those religious communities affiliated with the SSPX, accepted to help the foundation as its ecclesiastical superior.
The goal of the community is simply to continue the true spirit of St. Dominic as it has been embodied for eight centuries, an ideal summed up perfectly by St. Thomas Aquinas in a few words in his Summa Theologica which have become a sort of motto of the Order: "To contemplate and give to others what has been contemplated."
Thus a Dominican must be first and above all a true contemplative, and in order to achieve this end the Constitutions prescribe all of the monastic practices followed by contemplative orders: the Divine Office in common, silence, fasting, chapter of faults, etc. Of course, this includes the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience common to all religious.
On top of this, however, Dominicans add the obligation of study, in order to be able to attain the secondary end of the Order: the preaching of the Word of God, to “give to others what has been contemplated.”
Since November the friars at Steffeshausen have been living this life of contemplation and preaching. There are at present four priests and one lay brother, three of whom are French and two Canadian. Some young men have already presented themselves to ask to join them and they plan to begin to receive postulants in the fall of 2015.
The Dominicans belong to an Order of mendicant preachers. It is by alms that they are able to lead their life of prayer and study that will permit them to prepare their apostolate.
Source: E-Pistola of 10/24/14
1955 Calendar (Simple): October 25
Chrysanthus was the only son of an Egyptian patrician, named Polemius or Poleon, who lived during the reign of Numerian. His father moved from Alexandria to Rome. Chrysanthus was educated in the finest manner of the era. Disenchanted with the excess in the Roman world, he began reading the Acts of the Apostles.
He was then baptized and educated in Christianity by a priest named Carpophorus. His father was unhappy with Chrysanthus's conversion and attempted to inculcate secular ways into his son by tempting him with prostitutes, but Chrysanthus retained his virginity.
He objected when his father arranged a marriage to Daria, a Roman Vestal Virgin. Chrysanthus converted his new bride and convinced her to live with him in a chaste state. Vestal Virgins took a vow of chastity during their thirty-year term of service.
They went on to convert a number of Romans. When this was made known to Claudius, the tribune, Chrysanthus was arrested and tortured. Chrysanthus's faith and fortitude under torture were so impressive to Claudius that he and his wife, Hilaria, two sons named Maurus and Jason, and seventy of his soldiers became Christians.
For this the emperor had Claudius drowned, his sons beheaded and his wife went to the gallows. The legend states that Daria was sent to live as a prostitute, but her chastity was defended by a lioness. She was brought before Numerian and ordered to be executed.
There are many variations to this legend. Some claim that she was subjected to execution by stoning, others say she was beheaded and yet others claim she was buried alive in a deep pit beside her husband. They were entombed in a sand pit near the Via Salaria Nova, the catacombs in Rome.
The Acts of Chrysanthus and Daria state that on the anniversary of their deaths, a large number of Christians had gathered at their underground crypt to pay their respects when Roman persecutors surprised them, filled the crypt with stones and buried them all alive, including Diodorus, a priest, and Marianus, a deacon.
Prayer:
May the prayers of Your blessed martyrs Chrysanthus and Daria be with us, O Lord, so that we who devoutly honor them may always experience their kind assistance. Through our Lord . . .
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