August’s Message
Well, here we are in August beginning the last stretch of summer. I hope many of you have had vacation with family or friends or will be this month. And as we enjoy a more relaxed pace of life, I hope you’ll choose to spend more time in daily prayer, attend some weekday Masses as well as Sunday Mass, and receive the sacrament of Reconciliation. The liturgical calendar for August gives us many opportunities.
The obvious opportunities are First Friday, August 3rd , First Saturday, August 4th , and the solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary on August 15th. But there are many more. On August 6th , we celebrate the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord. Just seven days after Our Lady’s Assumption, we celebrate the memorial of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary on August 22nd . Not to mention, the three consecutive memorials on August 27, 28, and 29 of Saint Monica, Saint Augustine, and the Passion of Saint John the Baptist.
But if all these memorials, a feast, and a solemnity were not enough, the Church offers us a continuous proclamation of the sixth chapter of Saint John’s gospel – the Bread of Life discourse – over the four Sundays of August. I especially encourage you to enter deeply into these Sunday gospel readings. For in so doing, you and I will be doing our part to continue our participation in the National Eucharistic Revival. As the Introduction to the Sunday Lectionary reminds us, “Through the readings and the homily Christ’s Paschal Mystery is proclaimed; through the sacrifice of the Mass it becomes present. . . ‘so that they [the community of the faithful] may hold fast in their lives to what they have grasped by faith’ (Sacrosanctum Concillium, # 10).”
And last, but by no means least, on Tuesday, August 13th , the Church celebrates the memorial of Blessed Father Michael McGivney. Our OLF KofC council will have a Mass with installation of council officers at 7pm at OLF church. Kindly prepare for this Mass by joining brother knights and their families throughout the world in a novena for Blessed Father McGivney, beginning Monday, August 5th . The novena prayer for Blessed McGivney can be found on the Blessed McGivney website, https://www.fathermcgivney.org/en/index.html .
So, enjoy the rest of summer. Be safe, have fun! And when you attend Mass, please do with special intentions for your families, friends, your parish families, and fellow brother knights and their families. Blessed Father Michael McGivney, pray for us+
Father Jim
July’s Message
Dear Brother Knights and families,
Here we are in the long, warm days of summer. Many of us look forward to a 4th of July BBQ and vacation with family or friends. We appreciate and go to more outdoor events at the shore or in the mountains, enjoying more of our land’s natural beauty and summer’s more relaxed pace of life. And if you enjoy a really good hot dog from time to time as I do, now’s the time. July is national hot dog month!
July too invites us to devotion of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus. The origins of this devotion trace back to the early Church. While there is no longer a feast in the Roman Calendar for this mystery of our salvation since 1969, there is a votive Mass of the Most Precious Blood which can be offered, especially on a Friday, where the Church directs that any Mass can be offered. The Collect prayer of this votive Mass gives us good direction for our intentions as we pray this month.
“O God, who by the Precious Blood of your Only Begotten Son have redeemed the whole world, preserve in us the work of your mercy, so that ever honouring the mystery of our salvation, we may merit to obtain its fruits…”
Indeed, ‘preserve in us the work of your mercy’. Whether we reflect on the freedoms we enjoy here in the United States of America, especially on July 4th , or the most treasured gifts of our families and Catholic faith, let us take time to pray and consider how every day Jesus invites us to allow him to do works of mercy in us for us, and through us for others to heal wounds of sin and division, day by day restoring all to his peace.
So enjoy this July. Be safe, have fun! And when you’re away on vacation, do attend Mass with special intentions for your families, friends, and fellow parishioners.
Blessed Father Michael McGivney, pray for us
Father Jim
June’s Message
Dear Brother Knights and families,
June marks the month of the Church’s devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The origins of the devotion to the Sacred Heart can be traced back to the early Church, but it gained prominence through the visions and revelations received by Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, a French nun, in the 17th century. Saint Margaret Mary received messages from Jesus, urging devotion to His Sacred Heart as a means of reparation for sins and a source of grace and mercy. Especially from that time on, this devotion has only grown to include the entire Church. It was Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical letter Annum Sacrum of May 25, 1899, who directed bishops throughout the Church to consecrate the entire world to Christ’s most Sacred Heart, to promote the First Friday devotion, established June as the month of the Sacred Heart, and included the Prayer of Consecration to Sacred Heart.
Servant of God Chiara Lubich, foundress of the Focolare Movement, offers this meditation on Christ’s Sacred Heart.
“What the heart of the God-man desires ultimately cannot be understood. But this heart of flesh -which though transfigured, still beats in heaven – must surely be filled with ardor and tenderness, with hope and inexhaustible, never-ending love. . . The world of today with its discoveries and boundless aspirations, can no longer understand it. And yet, this heart is like a sun that shines on the whole world and on every human person. We must believe and trust in this heart, which will never delude us. It is a source of great hope for every human being; a lamp that shines even amidst the dark moments of life.”
And so, during this June, let us take time to participate in special devotions, such as the Litany of the Sacred Heart, attend Masses dedicated to the Sacred Heart, engage in acts of reparation, and acts of love and mercy. Friday, June 7th is the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and a First Friday. Do, if you can, attend Mass and participate in the First Friday devotion. Abundant graces! Let us do so with special intentions for family, friends, and our fellow parishioners. And throughout June, let us pray that many may respond to Christ’s call to the vocation he is calling them to embrace as well as for perseverance for those who have embraced their God given vocation. Together with them, let us allow Christ to build up his body, his spouse, the Church for the salvation of all the world.
Oh’ most Sacred Heart of Jesus, make our hearts like unto thine! Blessed Father Michael McGivney, pray for us.
Father Jim
Holy Week Message
Dear Brothers,
Blessings to you and your families as we continue together with our Lord Jesus this Holy Week to the glory of Easter Sunday.
Today is ‘Spy Wednesday’ of Holy Week, and the last day of Lent. In the gospel reading from Saint Matthew for Mass today, ‘Spy Wednesday’, Judas Iscariot goes to the Chief Priests and asks, ‘What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you? They paid him thirty pieces of silver, and from that time on he looked for an opportunity to hand him over.’ How could this be? How could one of Jesus’ twelve apostles come to the point of betraying the man he had come to know as the Messiah of God for thirty pieces of silver, the price of a slave?
As the gospels tells us, Judas did not just wake up that day and decide to betray Jesus. It came over time. Time during which little by little Judas stopped allowing himself to be loved, converted, and drawn to repentance, to be forgiven and reconciled with Jesus.
While you and I may not be anywhere as lost as Judas Iscariot, yet we all have our faults, failings, and bad habits that to a little or greater degree are sins that keep Jesus at a distance from us. I hope you, like me, have experienced during this Lent the love of Jesus in the sacrament of reconciliation, confession. Holy Monday was an extraordinary day of Jesus’ Divine Mercy. I with many brother priests throughout our diocese ministered the sacrament of reconciliation to a great number of you and our diocesan brothers and sisters. I literally heard confessions non-stop for over two and half hours! Glory be to Jesus!
Tomorrow, Holy Thursday, all of us together with the Church throughout the world enter into the Sacred Triduum. That is, the three days of Jesus’ passion, death, and glorious resurrection. If you have not been able or have been afraid to go to confession during Lent, do not worry. Jesus is still waiting for you, to heal you, and assure you of his love for you. Here at Our Lady of Fatima, Father Reggie and I will hear confessions on Good Friday from 11am to Noon. And if that doesn’t work, check out other parishes confession schedules. Many parishes will be hearing confessions today, ‘Spy Wednesday’, this afternoon or evening.
There really is no better way to let our Lord Jesus Christ draw each of us into His passion, death, and resurrection, and allow Him to convert our hearts, to express his love for us and our families than humbling ourselves through confessing and giving to Him our sins through His priest.
God bless you all + I look forward to worshiping our Lord with you Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday. Vivat Jesus! Jesus lives!
Father Jim DiVasto
Wilton Knights Of Columbus 