Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 14, 2024 Column Father De Celles
Brown Scapular. This Tuesday, July 16, is the feast of Our Lady of Mount
Carmel. With this in mind, we will be enrolling folks in the Confraternity and
investing them with the Brown Scapular after all Saturday and Sunday Masses
next weekend, July 20 and 21.
The Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel memorializes the apparition of the
Blessed Virgin Mary to St. Simon Stock, a Carmelite priest, and her gift to him of
the “Brown Scapular” on July 16, 1251. “Take, beloved son,” she said, “this
Scapular of your order as a badge of my confraternity and for you and all
Carmelites a special sign of grace; whoever dies in this garment, will not suffer
everlasting fire. It is the sign of salvation, a safeguard in dangers, a pledge of
peace and of the covenant.” The Carmelites immediately began to wear this
Scapular as part of their regular habit, and very soon many non-Carmelites also
began to wear it, usually in a smaller form of two small pieces of cloth bound by
two strings, worn around the neck, hanging down in front and back.
From the beginning it was understood that in order to participate in Our
Lady’s promises the wearer of the Scapular must be officially associated with the
Carmelite order. So the Carmelites established the “Confraternity of the Blessed
Virgin of Mount Carmel,” which any Catholic may be enrolled in through a short
ceremony conducted by a priest.
Even so, the Scapular is in no way a “a good luck charm.” As St. John
Paul II wrote, it is a sign that evokes “the awareness that devotion to her cannot
be limited to prayers and tributes in her honor on certain occasions, but must
become a ‘habit,’ that is, a permanent orientation of one’s own Christian conduct,
woven of prayer and interior life, through frequent reception of the sacraments
and the concrete practice of the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.”
Assist a Seminarian. Last August one of our outstanding young parishioners,
Mark Taylor, passed up his sophomore year at Christendom College to enter
The Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, a special order of priests
officially called a “a society of apostolic life.” The mission of the Institute is to
“spread the reign of Christ in all spheres of human life by drawing from the
millennial treasury of the Roman Catholic Church, particularly her liturgical
tradition, the unbroken line of spiritual thought and practice of her saints, and her
cultural patrimony in music, art and architecture.”
Mark was an Altar Server at St. Raymond’s for 10 years, often serving as
Master of Ceremonies for me, and serving for both the Ordinary and
Extraordinary Form. He had an outstanding Academic background at St. John
Paul the Great and Christendom, and was very active in parish life in general.
He spent all last year as a pre-seminary candidate in the Institute’s St.
Mary Oratory in Rockford, Illinois. He is now preparing to enter the Institute’s
international seminary near Florence, Italy, in August. But the Institute is very
young, and without many of the resources of the larger more established
religious orders. So they ask each seminarian to try to raise funds (at least
$10,000 annually) to assist in paying the cost of his education and formation.
If anyone would like to join me in contributing to help defray the cost of
his seminary formation, you can do so by sending a check made payable to the
parish, made out to “St. Raymond of Peñafort,” with “Mark Taylor” written on the
memo line. We will then gather the funds and send them to the Institute, making
sure Mark gets credit for them.
Patriotism. What does patriotism have to do with Catholicism?
Jesus tells us that the 2 greatest commandments are first, to love God
with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and second, to love your neighbor
as yourself. St. Thomas Aquinas explains that our first neighbor is our parents
(family), but after that our second neighbor, is our country, or our “patria” in Latin,
and our fellow countrymen.
So that the 2nd great commandment applies first to parents and family
and second to country and countryman. We see this specified, if you will, in the
4th commandment: “Honor your father and mother.” God gives you parents and
family to love and care for you, and in return calls you to love and care for
them—to “honor” them. And in the same way, God gives us our country and
fellow countrymen to love and care for us, and so we in turn must love and care
for our country and countrymen.
Of course, the people in other countries are also our neighbors. But it’s a
matter of priorities: it’s a simple rule, “charity begins at home.” So we should love
people in other countries, but first we should love, honor and care for our country
and our countrymen.
Note however, Patriotism isn’t the same as loving the government, but
rather honoring the government and its just laws to the extend it/they are at the
service of the people of the country.
Patriotism also involves participation in the life of our nation. This
includes everything from working diligently in school or at a job, to raising a good
and healthy family, to paying taxes, to participating in the public square and
voting.
Patriotism also means defending our country, not only in the military
(thanks!) but also simply speaking out publicly to promote what you believe is
genuinely good for our country.
And patriotism means truly striving for the good of each other through
just laws and a sound economic system that allow each of us to provide for our
own needs. But it also requires a safety net for those who truly cannot provide
for themselves.
Finally, it includes honoring the symbols our country.
Out of Town. The next few weeks I will be out of the parish quite a bit. This
coming week I’ll be in Indianapolis at the semi-annual Catholic Vote meeting (as
their chaplain), returning for Masses here next weekend. Then the next week I
will be off to Alaska for some vacation and fishing. Thanks to Fr. Bergida and Fr.
Horkan for filling in.
During the Catholic Vote meeting in Indianapolis we will take a day to
attend the National Eucharistic Congress in that city. I have watched the planning
of this Congress (a big convention) with a critical eye. Organized by the U.S.
Bishops, it’s aim is to renew faith in the Eucharist. But I’m concerned that it may
be too little too late, producing headlines and good feelings, but little lasting
change. To me things like persistent emphasis on greater reverence at Mass,
clearer preaching by parish priests, and protecting the Eucharist from the
sacrilegious reception of Communion, would be much more effective and
enduring.
Please join me this week in praying for an increase in Eucharist faith.
Oremus pro invicem. Fr. De Celles