Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
August 11, 2025 Column Father De Celles
Welcome to New Parishioners. Summer is always a time we lose and gain parishioners, especially those in the military. So I’d like to welcome all who have joined us in the last few months. I hope you find St. Raymond’s’ to be a welcoming parish, and encourage you to get involved our many liturgies, committees, and activities.
Please make sure you register with our parish office, for many reasons, for example,so we can send you regular email updates on what’s going on in the parish. You can register in person, by filling out a registration form in the church narthex and drop it in the mail or the Sunday offertory box, or by visiting our parish website an clicking the menu “Welcome,” and then click to the page “New to St Raymond’s” (the link to the form is near the bottom of that page).
One thing to know about our parish is that we place great importance on the Grace and Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Flowing from this you will find a pronounced emphasis on reverence, especially during Holy Mass, what I call “emphatic reverence.” Nowadays reverence seems to be a lost virtue. The word “reverence” comes from the Latin for “fear,” “revere,” and Scripture tells us, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.” But this kind of fear is not like being in terror or afraid, but rather of being in “awe”: recognizing that God is the all-powerful creator and sustainer of the whole world, and I am just a little tiny speck in comparison—and yet, he loves me. So Christian reverence is fundamentally rooted in love.
So we go out of our way here in our liturgies to be reverent, to remind ourselves we are in presence of God, the God who loved us so much He became one of us and died for our sins on the Cross, and gave us the Eucharist to be with us always, even to enter into us, especially in the mystery of His Sacrifice.
To encourage this reverence we follow some ancient customs of the Church that set the liturgy apart as radically different from the mundane world we live in. For example: we sing traditional Catholic hymns; use Latin, the ancient language of the Church, Latin; at most Masses the priest faces the same direction as the people, leading them in prayer before the Most High God; and we also use an altar rail so folks have the option to kneel to receive Our Lord in Holy Communion. From time to time in this column I will explain the significance of these practices, so I encourage you to return here often to read about this and important news.
Prayers Before and After Mass. It is an excellent and very helpful practice to arrive a little early before Mass to pray in preparation, and also to remain a while afterward to pray in thanksgiving. Of course, you can pray in whatever words you want, but to assist us, the Church has handed down various prayers we might want to say. In particular these two beautiful prayers of St. Thomas Aquinas are commended to us in the Roman Missal (feel free to cut these out and save them):
Before Mass. Almighty eternal God, behold, I come to the Sacrament of your Only Begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, as one sick to the physician of life, as one unclean to the fountain of mercy, as one blind to the light of eternal brightness, as one poor and needy to the Lord of heaven and earth.
I ask, therefore, for the abundance of your immense generosity, that you may graciously cure my sickness, wash away my defilement, give light to my blindness, enrich my poverty, clothe my nakedness, so that I may receive the bread of Angels, the King of kings and Lord of lords, with such reverence and humility, such contrition and devotion, such purity and faith, such purpose and intention as are conducive to the salvation of my soul.
Grant, I pray, that I may receive not only the Sacrament of the Lord’s Body and Blood, but also the reality and power of that Sacrament.
O most gentle God, grant that I may so receive the Body of your Only Begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ, which he took from the Virgin Mary, that I may be made worthy to be incorporated into his Mystical Body and to be counted among its members.
O most loving Father, grant that I may at last gaze forever upon the unveiled face of your beloved Son, whom I, a wayfarer, propose to receive now veiled under these species: Who lives and reigns with you for ever and ever. Amen.
After Mass. I give you thanks, Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God, who have been pleased to nourish me, a sinner and your unworthy servant, with the precious Body and Blood of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: this through no merits of mine, but due solely to the graciousness of your mercy.
And I pray that this Holy Communion may not be for me an offense to be punished, but a saving plea for forgiveness. May it be for me the armor of faith, and the shield of good will. May it cancel my faults, destroy concupiscence and carnal passion, increase charity and patience, humility and obedience and all the virtues, may it be a firm defense against the snares of all my enemies, both visible and invisible, the complete calming of my impulses, both of the flesh and of the spirit, a firm adherence to you, the one true God, and the joyful completion of my life’s course.
And I beseech you to lead me, a sinner, to that banquet beyond all telling, where with your Son and the Holy Spirit you are the true light of your Saints, fullness of satisfied desire, eternal gladness, consummate delight and perfect happiness. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Congratulations Sister! Sister Marie Celine Laird, daughter of parishioners Bob and Gerri Laird, recently celebrated her Silver Jubilee (25 years) as Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia (“Nashville Dominican”). Sister Marie Celine is a graduate of St. Thomas Aquinas Regional School in Woodbridge and Seton School in Manassa. Her first profession of vows was Aug. 10, 2000. The Nashville Dominicans are a teaching order, and are in charge of John Paul the Great High School and St. Thomas Aquinas Regional School. Sister Marie Celine has served at schools in Hampton; Newport News; Birmingham, Ala.; Greenville, S.C.; Jackson, Tenn.; and Nashville. God bless you, Sister.
Altar Server Graduation. I want to say a big thank you to the young men who have recently graduated from high school and are now leaving our altar server ranks to go to college. I am proud of them all, and will miss each of them, even as I wish them well, and promise them my prayers and support going forward. Please join me in thanking them and praying for them: Daniel Barnett, Dominic Nguyen, Jacob Oswald, Adam Corley, Sam Berger, Peter Hatcher.
Oremus pro invicem. Fr. De Celles