Homily for Mass of St. Josemaria Escriva
June 26, 2010 – Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish
Most Reverend Robert W. Finn
Bishop of Kansas City-St. Joseph
Wonderful story...Unbelieveable Photograph
Please read before viewing the following picture -
it's worth it!
Although the event described in the post below took place over 10 years ago, only recently did we become aware of it. It should be 'The Picture of the Year,' or perhaps, 'Picture of the Decade.' It won't be. In fact, unless you obtained a copy of the US paper which published it, you probably would never have seen it.
The picture is that of a 21-week-old unborn baby named Samuel Alexander Armas , who is being operated on by surgeon named Joseph Bruner.
The baby was diagnosed with spina bifida and would not survive if removed from his mother's womb. Little Samuel's mother, Julie Armas, is an obstetrics nurse in Atlanta . She knew of Dr. Bruner's remarkable surgical procedure. Practicing at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, he performs these special operations while the baby is still in the womb.
During the procedure, the doctor removes the uterus via C-section and makes a small incision to operate on the baby. As Dr.Bruner completed the surgery on Samuel, the little guy reached his tiny, but fully developed hand through the incision and firmly grasped the surgeon's finger. DrBruner was reported as saying that when his finger was grasped, it was the most emotional moment of his life, and that for an instant during the procedure he was just frozen, totally immobile.
The photograph captures this amazing event with perfect clarity. The editors titled the picture, 'Hand of Hope.' The text explaining the picture begins, 'The tiny hand of 21-week-old fetus Samuel Alexander Armas emerges from the mother's uterus to grasp the finger of Dr. Joseph Bruner as if thanking the doctor for the gift of life.'
Little Samuel's mother said they 'wept for days' when they saw the picture. She said, 'The photo reminds us pregnancy isn't about disability or an illness, it's about a little person.'Samuel was born in perfect health, the operation 100 percent successful.
Now see the actual picture, and it is awesome....incredible.....
Please pass the link to this post on. Everyone should see it!
György Kristóf Csanaky
Son of Ivan and Cecelia Csanaky, good friends of Old St. Patrick Oratory who have helped us on numerous occasions in the choir loft with their beautiful and professional singing talent. Born on June 16, 2010 weighing 9 lbs and 6.8 oz. He will be baptized as a parishioner of the St. Rose Philippine Duchesne Latin Mass Community this next Saturday at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Kansas City, KS. Oratorians extend their best wishes to the Csanaky family.
New roof overhead at Old St. Patrick
You may not have noticed, but there is a new roof on the Oratory. Our understanding is that there was some storm/hail damage to the roof about a year and a half ago and that the insurance settlement agreement was recently completed. The damage was on one side of the roof only so that was covered by the insurance, however Canon Avis and the Institute decided to go ahead and re-roof the other side at the same time to save some expense.
To do this work now, in order to prevent water leakage onto our new (and very expensive) interior paint job was considered essential.
A little nostalgia this afternoon
Don't get me wrong! We have absolutely no regrets about our move to the beautifully re-done Old St. Patrick. But, we ran across this special artfully composed photo of Our Lady of Sorrows and couldn't help be a little nostalgic about our former home for Latin Mass for about 15 years. Our Lady of Sorrows is a stunningly beautiful church home that was perfect for the celebration of the Mass of the Ages. We've certainly been very fortunate to have had two of the nicest church homes in the entire diocese. This photo was taken by Neal60 (sorry, we don't have the name of the photographer, but you can see more examples of his work by clicking here.)
Angels get their pedestals at last
Unfortunately, we forgot our camera this morning and don't have a new photo of the beautiful pair of angels guarding either side of the sanctuary that are now mounted on their new pedestals. This photo to the left was taken during the October, 2008 consecration ceremonies. The angels were donated by Bob and Alice Umphress and since the completion of the renovation have sat at the base of pillars. Now they have their long-planned places of honor on concrete pedestals also donated by the Umphresses and painted by Joe Farris.If you are interested here is some more information about the the history of these beautiful icons and how they came to the Umphresses' extensive collection of ecclesiastical art, click here for the previous post.
Meet David Wilson.
Yesterday afternoon the Blue Army organization held its Rosary Rally at Old St. Patrick. This regular monthly devotion of saying of the full Rosary has been continuously held around the two dioceses for over a quarter century. The Blue Army, a public association of the faithful, was formed in the late 1940's and early 50s to spread the message of Fatima.When you attend in the Kansas City metro area, the man who leads the devotions, as he has for 15 years or so, is David Wilson. If you've been to a Rosary Rally you know that David's rich and pleasant baritone voice fills whatever church they have been invited to. But, you probably don't know that David and his wife Kathy make a 160 mile round-trip commute every time to do this from their home in Rossville, Kansas.
David and Kathy Wilson were previously members of the Latin Mass Community at Our Lady of Sorrows for a number of years before they relocated to rural central Kansas about 15 years ago. The Wilsons are also parents of Mother Gemma of Jesus of the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles sisters north of Kansas City.
All KC-SJ and Kansas diocese Catholics who attend Rosary Rallies have come to truly appreciate the Wilsons' leadership of the monthly event and their unselfish devotion to the Holy Rosary and bringing it to the faithful regularly.
Dreary Saturday
Last year when Canon Avis introduced the laudable practice of praying for good weather after Sunday Low Masses, we did a post on it here on the blog. Since we resumed occasional posting on this OSP community blog a month or so ago, we've received about 10 visits a week from people who are looking for a prayer to protect from bad weather and found our post on Google and other search engines. Looking out the window today into a steady downpour reminded us to be sure to pay particular and concentrated attention to tomorrow's prayer after 8:00 a.m. Mass.Here's a portion of the prayer that we do at Old St. Patrick Oratory. "We beseech Thee, O Almighty God, through the intercession of Holy Mary, the Mother of God, of the holy angels, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, confessors, virgins, widows, and of all Thy saints that Thou show us Thy continuing protection, permit tranquil winds, and also pour out to us, Thy unworthy servant, Thy safety from heaven above against lightning strikes and violent storms, and that Thou remain always protective of the human race and crush down the aerial powers by the right hand of Thy power. Through the same Christ the Lord....".
Two and a half minutes of Heavenly Music from the Catholic Music Assocation of America
To find out more about this organization of singers and musicians who love the traditional music of the Church, click here: Musica Sacra.
To listen: Click on the "go" arrow.
Have you ever heard of the heresy of "Immanentism"?
We recently ran across this term, were not familiar with it, and were curious about its derivation and anatomy. Unfortunately there's not much available in the typical sources. In 2001, Father Chad Rippinger, FSSP wrote a scholarly article in Latin Mass Magazine that touches on this philosophy and the deleterious effect that it had on the development and growth of the philosophy and belief in the wake of V.II of the rejection of ecclesiastical tradition. We thought you might like to read a little of this essay.
"(The) three sources of immanentism as they influenced the Church during the waning of an intellectual phase of Modernism in the 1950s and early 1960s provided the foundation for a psychological break from tradition as a norm. As Peter Bernardi observes, Blondel (Maurice Blondel, a French philosopher) was “working at a time when the Church was just beginning to become conscious of a certain break in its tradition.” The work of Blondel and the influx of the other modern philosophical points of view, which were antithetical to the ecclesiastical tradition, had a drastic impact on Vatican II. By the time Vatican II arrived, the intellectual foundation was in place for a systematic rejection of all aspects of ecclesiastical tradition.
Blondel and others, under the influence of modern philosophy, thought that modern man could not be satisfied with past ways of thinking. They provided an intellectual foundation upon which the Church, with a Council as a catalyst, could “update” itself or undergo an “aggiornamento.” With the foundations for the extrinsic tradition having been supplanted, the extrinsic tradition was lost. In other words, since the view of man had changed and since the view of the Deposit of Faith was subjected to a modern analysis, the extrinsic tradition, which rested upon these two, collapsed. We are currently living with the full-blown effects of that collapse. Catholics today have become fixated on the here and now, and in consequence the Church’s traditions have come to be treated not only as irrelevant but also as something to be distrusted and even, at times, demonized.
This has had several effects. The first is that those things that pertain to the extrinsic tradition and do not touch upon the intrinsic tradition are ignored. This manifests itself in the fact that some ecclesial documents today do not have any connection to the positions held by the Magisterium prior to the Second Vatican Council. For example, in the document of Vatican II on ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio, there is not a single mention of the two previous documents that deal with the ecumenical movement and other religions: Leo XIII’s Satis Cognitum and Pius XI’s Mortalium Animos. The approach to ecumenism and other religions in these documents is fundamentally different from the approach of the Vatican II document or Ut Unum Sint by Pope John Paul II. While the current Magisterium can change a teaching that falls under non-infallible ordinary magisterial teaching, nevertheless, when the Magisterium makes a judgment in these cases, it has an obligation due to the requirements of the moral virtue of prudence to show how the previous teaching was wrong or is now to be understood differently by discussing the two different teachings. However, this is not what has happened. The Magisterium since Vatican II often ignores previous documents which may appear to be in opposition to the current teaching, leaving the faithful to figure out how the two are compatible, such as in the cases of Mortalium Animos and Ut Unum Sint. This leads to confusion and infighting within the Church as well as the appearance of contradicting previous Church teaching without explanation or reasoned justification."
Pew (Phew!) Research makes you realize how uninformed our citizenery really is. Awful!
This really is quite interesting....give it a try. It is an online test from the Pew Research Institute. There are no tricks here - just a simple test to see if you are current on your information. This is quite good and the results are shocking. Test your knowledge of current events and elementary knowledge with 12 questions, then be ready to shudder when you see how others did.Monsignor Brad Offutt on hand for the Corpus Christi devotions at the Oratory
We were especially glad to see Msgr. Offutt at Old Saint Patrick for the Corpus Christi procession. Msgr. Offutt played an indispensable role in the development and direction of the renovation effort from 2005 through 2008. Although his contributions were varied and many, one of the most important was the research and obtaining, with great difficulty, the Oratory's beautiful main and side marble altars from a closed church in the Boston, MA diocese. Current parishioners and parishioners to come will have much to be grateful for his work and leadership during the initial years of the Oratory's transfer for the celebration of the traditional Latin Mass...now known as the Extraordinary Form...very EXTRAORDINARY indeed!
Beautiful Corpus Christi Procession from Old St. Patrick
The Oratory was beautiful and Canon Avis had the altar brightly embellished with 30 majestic candles and attractive flower arrangements. We believe that it made a very good impression on the many first-time visitors to the Oratory. Overheard were numerous compliments on the beauty of the church.
Bishop Finn and Archbishop Naumann enter the Oratory in procession with other priests, deacons, and seminarians.
Processing past the newly completed headquarters of the J. E. Dunn Construction Company, reminded us to renew our gratitude for the company's generous gift to the Oratory during its reconstruction.
Is this scene below a contradiction???!!!. We thought there was to be separation between Church and State. Briefly, anyway, they seemed very close.
Some of the 500 or so faithful in procession from parishes across both dioceses - Kansas and Missouri sides of the state line.
Archbishop Naumann recites prayers of the ceremony in the brief blessing given at the half-way point on the north end of the very attractive municipal Ilus Davis park.
After the blessing Bishop Finn continued the procession by assuming the carrying of the Blessed Sacrament.
Some of the faithful re-entering the Oratory for final Benediction.
It was a beautiful day and a holy and solemn continuation of a timeless Catholic show of adoration for the True Presence in the Holy Eucharist.
Father Evan Harkins to celebrate a First Mass, Sunday, June 6th at Old St. Patrick
A year and a half ago, during the Consecration and re-Dedication of Old St. Patrick, Evan Harkins served on the altar as a seminarian. He is now a priest, being ordained on May 29th by our beloved Bishop, Robert Finn at the Cathedral. He shown above incensing the congregation during that ceremony.At a special Mass next Sunday, June 6th (10:15 a.m.) at which the new priest will be the celebrant, Father Harkins will say a First Mass. After Mass, Father Harkins will give the congregation the opportunity to receive a "first blessing". An opportunity exists during this first blessing to receive a Plenary Indulgence. For your information and edification, there is an interesting web page at which you can read of other occasions at which one may receive this indulgence. (This photo is from the blogger's archive).
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