Laudetur Iesus Christus and Blessed Embertide week! The Ember Days are when the Church traditionally devoted 3 days (Wednesday, Friday & Saturday) each season (Wednesday, Friday and Saturday) to prayer and fasting (now optional) to give thanks to God for His creation.

The traditional Latin Mass calendar has many feasts and customs devoted to the land, agriculture and creation which are worth exploring sometime. The summertime Ember Days which we commemorate this week falls during the week of Pentecost.  As usual Fisheaters.com has a great summary which you can read here: http://www.fisheaters.com/emberdays.html

We also have two important updates to share so please take time to read.

1. CANCELED – Feast of Corpus Christi Mass Thursday June 15: Regretfully we (and Fr. Reid) have been unable to find a priest to offer Mass on the traditional date for the Feast of Corpus Christi on Thursday June 15 at St Ann and thus need to cancel the Mass advertised in Sunday’s bulletin. Many of the priests will be away or committed to other engagements that evening. Father Reid asks us for a special prayer this week to pray for more diocesan priests to offer the Latin Mass – hopefully we can host this next year. We do have some good news to share though – see below at the next event.

2. Feast of the Sacred Heart, Friday June 23 – High Mass at Cathedral of St. Patrick, 7pm: Deo Gratias! We are “extraordinarily” delighted to share with you a special High Mass will be offered at our Cathedral of St. Patrick for the Feast of the Sacred Heart at 7pm on Friday June 23.  Father Matlak will offer High Mass which will feature some beautiful chant and pieces including from Palestrina, Giovanni Croce, and Mass for Four Voices (Giovanni Paolo Cina). This will probably go on your “won’t want to miss” list.

Father Reid’s ordination anniversary

Lastly, yesterday June 5^th  was special day for us at St. Ann parish and the Latin Mass Community – it was the 13^th anniversary of Fr. Reid’s ordination to the priesthood.  On this his anniversary, please consider offering a Rosary for him, in thanksgiving for his priesthood and to help him continue that journey, which by his willingness to offer the Latin Mass (no easy task) has drawn many of us along for that journey.

To view the ordination article, view the Catholic News & Herald, June 11, 2004: https://issuu.com/catholicnewsherald/docs/cnh_issue_06_11_04

Our own Brian Williams also has a blog post about Fr. Reid and the liturgy: https://liturgyguy.com/2017/06/04/the-latin-mass-has-made-me-a-better-priest/