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Second Sunday of Advent

Laudetur Iesus Christus! Sunday is the 2nd Sunday of Advent, and as custom we include Dr. Mike Foley’s commentary on Sunday’s collect: https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2020/12/the-heartfelt-collect-for-second-sunday.html#.YaxSaLpOmHs

Here are some of the upcoming Masses:

1st Sunday Mass in Salisbury (special time of 4pm)

The 1st Sunday Latin Mass at Sacred Heart parish in Salisbury will be at a special time of 4pm on Sunday December 5.  Fr. Putnam will be offering the Mass.  A social after Mass will be held in Brincefield Hall (to the right as you exit the church).  Feel free to bring a favorite dish or dessert to share.  Due to confessions being heard after Mass one is welcome to ‘drop in’ as time allows. For questions please contact the Salisbury Latin Mass Community http://salisburylmc.org/

Feast of the Immaculate Conception – Wednesday December 8

  • Prince of Peace, Taylors, SC – 12 noon Low Mass (2 hours southwest of Charlotte)
  • Our Lady of Grace, Greensboro – 12 noon Low Mass (1.5 hours north of Charlotte)
  • St. Ann, Charlotte – 6:00 pm, Solemn High Mass
  • St. John the Baptist, Tryon, NC – 6:30pm – High Mass (1.5 hours west of Charlotte)

Rorate Masses Saturday December 11

  • Saturday December 11 – St. Mark, Huntersville – 6:00am (Solemn High)
  • Saturday December 11 – Our Lady of Grace, Greensboro – 6:00am (High) (1.5 hours north of Charlotte)
  • Saturday December 11 – St. Ann, Charlotte – 6:30am (High or Solemn High)
  • Saturday December 11 – Prince of Peace, Taylors, SC – 6:30am (High) (2 hours southwest of Charlotte)

Advent/Christmas Schedule

The Advent/Christmastide Latin Mass schedule can be found here: https://charlottelatinmass.org/mass-times/

St. Ann Annual Blessing of Religious Objects – Sunday December 19

After the 12:30pm St. Ann parish Latin Mass on Sunday December 19, Father will bless religious objects in the Traditional Rite. More details coming in the week ahead.

Prayers for the repose of the soul of Andrea Horn (nee Milis): As a follow up to last Sunday’s e-mail, we sadly pass along that Andrea Horn, a former member of our community and the Daughters of the Virgin Mother passed away soon after Fr. Kauth administered last rites. Please pray for the repose of her soul: https://www.verkuilenfh.com/obituary/Andrea-Horn

Latin Mass & Traditional News

  • Fr. Ripperger: Satan’s Time is Running Short: To end the news segment on a hopeful note, traditional priest and exorcist Fr. Chad Ripperger recently explained how during an exorcism, the devil admitted God is about to take his power away. Fr. Ripperger believes this is why the demons are in a panic, causing havoc in the civil and ecclesial spheres. He also offers some hopeful thoughts, and what could happen to the Church when this happens: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/exorcist-says-satans-time-is-running-short

Advent Reflections by Dom Prosper Gueranger, OSB

Lastly, we close with a few Advent reflections by the great Benedictine liturgist, Dom Prosper Gueranger in his book, The Liturgical Year, from this past week to better place ourselves in the context of Advent and preparing for Christ’s coming at Christmas. We especially draw your attention to the December 3rd reflection which eerily parallels our times:

  • December 1: Four thousand years of expectation preceded that coming, and they are expressed by the four weeks of Advent, which we must spend before we come to the glorious festivity of our Lord’s Nativity. Let us reflect upon the holy impatience of the saints of the old Testament, and how they handed down, from age to age, the grand hope, which was to be but hope to them, since they were not to see it realized.
  • December 2 (Feast of St. Bibiana): We will today consider the state of nature at this season of the year. The earth is stripped of her wonted verdure, the flowers are gone, the fruits are fallen, the leaves are torn from the trees and scattered by the wind, and every living thing stiffens with the cold. It seems as though the hand of death had touched creation. We see the sun rise after the long night of his absence; and scarcely have we felt his warmth at noon, than he sets again, and leaves us in the chilly darkness. Each day he shortens his visit. Is the world to become sunless, and are men to live out the rest of life in gloom? The old pagans, who witnessed this struggle between light and darkness, and feared the sun was going to leave them, dedicated the twenty-fifth day of December, the winter solstice, to the worship of the sun. After this day their hopes revived on seeing the glorious luminary again mounting up in the sky, and gradually regaining his triumphant position.

    We Christians can have no such feelings as these; our light is the true faith, which tells us that there is a Sun to be sought for which never sets, and is never eclipsed. Having Him, we care little for the absence of any other brightness; nay, all other light, without Him, can only lead us astray.
  • December 3 (Feast of St. Francis Xavier): Let us consider the wretched condition of the human race, at the time of Christ’s coming into the world. The diminution of truths is emphatically expressed by the little light which the earth enjoys at this season of the year. The ancient traditions are gradually becoming extinct; the Creator is not acknowledged, even in the very work of His hands; everything has been made God, except the God who made all things. This frightful pantheism produces the vilest immorality, both in society at large, and in individuals. There are no rights acknowledged, save that of might. Lust, avarice, and theft, are honoured by men in the gods of their altars. There is no such thing as family, for divorce and infanticide are legalized; mankind is degraded by a general system of slavery; nations are being exterminated by endless wars. The human race is in the last extreme of misery; and unless the hand that created it reform it, it must needs sink a prey to crime and bloodshed.

    There are indeed some few just men still left upon the earth, and they struggle against the torrent of universal degradation; but they cannot save the world; the world despises them, and God will not accept their merits as a palliation of the hideous leprosy which covers the earth. All flesh has corrupted its way, and is more guilty than even in the days of the deluge: and yet, a second destruction of the universe would but manifest anew the justice of God; it is time that a deluge of His divine mercy should flood the universe, and that He who made man, should come down and heal him. Come then, O eternal Son of God! give life again to this dead body; heal all its wounds; purify it; let grace superabound, where sin before abounded; and having converted the world to Thy holy law, Thou wilt have proved to all ages that Thou, who camest, wast in very truth the Word of the Father; for as none but a God could create the world, so none but the same omnipotent God could save it from satan and sin, and restore it to justice and holiness.

December is the darkest time of the year and yet the time when the Light of the World comes at Christmas. In December 2021, the Church finds herself in one of the darkest times of her history, yet the Latin Mass remains, and is also the future – a sign of hope of the restoration that is to come with the triumph of the Immaculate Heart. 

What Mass are you attending on Sunday?