Laudetur Iesus Christus! Sunday is the 13^th Sunday after Pentecost and as custom we provide a reflection on Sunday’s Collect, which focuses on the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity: http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2020/08/the-theological-virtues-and-thirteenth.html#.X0sPw9R7nwc

Dr. Kwasniewski recap: We everyone who attended Dr. Kwasniewski’s compelling presentation on Friday evening. We are grateful for having the opportunity to host Dr. Kwasniewski, the panelists, and thank St. Thomas Aquinas parish and Fr. Codd for their hospitality. We hope to share a copy of the recording when it becomes available.

Community News

Latin Mass in Salisbury this Sunday: Today Sunday September 4, there will be a 4pm Latin Mass at Sacred Heart Parish in Salisbury (45 minutes north of Charlotte), offered by Fr. Carter (Confessions at 3:30pm). A pot luck social will follow Mass in Brincefield Hall. Bring a favorite dish, hors d’oeuvres or dessert to share. For questions contact the Salisbury Latin Mass Community at: www.salisburylmc.org

Latin Masses This Week

• Wednesday September 7, 6pm St. Ann: Feria day (no commemoration)
• Thursday September 8, 7pm, St. Thomas Aquinas: Nativity of the Blessed Mother (see below)
• Friday September 9, 7am (St. Ann) and 12:30pm (St. Mark): Feria or St. Peter Claver

Norcia Monks Visit to St. Ann – September 10-11

Fr. Benedict Nivakoff, the prior of the traditional Benedictine Norica Monastery in Italy, will be at St. Ann parish Saturday September 10 for a fundraising event to help rebuild their monastery damaged in the 2016 earthquake. The Norcia Monks offer the Traditional Latin Mass exclusively as well as pray the traditional Benedictine breviary. They of course are also known for their famous monastic beer, Birra Nursia (Norcia Beer), which attendees could taste that evening. On Sunday September 11, Fr. Benedict will offer the 12:30pm Latin Mass. According to St. Ann parish, the event schedule will be:

• Saturday September 10, 6pm Solemn Vespers in the Church (unclear if it is Novus Ordo or Traditional Vespers)
• After Vespers: Beer tasting fundraiser (to attend fundraiser please contact Sr. Mary Lucia at 704-523-4641, ext. 221
• Sunday September 11, 12:30pm – Fr. Benedict will offer the Latin Mass at St. Ann
• To learn more visit about the monks visit: https://en.nursia.org/  To order their beer (if you can’t wait until September 10), visit: https://birranursia.com/

Holy Face Devotions & New Book

• St. Mark – Mondays 2-2:45pm
• St. Thomas Aquinas – Tuesdays 6am in the main church
• St. Ann – Tuesdays 7:30am in the chapel after the Novus Ordo Mass (uses the booklet/chaplet which takes 15-20 minutes)
• Don’t see your parish? Why not organize one?

Learn more about the Holy Face devotion: TAN Books has just announced a new book on the Holy Face devotion by Fr. Lawrence Carney, a Latin Mass priest in Missouri who is chaplain to the Benedictines of Mary. The book is entitled The Secret of the Holy Face: The Devotion Destined to Save Society. If you want to learn more about this powerful devotion, please visit: https://tanbooks.com/products/books/tan-books/pre-order/the-secret-of-the-holy-face/

Latin Mass & Traditional News

• National Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage – September 17, Washington DC: To support the Latin Mass faithful in Arlington and Washington DC dioceses, a pilgrimage is being organized around the 15^th anniversary of Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict’s directive allowing greater access to the Traditional Latin Mass. The pilgrimage will start at the Cathedral in Arlington and conclude at St. Matthew Cathedral in Washington. All are welcome to participate: https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2022/08/national-summorum-pontificum-pilgrimage.html

• Cdl. Roche says he would be willing to talk with Shia LaBeouf about why actor favors Latin Mass: Cardinal Arthur Roche, the head of the Dicastery for Divine Worship (the same office which issued directives that encouraged dioceses such as Charlotte to cancel certain liturgies or sacraments such as the Triduum), appeared surprised that a young Hollywood actor would convert to Catholicism based, in part, on the Traditional Latin Mass, and His Eminence is open to learning why: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/cdl-roche-says-he-would-be-willing-to-talk-with-shia-labeouf-about-why-actor-favors-latin-mass/

• How to Save Your Community If the TLM Is Taken Away: As more dioceses – hopefully not Charlotte – consider more Latin Mass cancellations. The obvious question is – what will TLM communities do in such circumstances? As the CLMC families learned during the diocese of Charlotte’s cancellation of the Latin Triduum, there is no easy answer, as such a decision tragically (and unnecessarily so) scattered the flock in different locations. OnePeterFive examines this question and possible means to bring a community, splintered by cancellations, back together: https://onepeterfive.com/save-community-tlm/

• California Bishop Threatens to Excommunicate Latin Mass Attendees: According to one bishop in California, attending the Traditional Latin Mass is gravely illicit, a mortal sin, and may warrant excommunication.  This is no doubt shocking and outrageous, but thankfully this bishop’s statement was from 1976, not 2022! This letter below (see link) is instructive as it demonstrates how much hostility and unfortunately, ignorance, some bishops had back then (let us pray for their souls) about liturgy and Sacred Tradition. As we know from the benefit of time however, this bishop was clearly misinformed and blindly believed whatever notices came from Rome (we hope he clarified the matter in the future). It’s a good reminder that many of the harmful or ignorant decisions done by today’s bishops will be rejected in the next generation of bishops, and looked upon as a sad and bizarre footnote in the march towards the full restoration of the traditional Roman Rite. https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2022/08/michael-davies-in-1976-my-lord-this-is.html  
  
  CLMC comment: It should be noted that while as Bishop of Charlotte in the mid-1980s, His Excellency John Donoghue and his Chancery were, according to this 1986 article, hesitant about the Latin Mass in Charlotte. However, upon becoming Archbishop of Atlanta in 1994, he established a full Latin Mass chapel and invited in an outside religious order to meet their needs. In short, aided by grace, bishops can come around and realize the importance of the Latin Mass and needing the needs of the faithful. Let us continue to pray for all bishops – including ours – for a deeper appreciation for the Traditional Latin Mass.

• Catholics have been betrayed by the Vatican’s allegiance to secular COVID authorities: A long time ago, before Traditiones Custodes, there was another time when Latin Masses were publicly canceled and the laity were denied access to the traditional sacraments, notably the Holy Eucharistic – all due to media-driven fear in of a respiratory virus the spring of 2020. While few clergy and bishops – or even Rome – have offered a public apology for abandoning the laity in that moment of crisis, Dr. Alan Moy of the John Paul II Institute for Medical Research (who was the keynote speaker for the Diocese’s of Charlotte’s 2021 Respect Life conference), provides helpful analysis of where the Church went wrong with COVID and how to make things right: https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/why-the-catholic-church-must-free-herself-from-secular-authorities-on-public-health-issues

• New Coke, Amtrak, and the New Mass: A wonderful sermon by a priest in good standing with his bishop, comparing the Novus Ordo Mass to Coca-Cola’s “New Coke” formula from 1985, which was the biggest marketing blunder of the 20^th century. New Coke was pushed upon the people and yet they resisted and the company had to restore the original formula.  In like manner, the Church decided upon a “New Mass” to replace the “classical Mass” but the laity and some clergy persisted with the “classical Mass”. Will the Church follow Coca-Cola’s lead and revoke the “New Mass” and restore the classical Mass, the Traditional Latin Mass? https://sensusfidelium.tv/watch/new-coke-amtrak-and-the-new-mass_T9Jpn7idzIDtk4q.html

If you like this sermon, please consider supporting the work of Sensus Fidelium, run by a local parishioner, Steve Cunningham, with a contribution: https://sensusfidelium.com/

• The Effects of Limiting the Traditional Latin Mass: An excellent video from ETWN demonstrating the harmful effects of the Latin Mass restrictions in the Archdiocese of Washington: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFs-BGxeVXE

The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary – September 8

This coming Thursday is the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, occurring 9 months after the feast of the Immaculate Conception. We close this e-mail with some excerpts of a reflection by the Benedictine liturgist, Dom Prosper Gueranger, in The Liturgical Year:

Let us, then, understand the Church when, even on this day, she proclaims thy divine maternity, and unites in her chants of praise the birth of Emmanuel and thine own. He who, being Son of God by essence, willed to be also Son of man, had, before all other designs, decreed that he would have a Mother. Such, consequently, was the primordial, absolute character of that title of mother, that in the eternal decree, it was one with the very being of the chosen creature, the motive and cause of her existence, as well as the source of all her perfections natural and supernatural. We too, then, must recognize thee as Mother, even from thy very cradle, and must celebrate thy birthday by adoring thy Son our Lord.

Inasmuch as it embraces all the brethren of the Man-God, thy blessed maternity sheds its rays upon all time, both before and after this happy day. God is our king before ages: he hath wrought salvation in the midst of the earth. “The midst of the earth,” says the Abbot of Clairvaux, “admirably represents Mary. Mary is the center of the universe, the ark of God, the cause of creation, the business of ages. Towards her turn the inhabitants of heaven and the dwellers in the place of expiation, the men that have gone before us, and we that are now living, those who are to follow us, our children’s children and their descendants. Those in heaven look to her to have their ranks filled up; those in purgatory look for their deliverance; the men of the first ages, that they may be found faithful prophets; those that come after, that they may obtain eternal happiness. Mother of God, Queen of heaven, Sovereign of the world, all generations shall call thee blessed, for thou hast brought forth life and glory for all. In thee the Angels ever find their joy, the just find grace, sinners pardon; in thee, and by thee, and from thee, the merciful hand of the Almighty has reformed the first creation.”

…Together with the Church, let us ask, as the fruit of this sweet feast, for that peace which seems to flee ever farther and farther from our unhappy times. Our Lady was born during the second of the three periods of universal peace wherewith the reign of Augustus was blessed, the last of which ushered in the Prince of peace himself.

September 8 – The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary ~ Dom Prosper Gueranger