Laudetur Iesus Christus! Sunday begins the three week pre-Lent season of Septuagesima, which roughly means 70 days before Easter. We will have more on this season below, but as custom, we share a commentary on the Collect for Sunday’s Latin Mass: https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2021/01/the-exilic-collect-of-septuagesima.html#.YgiKJJZOmHs To learn more visit:https://www.fisheaters.com/customsseptuagesima1.html
Blessing of Bread Sunday February 5 – St. Ann parish
Sunday is also the feast of St. Agatha and the CLMC and St. Ann parish will be organizing a blessing of bread after the 12:30pm Latin Mass at St. Ann parish. There is an ancient tradition to bless bread on her feast day, and Father will bless anyone’s bread with a traditional Latin blessing after Mass. Everyone is welcome to bring bread to be blessed – we will have a table available for bread blessing in the plaza. This will also occur at St. Thomas Aquinas (see below).
First Sunday Potluck at St. Thomas Aquinas
There will be a potluck and blessing of bread (see above) after the 11:30am Sunday Latin Mass at St. Thomas Aquinas parish. Please bring a dish or desert to share.
First Sunday in Salisbury
Sacred Heart parish in Salisbury will offer its 1st Sunday Latin Mass at 4pm. Mass is offered by Fr. Putnam and Confessions will be offered 30 minutes prior to Mass. Afterwards a potluck will be held in the Brincefield Hall. Please bring a dish or dessert to share. For more information please contact the Salisbury Latin Mass Community: www.salisburylmc.org
Latin Masses This Week
- Wednesday February 8, 6pm St. Ann – feast of St. John of Martha
- Thursday February 9, 7pm St. Thomas Aquinas – feast of St. Cyril of Alexandria, bishop
- Friday February 10, 7am (St. Ann) & 12:30pm (St. Mark) – St. Scholastica
Fatima Seminar – Fatima: Why The Time Is Now! – Next Sunday February 12, 2pm
St. Thomas Aquinas parish is hosting a special Fatima seminar featuring David Rodriguez of the Fatima Center, and Charles Fraune, author of Slaying Dragons, and St. Thomas Aquinas Latin Mass attendee. Both will be giving talks on the importance of the Fatima message and it will take place in Aquinas Hall after the Latin Mass at 2pm on Sunday February 12. All are invited to attend. Please see this flyer for schedule and details.
St. Thomas Aquinas Lenten Mission with the FSSP: February 27 – March 1, 7pm
As Septuagesima begins, the Church, through the Traditional Rite, now begins to focus on the coming season of Lent. With that focus, we are pleased to announce that St. Thomas Aquinas parish will again be inviting a Fraternity of St. Peter priest, Fr. Joseph Portzer, FSSP, for a mission – this time for Lent (he also gave the Advent retreat). The schedule will feature a mission talk at 7pm as well as Confessions prior at 6pm each evening. We can’t express enough the blessing of having this mission and encourage everyone to take advantage of this wonderful event. Please see this flyer for details.
- Monday February 27 – 6pm Confessions, 7pm talk
- Tuesday February 28 – 6pm Confessions, 7pm talk
- Wednesday March 1 – 6pm Confessions,7pm mission talk.
For those new to the Latin Mass, the Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) is a congregation of priests who offer the Latin Mass exclusively and staff chapels and parishes throughout North America and the world. Two members of our community and St. Ann parish are enrolled in the FSSP seminary in Nebraska. We are grateful St. Thomas Aquinas parish for offering this timely mission.
Community News
Holy Face Devotions
- St Mark – Mondays 5-5:45pm (NEW TIME for JANUARY)
- 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)
- St Michael the Archangel, Gastonia – Tuesdays, 9am, Main Church
- Holy Spirit, Denver – Tuesdays 10-11am after the Novus Ordo Mass
- Don’t see your parish? Why not organize one?
First Saturday in Boone
Although first Saturday is past, we did want to share with our readers that St. Elizabeth of the Hill Country in Boone, NC (2 hours northwest of Charlotte) offers a series of first Saturday events beginning with 10am Latin Mass, followed by a Rosary, meditation, and also a potluck at 11:30am.
Latin Mass & Traditional News
- Highlands church meets ‘audacious goal’: Many of you may remember when Fr. Barone was at St. Ann parish and offered the Latin Mass regularly. Now he is pastor of Our Lady of the Mountains in Highlands (3 hours west of Charlotte) and is embarking on a magnificent endeavor to build a new church – in the Baroque style. Not only that, but the fundraising campaign has broken diocesan records in reaching its initial goal in record time, in a single campaign. Quoting the diocese’s development director, Jim Kelly, the article notes (emphasis ours):
“Over the past 35 years, our office has assisted parishes and schools with more than 270 capital campaigns. Our Lady of the Mountains has raised more than the other 270 campaigns, and no other church in our diocese’s history has ever raised that much in a single campaign. Congratulations to Father Barone, their campaign leaders and their parishioners for their extraordinary results.”
Article: https://catholicnewsherald.com/88-news/fp/8953-highlands-church-meets-audacious-goal
To see videos and images of the project visit the parish’s website: https://olmhighlands.com/capital-campaign
CLMC comment: Extraordinary might be the key word to describe this project.
- The Great Pat Buchanan Signs Off: Conservative political commentator and former White House advisor to Presidents Nixon and Reagan, Patrick Buchanan, has announced his retirement from writing. While he is known for his political writings and his campaigns for president, he is also a regular attendee and defender of the Traditional Latin Mass, and was often seen at Sunday Latin Mass at Old St. Mary’s in Washington, DC (when it was offered there). There is also a local Catholic connection to Buchanan: during his famous 1992 convention speech on the culture wars, Mary Potter Summa, of the noted Catholic family here in Charlotte, introduced him to the convention floor. Crisis Magazine has a write up on Buchanan’s retirement: https://www.crisismagazine.com/editors-desk/the-great-pat-buchanan-signs-off and we share Buchanan’s praise of Pope Benedict’s Summorum Pontificum, which provided greater access to the Latin Mass, when it was released in July 2007: https://buchanan.org/blog/pjb-a-triumph-for-traditionalists-798
- The Character of God Refutes Theistic Evolution: Among certain Catholic circles, there is a mistaken belief in an unproven scientific theory called theistic evolution. The general premise is that God did not create the world in six literal days as the Word of God stated in Genesis, but that God supposedly allowed the universe to form over millions (or billions) of years, and molecules eventually coalesced to form the basic building blocks of life, which over long periods of time eventually formed living creatures, some of which eventually evolved to apes, and then to man, which the latter was supposedly given a soul. Despite the many Church teachings over 2,000 years condemning such theories, some Catholics, however, still believe it to be true. Thankfully Dr. Kevin Mark, of the Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation (which the CLMC co-sponsored their visit in 2019), has written an excellent essay affirming the traditional doctrine of creation, and examining how theistic evolution goes against the character of God: https://www.kolbecenter.org/the-character-of-god-refutes-theistic-evolution/
- On Singing Gregorian Chant Artfully (Part 2): Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, who the CLMC hosted in September, penned the second installment on how to sign Gregorian chant (part 1 is here): https://onepeterfive.com/on-singing-gregorian-chant-artfully-part-2/
- Bishop Schneider in Lebanon: His Excellency Bishop Athanasius Schneider, who visited the CLMC and St. Ann in 2017, has recently given a new interview during his Christmastide trip to Lebanon. He offers encouraging words defending the Latin Mass and its attendees against the restrictions from Rome, which we share:
“End this discrimination of these Catholics, this is a huge injustice, and to treat them as second class Catholics. This is and will remain as a grave injustice on the part of the Pope, of the Holy See, against faithful devout Catholics who love the Pope, who pray for the Pope, and for the bishops. They are not schismatics. They are true daughters and sons of the Church.”
https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/fetzen-fliegen/item/6373-bishop-schneider-in-lebanon-the-interview
The Season of Septuagesima
For those new to the Traditional Latin Mass, a pre-Lent season may sound foreign as it does not exist in the Novus Ordo. Yet as the great 19th century Benedictine liturgist, Dom Prosper Gueranger writes in The Liturgical Year, a pre-Lent season is absolutely necessary to prepare for one of the principal seasons of the year, Lent. We share some reflections of this season beginning with the suspension of the Alleluia which occurs on the Saturday prior to Septuagesima (e.g. yesterday), and provides a subtle transition between Christmastide and Lent:
Suspension of the Alleluia
Our holy mother the Church knows how necessary it is for her to rouse our hearts from their lethargy, and give them an active tendency towards the things of God. On this day, the eve of Septuagesima, she uses a powerful means for infusing her own spirit into the minds of her children. She takes the song of heaven away from us: she forbids our further uttering that Alleluia, which is so dear to us, as giving us a fellowship with the choirs of angels, who are forever repeating it. How is it that we poor mortals, sinners, and exiles on earth, have dared to become so familiar with this hymn of a better land? It is true, our Emmanuel, who established peace between God and men, brought it us from heaven on the glad night of His Birth; and we have had the courage to repeat it after the angels, and shall chant it with renewed enthusiasm when we reach our Easter. But to sing the Alleluia worthily, we must have our hearts set on the country whence it came. It is not a mere word, nor a profane unmeaning melody; it is the song that recalls the land we are banished from, it is the sweet sigh of the soul longing to be at home.
Septuagesima Sunday
Gueranger continues with a helpful explanation of today which begins this preparatory season of penance and prayer.
The Season of Septuagesima comprises the three weeks immediately preceding Lent. It forms one of the principal divisions of the Liturgical Year, and is itself divided into three parts, each part corresponding to a week: the first is called Septuagesima; the second, Sexagesima; the third, Quinquagesima.
All three are named from their numerical reference to Lent, which, in the language of the Church, is called Quadragesima, — that is, Forty, — because the great Feast of Easter is prepared for by the holy exercises of Forty Days. The words Quinquagesima, Sexagesima, and Septuagesima, tell us of the same great Solemnity as looming in the distance, and as being the great object towards which the Church would have us now begin to turn all our thoughts, and desires, and devotion.
Now, the Feast of Easter must be prepared for by a forty-days’ recollectedness and penance. Those forty-days are one of the principal Seasons of the Liturgical Year, and one of the most powerful means employed by the Church for exciting in the hearts of her children the spirit of their Christian Vocation. It is of the utmost importance, that such a Season of grace should produce its work in our souls, — the renovation of the whole spiritual life. The Church, therefore, has instituted a preparation for the holy time of Lent. She gives us the three weeks of Septuagesima, during which she withdraws us, as much as may be, from the noisy distractions of the world, in order that our hearts may be the more readily impressed by the solemn warning she is to give us, at the commencement of Lent, by marking our foreheads with ashes.
Septuagesima Season has begun, to prepare us for Lent. What Mass are you attending Sunday?
Charlotte Latin Mass Community 