Tag Archives: catechesis

Catechesis

Second Sunday of Easter

The Second Sunday after Easter, or Good Shepherd Sunday, will be celebrated in a High Mass in the traditional Latin form at St. Stanislaus Church in New Haven on Sunday, May 5, at 2:00 pm. The celebrant will be the Reverend Jan Pikulski.

The Liturgy of the Second Sunday after Easter calls on the newly baptized to cling to Christ as the Shepherd of their souls. It is suitable, then, to keep a Good Shepherd Sunday, a fortnight after the Easter baptisms, with the beautiful parable from the Gospel and the Epistle in which St. Peter reminds us what it cost Jesus to bring us, the erring sheep, back to the sheepfold of salvation and to become the Shepherd of our souls.  

As St. Peter, chief pastor of the Church by the will of Christ, wrote those word of this Epistle reading, he was mindful of the greatness and responsibilities of his office; so well did he understand them that, following his divine Master he gave his life for his sheep.  We should remind ourselves that the ministry of the priesthood is for the faithful the incarnation and ever prolonged action of Him who remains always the one Shepherd of the Church and Savior of our souls. 

Music for the service, sung by the Schola Cantorum of The Saint Gregory Society, will include the Gregorian Mass Ordinary for Eastertide (Vatican Edition I: “Lux et origo,” motets by Guillaume Dufay and Claudio Monteverdi, and the proper Gregorian chants. 

Catechesis

Palm Sunday 2019

Palm Sunday will be celebrated in the Blessing of Palms, Procession and High Mass at St. Stanislaus Church in New Haven on April 14, at 2:00 pm. The celebrant will be the Reverend Jan Pikulski.

In the Liturgy of Palm Sunday, the two-fold point of view from which the Church regards the Cross is expressed in two ceremonies, one marked by joy and the other by sadness. First comes the Blessing and Procession of Palms, in which everything overflows with a holy joy, enabling us after twenty centuries to revive the spirit of the magnificent scene of our Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Then follows the Mass with its changes and lessons relating exclusively to the sorrowful memory of our Redeemer’s Passion.

We should keep carefully a blessed palm branch in our home. This palm is a sacramental, and, fastened to our crucifix, should serve to remind us of the victory gained for us by Christ on the Cross.

Music for the service performed by the Schola Cantorum of the St. Gregory Society, will include the Italian Renaissance master Costanzo Porta’s “Missa Primi Toni” motets by Josquin DesPrez, Jachet de Berchem and Tomás Luis de Victoria, and the proper Gregorian chants for the Procession and Mass.

Catechesis

Quinquagesmina Sunday

Quinquagesmina Sunday will be celebrated in a Latin High Mass at St. Stanislaus Church in New Haven on March 3, at 2:00 pm. The celebrant will be the Rev. Jan Pikulski.

The third of the Sundays preparing us for the fast of Lent, Quinquagesima Sunday, 50 days before Easter, signals that Ash Wednesday is close at hand. The great Benedictine abbot, Dom Prosper Guéranger, speaks of Quinquagesima as a “time of Abraham” because of Abraham’s “docility and devotedness in following the call of his God.”

The Church has given us in today’s sacred Liturgy the Gospel of St. Luke in which our Lord prepares His apostles for the coming sufferings, that is, His sacred Passion in Jerusalem. The blind man represents the sinners who break their relationship with God, thus rejecting the offer of the promises of the Kingdom because of fallen man’s own selfishness in pride. We ought to understand the blind man as a model. It is said that “this man has lost the light and knows it” while “others lose the light and refuse to acknowledge it.” Some of have a keen awareness of the movements of grace and sin, while others are patently ignorant of them.

The cry of the blind man, then, is our cry, too: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”. This prayer moved the heart of Jesus who stopped, called him, and healed him. This personal encounter prompted our Lord to ask the blind man to name the desire of his heart: “What do you want me to do for you?” the Lord asks him. “Master, let me receive my sight,” the blind man answers. “Go your way, your faith has saved you.”

Quinquagesima Sunday invites us to ask for the grace that the blind man had been given: sufficient awareness to beg for the Lord’s mercy in hearing our prayers for forgiveness of sins so that we may live in perfect freedom. Are we as Catholics prepared to be docile and devoted, like Abraham, like the blind man, before the promptings of the Holy Trinity?

Music for the service performed by the Schola Cantorum of the St. Gregory Society, will include the Gregorian chant Missa Orbis factor (Vatican edition XI), the chant proper for the Mass (Esto mihi), polyphonic motets by Guillaume Dufay and Antonio Cebrián, and organ music by Eugène Gigout and Ernest Chausson.

Catechesis

The Latin Mass January 20 in New Haven

The Second Sunday after the Epiphany will be observed in a celebration of High Mass at St. Stanislaus Church, State Street at Eld Street, New Haven, this Sunday, January 20, at 2:00 pm. The Reverend Matthew Mauriello will be the celebrant, and the Schola Cantorum of the St. Gregory Society will sing the Gregorian chants for the service.

Saint Augustine observes in a homily read as a lesson at Matins on this day, “Our savior was invited to the wedding feast at Cana, and He went there to reveal to us the mystery typified by this wedding, that is, the union of Christ with His Church.” St. Thomas Aquinas further noted that the conversion of water into wine is a symbol of transubstantiation, the greatest of all miracles, whereby the wine of the Eucharist becomes the blood of the covenant of peace which God has made with His Church.

Let us all then, at this Epiphanytide heed the exhortation of St. Paul in the Epistle for this feast that we as members of the mystical Body, of which Christ is the Head, have those same dispositions of charity and humility that were His.

Music for the Sacred Liturgy to be sung by the Schola Cantorum of the Saint Gregory Society will include the Missa de Angelis (Vatican edition VIII) chant ordinary, the Gregorian proper for the Epiphany: “Omnis terra adoret te;” motets by Tomás Luis de Victoria and William Byrd; and organ music by Johann Pachelbel and J. K. F. Fischer.

Catechesis

The Mass for Epiphany 2019

The Epiphany of Our Lord Jesus Christ will be observed in a celebration of High Mass at St. Stanislaus Church, State Street at Eld Street, New Haven, this Sunday, January 6, at 2:00 pm. The Reverend Jan Pikulsi will be the celebrant and the Reverend Matthew Dougherty, O.Praem., will be the homilist. The Schola Cantorum of the St. Gregory Society will sing the Gregorian chants for the service.

On the feast of the Epiphany the Church celebrates the revelation of Our Lord to the whole world and the shining forth in all its splendour of the Incarnation. Christians commemorate a triple manifestation of Christ: first, to the Magi, that is, to the Gentiles; then His baptism, when the Voice of God from heaven declared: “This is My Beloved Son;” and finally, in the miracle of His changing the water into wine at Cana.

Saint Leo I saw in the three Kings who sought out the Christ Child a foreshadowing of the future, as they brought in their train all the peoples of the world to adore the newborn King of Kings. That is the meaning of Isaiah’s magnificent prophecy appointed for the Epistle and Gradual at Mass on the Epiphany: “All they from Saba shall come bringing gold and frankincense and showing forth praise to the Lord.”

Music for the liturgy to be sung by the Schola Cantorum of the Saint Gregory Society will include the Missa Cunctipotens Genitor Deus (Vatican edition IV) chant ordinary, the Gregorian proper for the Epiphany: “Ecce advenit;” the Hymns “Jesu Redemptor omnium” and “A solis ortus;” the organ music by Maurice Duruflé and Paul de Maleingreau.