All posts by Paul Zalonski

Sacred Liturgy

Holy Trinity

Pieta with Trinity detailToday, we celebrate the feast of the most Holy Trinity. This doctrine  reveals to us the relationally in the Godhead made known through Jesus Christ, our risen Lord. But don’t make the mistake by saying that we are required to believe in the Trinity as an article of faith. The Trinity is not a mere point of our Christian belief.  Saint Paul tells us that we are meant to be living union with God; living in union is not a matter of article of a belief system. The Apostle who demonstrates that our union is made possible through prayer, that is, being in relation with God. Hence we pray to God  “The Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit” (Eph 2: 18–22). Hence,  our Catholic faith “arises from man’s deepest experiences with God. It comes from the genuine living knowledge of those who have come to know God in faith.”

But all this comes from “Pentecost, as Jesuit Father Steve Bonian teaches that at  “Pentecost [when] the Spirit manifested the Father and the Son, with the great love between them, that spills into our world as our salvation.

“God’s graciousness as a most-loving Trinity is beautifully expressed in the joyous greeting in the letter of Saint Paul today: From Christ we receive “grace”; from the Father “love”; and from the Spirit “fellowship”. We are made members of God’s household; we are the divinely adopted children of God through Christ; his Spirit dwells in us; now we are “temples of his holy Name!”.

Devotion

40 Hours Devotion this weekend

40_HoursThis coming Sunday, May 22nd, Saint Stanislaus Parish is holding the annual 40 Hours Devotion.

Please avail yourself to this perfect time of prayer before the Eucharistic Lord.

The schedule for Eucharistic Adoration is as follows:

  • Friday, May 20th, 8:00am to 7:00pm
  • Saturday, May 21st, 8:00am to 4:00pm
  • Sunday, May 22nd, 12:30pm to 5:30pm
  • Sunday, May 22nd, Solemn Vespers with an outdoor Eucharistic Procession and Benediction at 4:30pm.

Here is quick review of this Eucharistic devotion.

40 Hours comes from the Diocese of Milan around 1527. The purpose of the devotion was to make reparation for sins and to offer prayers to God for protection during war, in subsequent years this period of Eucharistic prayer was closely associated with the virtue of gratitude for graces received and for the appreciation of the gift of the Holy Eucharist. 40 Hours was quite popular and by 1539 Pope Paul III gave his approval. It also found great support from St. Anthony Maria Zaccaria and Saint Philip Neri, who introduced its celebration in Rome in 1550. It was Pope Paul IV who connected the 40 Hours Devotion with the forty days of fasting of the Lord in the desert and then he drew our attention to the Apostle’s exhortation to pray unceasingly.

For the Latin Mass Community, the 2:00 p.m. Low Mass will be offered at the Saint Joseph altar and not at the main altar. Please sit on the Saint Joseph side of the church.

For the reception of Holy Communion please use the altar rail in front of the Saint Joseph altar (even though the space is quite limited this is to avoid unnecessary traffic in front of the Blessed Sacrament).

One of the rubrical changes is that in the Presence of the Most Blessed Sacrament, the bells are not rung.

Let us pray for one another before the Lord.

Sacred Liturgy

Pentecost

Pentecost with apostles

Today is the glorious solemnity of the Pentecost. Benedict XVI preached that with Pentecost we “reached the 50th day, it marks the fulfilment of the event of the passover, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus through the gift of the Spirit of the Risen One. In the past few days the Church has prepared us for Pentecost with her prayer, with her repeated and intense invocation to God to obtain a fresh outpouring upon us of the Holy Spirit. The Church has thus relived all that happened at her origins, when the Apostles gathered in the Upper Room of Jerusalem ‘with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the Mother of Jesus, and with his brethren’ (Acts 1:14).”

Today we celebrate the birth of the Church with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Blessed 12, the Blessed Mother Mary, the many disciples, indeed, the whole Church.

What is meant by the Holy Spirit? The Pontiff said, “The Holy Spirit is Creator, he is at the same time the Spirit of Jesus Christ, but in such a way that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God.”

How does the Spirit personally affect me? The Pontiff said: “The breath of God is life. Now, the Lord breathes into our soul the new breath of life, the Holy Spirit, his most intimate essence, and in this way welcomes us into God’s family. With Baptism and Confirmation this gift was given to us specifically, and with the sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance it is continuously repeated: the Lord breathes a breath of life into our soul. All the sacraments, each in its own way, communicate divine life to human beings, thanks to the Holy Spirit who works within them.”

Our prayer today, then, is to beg the Holy Spirit to bestow upon us the Seven-fold gifts and the Twelve-fold fruits for our sanctification and for the building up of the Mystical Body of Christ on earth.

Veni sancta Spiritus. Veni per Mariam.

Perhaps this poem by Geoffrey Hill speaks to the feeling of this solemn feast day:

. . . Or say it is Pentecost: the hawthorn-tree,
set with coagulate magnified flowers of may,
blooms in a haze of light; old chalk-pits brim
with seminal verdue from the roots of time.

Landscape is like revelation; it is both
singular crystal and the remotest things.
Cloud-shadows of seasons revisit the earth,
odourless myrrh bourne by the wandering kings . . .

Blessed Virgin Mary

Living Rosary on Saturday

OL giving rosaryThe Parish Council and the Holy Name Society of St. Stanislaus Church (State and Eld Streets, New Haven) are sponsoring the Living Rosary at the outdoor shrine of the Blessed Mother (located behind the church and next to the rectory, enter through the Eld Street entrance) on Saturday, May 14th, 3:00 p.m.
 
Prayers will be offered in English, Polish and Spanish.
 
Please join us in prayer and bring a friend. Marian devotion is key in our spiritual lives as Catholics.