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Lent

High Mass for Laetare Sunday

The Fourth Sunday in Lent or “Laetare Sunday” will be celebrated in a Latin High Mass at St. Stanislaus Church, State Street at Eld Street, in New Haven on March 27, at 2:00 pm.  The celebrant will be the Reverend Jan Pikulski.

Laetare Sunday marks the midpoint of the season of Lent in preparation for the great feast of Easter. On this day the Church takes “time out” from the penitential emphasis in the texts of the liturgy in Lent to encourage Christians with the reminder of the great reward of Christ’s redemptive presence in the world. The opening Introit at Mass “Laetare, Jerusalem” exhorts us as citizens of the New Jerusalem to rejoice as we enter the house of the Lord; the Epistle encourages us to rejoice in Christ as the true Moses who has released us from the bondage of the law and sin; and the Gospel, presenting the miracle of the multiplication of  loaves and fishes, reminds us to rejoice in the Eucharist, which is the figure of the heavenly banquet.

This spirit of rejoicing is reflected in the use of rose-colored vestments and the organ on this Sunday.  Fortified by this liturgy filled with thought of Easter, let us go forward in the second half of Lent with courage and generosity in our penance, prayer and charitable works.

Music for the service performed by members of the Schola Cantorum of the St. Gregory Society, will include the Gregorian chant proper for the Mass (Laetare), the motets “Memento salutis auctor” and “Ave verum Corpus” by William Byrd, and organ music by Byrd and Orlando Gibbons.

Catechesis, Lent

Mass for the Second Sunday in Lent

The Second Sunday in Lent will be celebrated in a traditional Latin High Mass at St. Stanislaus Church, State Street at Eld Street, in New Haven on March 6 at 2:00 pm. The celebrant will be the Reverend Matthew Mauriello.

Between Moses and Elias on Mount Tabor, Jesus shows forth his divine glory, thus foreshadowing His resurrection. He in Whom His Father was well pleased has joined Himself in fellowship with us, even taking on flesh like unto our sinful flesh, as St. Paul says. He died on the cross to make us co-heirs of His glory and the well-beloved children of His Father in heaven.  He is our elder brother and head; in our prayer we should claim kinship with Him; we should obey His law and unite ourselves with Him in our endeavor to purify ourselves and raise ourselves up towards God.  The texts of the liturgy of this second Sunday in Lent put before us all those dispositions of soul that should be ours in God’s presence in this glorious manifestation of the divinity of Jesus.

Let the light of the grandeur of Jesus transfigured prepare us for a contemplation of the humiliation of His Passion.

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 (Reminiscere), and polyphonic motets by Guillaume Dufay and Leon Leoni.

Lent, News

Mass for Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday will be celebrated in a traditional Latin Mass at St. Stanislaus Church, New Haven on Wednesday, March 2, at 5:30 pm. The celebrant will be The Reverend Jan Pikulski.  Ashes will be blessed and imposed immediately before the Mass begins.

One of the most important liturgical days of the year, Ash Wednesday opens the season of Lent, which extends for forty days through Holy Saturday (the Sundays during Lent are not included). These forty days remember the fast of our Lord in desert before his passion and death on the cross.

In the Old Law, ashes were generally a symbolic expression of grief, mourning, or repentance.  In the Early Church, the use of ashes had a like signification and with sackcloth formed a part of liturgical rites of the year.  It was originally instituted for public penitents, but is now intended for all Christians, as Lent should be a time of penance for all.  The ashes used this day are obtained by burning palms of the previous year.  Traditionally, they a re blessed by four ancient prayers, sprinkled with holy water and incensed, and then placed in the form of a cross on the foreheads of each of the faithful with the words, “Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.”  The ancient prayers of the blessing suggest suitable thoughts for the opening of Lent. They are summarized here:

“Almighty and everlasting God, spare the penitent … bless these ashes, that they maty be a remedy to all who invoke Thy Name … O God, who desirest not the death but the conversion of sinners, look in kindness upon our human frailty … and bless those ashes, so that we, who know ourselves to be but ashes … and that we must return to dust, may deserve to obtain pardon and the rewards offered to the penitent.”

Catechesis, News

Mass for Quinquagesima Sunday

Quinquagesima Sunday will be celebrated in a traditional Latin High Mass at St. Stanislaus Church, New Haven on Sunday, February 27, at 2:00 pm. The celebrant will be The Reverend Robert L. Turner, Pastor of St. Ambrose Parish, North Branford.

The third of the Sundays preparing us for the fast of Lent, Quinquagesima, the fiftieth day before Easter, signals that Ash Wednesday is close at hand. In the Gospel of St. Luke on this day, our Lord prepares His apostles for His coming sufferings, that is, His sacred Passion in Jerusalem. The blind man represents the sinners who break their relationship with God, rejecting the offer of the promises of the Kingdom because of fallen man’s own selfishness in pride. The cry of the blind man 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 members of 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), the motets “Ave Regina caelorum” by Guillaume Dufay and “Adoramus te, Christe by Orlando di Lasso, and organ music by Guillaume Nivers and Jean Titelouze.

 

News, Uncategorized

MASS FOR SEPTUAGESIMA SUNDAY

Septuagesima Sunday will be observed in a celebration of a High Mass at St. Stanislaus  Church, New Haven, this Sunday, 13 February, at 2:00 pm. The celebrant will be the Rev. Robert L. Turner, Pastor of St. Ambrose Parish, North Branford.

The three weeks between the end of the Christmas-Epiphanytide season of joyful celebration of the nativity and revelation of the incarnate Christ among us, and the penitential season of Lent anticipating Our Lord’s redemptive sacrifice of himself on Calvary on Good Friday, constitute a transitional period of meditation on our sinfulness and utter dependence on God. This period is commonly known as Shrovetide. From the opening of the introit of the Septuagesima Mass, “The sorrows of death surrounded me, the sorrow of hell encompassed me …” the texts of the liturgy are filled with a dark foreboding. The Gospel presenting the parable of the laborers in the vineyard is a reminder that we are all called to work in this lifetime for God’s glory in order to receive from Him according to His mercy the wages of eternal life.

Music for the service performed by the Schola Cantorum of the St. Gregory Society, will include the Gregorian chant Missa Orbis factor (Vatican ed. XI), the chant proper for the Mass (Circumdederunt  me), the motet “Ave Regina caelorum” by Nicholas Renouf, the shrovetide responsory “Media vita,” and organ music by Eugène Gigout and Paul de Maleingreau.