MOST HOLY TRINITY PARISH
10,000 PHEASANT RD.
EL PASO, TEXAS 79924
FR. TOM O’MAHONY, PASTOR FR. PAUL D. O’TOOLE, ASSOCIATE
At each of the six Fatima apparitions in 1917 Our Blessed Lady said:- MAY 13:- “Say the ROSARY every day to obtain peace for the world.” JUNE 13:- “I want you to say the ROSARY every day.” JULY 13:- “I want you to continue to say the ROSARY every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary.” AUGUST 13:- “I want you to continue to say the ROSARY every day.” SEPT. 13:- “Continue to say the ROSARY.” OCT. 13:- “I want to tell you that I am Our Lady of the Rosary; continue to say the ROSARY every day.”
“Never will a soul faithful to the daily recitation of the Rosary be guilty of formal heresy or be deceived by the Devil; these words I am willing to endorse with my own blood.” ST. LOUIS MARIE DE MONTFORD
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THE SACRED READINGS (C)
Acts 13: 14, 43-52:
(a) The events enacted at Antioch were repeated three times in the course of St. Paul’s missionary journeys. Paul, as was his custom, addressed himself first of all to the Jews, but on being rejected by them he turned his attention to the Gentiles. Each time we are told that this was the will of God. In today’s reading Luke gives us the first occasion this happened; in 18, 6 we find Paul in Corinth and when insulted and rejected by the Jews he told them: “Your blood be on your own heads; from now on I can go to the pagans (Gentiles) with a clear conscience”; finally in Rome (28, 23-28) we see that most of the Jews refused to accept his teaching and so Paul, after quoting Isaiah, says: “Understand, then, that this salvation of God has been sent to the pagans (Gentiles); they will listen to it.”
(b) Everyone should read Acts 13, 16-41 which, according to biblical scholars, contains a resume of the type of sermon Paul was wont to use in addressing the Jews. Notice how Paul, like Peter, stressed the resurrection, attested to by so many witnesses, as the divine seal of approval on Christ’s claim to divinity.
(c) An interesting feature of today’s scene is contained in Verse 50. It is stated that the Jews opposing Paul established an active opposition by stirring up “influential women sympathizers” to put Paul out of circulation.
Never underestimate the power of a woman!
Apocalypse (Revelation) 7, 9 and 14-17:
(a) In the earlier chapters John warned the persecuted Christians of his time of the sufferings that will befall them. In today’s reading there is a description of the Church triumphant in heaven, which was intended to encourage these Christians to persevere in fidelity. The reward was worth it all.
The “great multitude” includes people of “every nation and race, tribe and language”. These are the Christians of the new dispensation, the followers of Christ crucified, who take up their crosses and follow Him to Calvary by mortifying their bodies and observing the Ten Commandments.
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(b) The imagery used in apocalyptic literature is taken from the Old Testament. “Palms” signify victory; “white robes” – heavenly glory.
(c) Note that John, again using Old Testament language, says that the “Lamb” (Christ) will be their “Shepherd”. He will be their leader, their protector, their source of happiness.
John 10, 27-30:
(a) These four verses are extracted from a lengthy talk Jesus gave in the temple area on the feast of dedication, which was an annual celebration of the restoration of the temple by the Macabees in 165 B.C.
(b) In 10, 24 the Jews asked Christ: “How much longer are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Today’s pericope is part of Christ’s answer. He said (10, 25-6), “I have told you, but you do not believe; the works (miracles) I do in My Father’s Name are my witness, but you do not believe because you are no sheep of mine.”
Students of the Old Testament are aware that sheep was the usual image of those who remained faithful to God. As we say in Psalm 23: “The Lord is my Shepherd!” (Read Ezek. 34 and Psalm 72, Gen. 48, 15; Ps. 28, 9f).
(c) Our Lord gives the principal mark of a true follower of His when He says: “My sheep hear My voice.” This means, not only listening to and studying His teaching, but above all living in accordance with it. As Christ said on another occasion (John 14, 14): “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” Read today’s text where Christ says the same thing: “They will follow Me”. St. James also stresses this truth in his beautiful epistle, and well he might, since we humans are very adept at deceiving ourselves.
(d) Our Lord’s promise to protect His sheep from harm is premised, of course, on our love, loyalty and trust in Him. “I know them” in biblical language means more than the words themselves suggest. They express the ineffable love of God for us and a sharing in the divine nature, by which we become children of God in a very real sense of the word. As Christ says: “I give them eternal life” even in this world through sanctifying grace. How often do we pause and meditate on this marvelous gift?
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(e) Some theologians and biblical scholars have revived the old error that Christ was unsure of Himself and did not fully know who He was. SUPERSTAR is a dramatization of this false view. We recommend the reading of the entire gospel of St. John in which it is perfectly evident that Christ always knew who He was. See, for example, today’s pericope: “I and the Father are One”; also, 5, 19; 5, 30; 6; 35 and 40; 8, 28; 14, 9-10.
PSALM 100:
This is called a hymn or psalm of praise. Our Lady’s ‘Magnificat’ and Zechariah’s ‘Benedictus’ belong to the same group. They consist of (1) an Introduction: the intention to praise God; (2) Main Section: motives of praise; and (3) a Conclusion.
REFLECTIONS:
The Responsorial Psalm 100 beautifully expresses the love of God for us – “We are His people; the sheep of His flock… He made us, His we are; His people; the flock He tends. The Lord is good: His kindness endures forever, and His faithfulness, to all generations.”
The Paschal Season brought, as it were, to a tremendous climax the love of God for sinful man. He created us out of love, died in reparation for our sins and rose again so that we too might live a new life as children of God with a right of inheritance to eternal life.
We must constantly meditate on God’s personal love for us. “Love calls forth love”, writes the Seraphic Theresa, “therefore every time you remember Jesus, remember the benefits He has heaped upon you.”
Mere meditation, however, is not enough. Affective prayer is absolutely essential and it should surely follow from our reflections. We must speak to God, keep in touch with Him. And until you love Him you will lack the enthusiasm, the willingness to take up your cross and follow Him.
Lack of daily prayer, of a daily communication with God, is the ultimate cause of laxity and sin. Therefore, gratitude should urge us to remain faithful to it.
Finally, ask yourself today if you are following Christ as sheep follow their shepherd OR are you slaves of your own selfish desires? Are you seeking an “easy Christianity” (Paul VI) and living like the pagans around you?
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Do you love Christ enough to give up artificial birth-control, abuse of alcohol and drugs? Look at the crucifix and see how much He loves you. Can you in all honesty look into His eyes and tell Him that you love HIM? Or must you hang your head in shame and tell Him that you won’t follow Him to Calvary, even though He will walk by your side and sustain and comfort you?
If you were to die at this moment and appear before Christ as your judge, could you excuse your infidelities?
NEXT WEEK’S READINGS
(1) Acts 14, 21-27. (2) Revelation 21: 1-5. (3) John 13: 3-35. (4) Psalm 145.
Nothing spoils a good story like an eyewitness.
A customer with an overdue electric bill got this note from his power company: “We would be delighted if you would pay your bill. YOU will be de-lighted if you don’t.”
THE CAUSE OF OUR JOY OR THE RELEVANCY OF MARY
An article in TWIN-CIRCLE in 1977 by the penetrating and luminous pen of Cardinal John Wright, Prefect of the Vatican Congregation For the Clergy, deserves to be known and read meditatively by all Catholics. It deals with the privilege of the Immaculate Conception and shows how, as a consequence, Our Blessed Lady is truly relevant to modern man. Wordsworth, the English Protestant poet, summarized it all, when he called her “our tainted nature’s solitary boast”.
The taint spoken of by Wordsworth is, of course, original sin as it relates to us. It is an inherited defect due to the sin of our first parents, and from this defect we have a tendency to evil. In other words, we are all conceived and born selfish. Every sin is ultimately an act of selfishness and the purpose of asceticism is to place the human will with God’s grace in command of our unruly nature. Human nature is, in Catholic teaching, “deprived but not depraved”, as the Cardinal rightly points out.
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The latter was the false conclusion of Calvin and other Protestant theologians.
Since Mary was conceived without this “inherited shadow of guilt or tendency toward sin”, she becomes for us “a symbol of hope” (ibid), “a constant beacon illuminating what we are called to be.” (ibid)
“Catholic theology” writes the Cardinal, “likes to speculate on what must have been the dignity and beauty of human nature at the beginning and therefore speaks of Mary as the New Eve, just as if she had come directly from the creative hand of God in the innocence of our first parents when evil had not entered their lives ….”
“… the Blessed Mother becomes the unique example of what in varying degrees all who achieve sanctity can become.”
“In our generation the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception takes on a special significance. It provides a symbol of hope or, as we have suggested, it makes possible a SPIRITUAL OPTIMISM WHICH IS, IN FACT, THE GREATEST SINGLE NEED OF THE MOMENT” (emphasis added).
“To a world … torn apart by vertical and horizontal divisions, sharpened by sin and, above all, self-will, the Church offers the example of Mary Immaculate, totally human but saturated from the beginning with that spirit of eternity and God Himself, which alone can integrate individuals and reconcile nations and neighbors. Human nature, as it was present in the mother of Jesus, is a constant beacon illuminating what we are called to be, a symbol of our hopes that we too may find in Him our peace. In compliance to His Will and nowhere else lies our perfection.
“Just at the moment in history when we are tempted by the successes of organized evil and brutal force to believe that we are powerless to prevail over evil, our pessimism is rebuked by the Holy Spirit by whom the Church proposes to use the symbol of hope contained in the figure of the Immaculate Conception. As Cardinal Newman repeatedly expressed it: In the figure of the Immaculate Conception we behold the clear vision of what human nature was originally called to be and what, therefore, by God’s grace and cooperation with us, we may determine to become.
“Even brief reflection on the subject enables us to see that, although we cannot claim the privileges allowed to Mary, we possess, nonetheless, the same nature which was created in Eve and which is symbolized in Mary’s singular perfection. This is the same nature which is tainted in us but not intrinsically corrupted. That is why we salute on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception the Blessed Mother as the cause of our joy, not only because she gave Jesus to the world, but also she is the pattern and symbol of what grace can accomplish: our life, our sweetness, and our hope, as our ancestors so fervently hailed her.”
Have you heard about the joke editor that threw a bunch of jokes into the stove. The first just roared.
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(Continued from Page 1)
“Pray for sinners.” — OUR LADY OF LOURDES TO ST. BERNADETTE
THE BLUE ARMY PLEDGE
Dear Queen and Mother, who promised to convert Russia and bring peace to all mankind, in reparation to your Immaculate Heart for my sins and the sins of the whole world, I solemnly promise: 1) To offer up every day the sacrifices demanded by my daily duty; 2) To say parts of the Rosary (five decades) daily while meditating on the mysteries; 3) To wear the Scapular of Mt. Carmel as profession of this promise and as a sign of consecration to you. I shall renew this promise often, especially in moments of temptation.
“We do not wish to pass over in silence the Blessed Virgin’s most express approval of this form of prayer (the Rosary), given to us in this very age. When she appeared in the grotto of Lourdes she taught the simple and innocent maiden this prayer by her example.” — Pope Pius XI, 1937.
“We earnestly encourage all Christians to give themselves to the recital of the pious devotion of the Rosary publicly or privately in their own home and family, and that unceasingly.” — Pope Leo XIII, 1883.
FOR YOUR INFORMATION:
THE LESSON OF NICARAGUA
The Pope’s visit to Nicaragua was not a happy one as the Junta and their followers treated him rudely. This was especially noticeable during the concelebrated mass in the “19 July Square” in Managua on Friday, March 4, 1983. During his homily a noisy crowd of Sandinistas tried to drown out the Pope’s voice by shouting political slogans and manipulating the microphones.
Nicaragua is, of course, a Communist state, as the Junta itself has publicly stated; but five priests occupy government offices, in spite of the Pope and their bishops, and thus give a false impression to the unwary observer. Efforts are gradually being made to found a “popular or people’s church” independent of the Pope and Bishops, and in this the Junta is receiving help from foreign-born priests and religious. This is also true in neighboring El Salvador.
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That, in brief, is the state of the Church in Nicaragua, and as time goes on it will become worse, as the so-called “literacy campaign” was, according to a Mexican Bishop, nothing more nor less than a program to indoctrinate the people, especially the young, in Communism.
The best sources for material on the troubles affecting the Church in Nicaragua are the Pope’s letter to the Nicaraguan Bishops in August, 1982, and his homily at the mass in Managua. Here are a few excerpts from his homily published in L’OSSERVATORE ROMANO, 28 March 1983:
“The unity of the Church is called in question when the powerful factors which constitute and maintain it — faith itself, the revealed Word, the sacraments, OBEDIENCE TO THE BISHOPS AND TO THE POPE (emphasis in text), the sense of vocation and mutual responsibility in Christ’s mission in the world — are relegated to a position inferior to earthly considerations, unacceptable ideological commitments, temporal options, even concepts of the Church which supplant the true one.
“Yes, dear Central American and Nicaraguan Brothers, when the Christian, whatever his condition may be, prefers any other doctrine or ideology to the teaching of the Apostles and of the Church, when these doctrines are made the criterion of our vocation, when an attempt is made to re-interpret according to their categories the catechesis, religious teaching and preaching, when “parallel Magisteria” are established, as I said in my inaugural address at the Puebla Conference (28 January, 1979), then the unity of the Church is weakened, the exercise of its mission of being the “Sacrament of Unity” for all men is made more difficult.
“The Unity of the Church … means and requires the SUBMISSION OF OUR DOCTRINAL CONCEPTS and of our pastoral projects to the MAGISTERIUM OF THE CHURCH (emphasis in text), represented by the Pope and the Bishops. This also applies to the field of the social teaching of the Church set out by my predecessors and by myself.
“No Christian, and still less any person who has a special title of consecration in the Church, may become responsible for the rupture of this unity, by ACTING BEYOND OR AGAINST THE WILL OF THE BISHOPS ….” (Emphasis in text).
“As I said earlier in my letter to your Bishops, a divided church cannot fulfill its mission. Therefore I warned how ‘absurd and dangerous’ it is ‘to imagine’ alongside — not to say against — the Church built up around the Bishop ANOTHER CHURCH conceived only as a ‘charismatic’ and not institutional, ‘new’ and not traditional, alternative and, as lately announced, a popular Church.'”
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“It (the Church) must remain united to proclaim the true message of the gospel — according to the norms of tradition and of the Magisterium — and to be free of distortions due to whatever human ideology or political program.”
“The Eucharist which is placed at the service of one’s own ideas and opinions, or ends foreign to it is no longer a Eucharist of the Church. Instead of uniting, it divides.”
“… this unity (of all Christians) can be based only on Jesus Christ, on one baptism, and on the common profession of faith. … Any other use of the ecumenical commitment can only lead to the creation of an illusory unity and, finally, to the causing of new divisions.”
One can see in the above the results of the so-called “liberation theology”, which has been condemned by Rome. Using ecclesiastical terminology it has given different meanings to the words, like the Communists who use an Aesopian language. In this way it fools many into accepting its arguments, and eventually into severing all connection with the institutional Church of Rome. The “base or basic communities”, so popular in Latin America, have for the most part, been the schools in which this false theology has been promoted. Ostensibly set up to promote knowledge of the Bible and to discuss social problems in its light, the leaders have succeeded in re-interpreting the Bible in the light of perverted theology.
This should be a warning to all Catholics that without a deep knowledge of the catechism it is dangerous to seek in the Bible the answers to life. The Bible is not an encyclopedia nor was it intended as a catechetical text. The living Magisterium of the Church was in existence before the New Testament was written by some of its members. This living Magisterium, the Pope and Bishops in communion with him, are the teachers, not the Bible. In fact, there are two sources of revelation, which the Magisterium interprets and passes on to us, and these are the Bible and tradition. By “tradition” is understood the age-old teaching of the Magisterium, passed on from generation to generation.
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THE POPE SPEAKS: ON CATHOLIC SCHOOLS
“… I believe it is necessary to reflect briefly with you on the nature and aims of the Catholic School. The Second Vatican Council has already wisely made a pronouncement on the subject: ‘It is … the distinctive purpose of the Catholic school to create for the school community an atmosphere enlivened by the gospel spirit of freedom and charity …. To help the adolescent in such a way that the development of his own personality will be matched by the growth of the new creation which he becomes in baptism. … To relate all human culture eventually to the news of salvation, so that the light of faith will illumine the knowledge which students gradually gain of the world, of life, and of mankind’ (GRAVISSIMUM EDUCATIONIS, N. 8). This implies a clear responsibility on the part of all the members of the school itself: first of all, of the teachers, but then necessarily also the students, and not last of the parents. The Catholic School must distinguish itself from state schools not only on an organizational and methodological level, i.e., by greater didactic seriousness, but also by a totally specific overall form which places both the subject matter and the person of the student in the wider framework of the divine plan of man, realized and proposed in Jesus Christ. Only in this way will it ‘contribute so substantially to fulfilling the mission of God’s people, and further the dialogue between the Church and the family of man, to their mutual benefit’ (ibid). All this must come about without controversial opposition, but with the firm awareness of seeing only the truth and with the clear prospect of offering the witness of a harmonious concept of man and of its promotion.” — L’OSSERVATORE ROMANO, 17 January 1983, p. 5
THE NEWS YOU DIDN’T SEE OR HEAR IN THE MAJOR MEDIA
On March 24, 1983, Congressman Bill Young, Florida, inserted the following FBI Report into the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD: “Soviet leaders have publicly backed the peace and nuclear freeze movements, seeing an opportunity to encourage opposition in the West to current U.S. Arms control and defense policies. Through official communiques, propaganda, and active measures operations, the Soviets have maneuvered to align themselves with popular sentiments of the peace movements in the United States and Western Europe, with the prospect that Western public opinion might dissuade Western governments from deploying the new weapons systems.”
The FBI also stated that “the principal objectives of the KGB are to collect information on the U. S. peace movements and to recruit sources to penetrate and influence the movement.” And, after mentioning a half-dozen Soviet-front organizations in this country, the FBI added: “KGB officers have also collected personal and biographical information on several peace activists in the U.S. The purpose of this exercise is to identify those peace activists who are likely to cooperate with the Soviet government and to determine if any of these individuals are vulnerable to Soviet recruitment operations.”