Venite Prandete

  ST ANTHONY OF PADUA 13th JUNE St Anthony’s feast day was not celebrated yesterday as it fell on a Sunday, but we cannot let his feast day pass without recognising this charming saint, who achieved so much during his lifetime, who was an incredible scholar and orator, but whose humility is such that he now devotes his time in heaven to, (lovingly, unbegrudgingly), finding our mislaid car keys, the lost beloved toys of your six-year–old daughter, forgotten passwords and bar coasters with hastily scribbled telephone numbers. St Anthony was a Portuguese Franciscan friar and priest, who was born to a wealthy family in Lisbon and died in Padua, Italy. He was noted for his powerful preaching, expert knowledge of Scripture, selfless devotion to the poor and sick and was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius XII. He initially had sought to engage in mission work in Morocco but became sick and returned to Europe, where he was assigned to a rural hermitage of Sao Paolo in Romagna, ...

  FEAST OF THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS THIRD FRIDAY AFTER PENTECOST The Missal provides, as for this Feast, as follows: Though the devotion to the Scared Heart of Jesus is of great antiquity in the Church, yet it was reserved to the Holy Mother Mary Alacoque, of the Order of the Visitation, in the year 1690, to make this devotion public. During the Octave of Corpus Christi, in the year 1690 our Blessed Lord appeared to His devoted handmaid, and disclosing to her his heart, said: ‘Behold this Heart which , notwithstanding the burning love for man with which it is consumed and exhausted, meets with no other return from the generality of Christians than sacrilege, contempt, indifference and ingratitude.’ But what will it avail us to have listened to these so just complaints of our Saviour, if we are not moved with compassion and generously resolved to testify our sorrow for our past indifference by honouring His Sacred Heart and by repairing, as far as lies in our power, the insults to ...

ST MARGARET OF SCOTLAND 10th JUNE   St Margaret (1045-16 November 1093) was the Queen of Scotland. She was born in Hungary, where her parents, the expatriate English prince, Prince Edward, were in exile, returning to England, in 1057. Following the death of King Harold II at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, her brother, Edgar Aetheling was considered as a successor to the throne. She is symbolic of just, good Christian rule. Her biography herein for her Feast Day is taken from Wikipedia: “When Edward the Confessor died in January 1066, Harold Goodwinson was selected as king, possibly because Edgar was considered too young. After Harold's defeat at the Battle of Hastings later that year, Edgar was proclaimed King of England but when the Normans Normans advanced on London, the Witenagemot presented Edgar to William the Conqueror, who took him to Normandy before returning him to England in 1068, when Edgar, Margaret, Cristina, and their mother Agatha fled north to Northumbria. “Agatha ...

  THE FEAST OF THE HOLY TRINITY 30th MAY      Luca Rosetti da Orta, "The Holy Trinity" (1705-1770) Father Weiser tells us of the Feast of the Holy Trinity: The greatest dogma of the Christian faith is the mystery of the Holy Trinity. (Mystery in this connection, means a supernatural fact revealed by God which in itself transcends the natural power of human reasoning). During the first thousand years of Christianity there was no special feast celebrated in honour of this mystery, but, as Pope Alexander II (1073) declared, every day of the liturgical year was devoted to the honour and adoration of the Sacred Trinity.” Father Weiser observed that a Mass in honour specifically of the Holy Trinity was celebrated to counteract the Arian heresy, which was taken up by the ninth century by various bishops in the Frankish kingdoms on a special feast of the Holy Trinity which was usually set on the Sunday after Pentecost. Then in 1334 Pope John XXII accepted the festival into t...

  PENTECOST SUNDAY Fra Angelico, "St Peter Preaching on Pentecost", (1433). THE SEQUENCE: VENO SANCTE SPIRITUS Veni Sancte Spiritus Et emitte coalitus Lucis tuae radium. Veni pater pauperum, Veni dator munerum; Veni lumen cordium. Consolator optime; Dulcis hospes animae Dulce refrigerium. In labore requies, In Aestu temperies, In feltu Solatium. O lux beatissima, Reple Cordis intima. Tuorum Fiedlium. Sine tuo numine. Nihil est in homine, Nihil est innoxium. Come Thou Holy Spirit, come, And from Thy celestial home shed a ray of light divine. Come Thou Father of the poor, Come Thou source of all our store, Come within our bosoms shine. Thou of Comforters the best, Thou the soul’s delightful guest, Sweet refreshments here below. In our labour rest most sweet, Pleasant coolness in the heat, Solace in the midst of woe. O most blessed Light divine, Shine within these hearts of Thine, And our inmost being fill. Where Thou art not, man hath nought, nothing good in deed or thought, no...

  BLESSED JOHN FOREST – MARTYRED 22nd MAY 1538                               Blessed John Forest, nave statue – St Etheldra, Ely Place, London. John Forest was a Franciscan Friar. Confessor to Queen Catherine of Aragon under King Henry VIII, he was burned to death for heresy by refusing to acknowledge King Henry VIII as the head of the Church. He was born in 1471 and became a Franciscan Friar Minor of the regular Observance in 1491. He studied at Oxford University and became provincial of the Observant Friars in England, situated at Greenwich friary, which was attached to the Royal Palace at Greenwich. He thus became confessor to Queen Catherine of Aragon. In November 1532, as Guardian of the Greenwich friary, Forest spoke to the friars of the plans King Henry had to suppress the Franciscan Order in England. He denounced from the pulpit Henry’s plans for a divorce. In 1533 he was imprisoned in...

  ST RITA OF CASCIA FEAST DAY 22nd MAY St Rita is a pretty formidable saint: she is the patroness of impossible causes, along with St Jude, abused wives and heartbroken women. She is an intercessor for challenging marriages, for saving difficult children, feuding relatives, spiritual mothers and vocations. St Rita is another example of those strong, faithful and just women who seem to prevail in Catholic history. She was born Margherita Lotti in 1381 in Cascia, (near Umbria, Italy), to parents who are described as noble people, such that they were called Conciliatore di Cristo, (Peacemakers of Christ). She was married young - Wikipedia says at 12, another account at 18 years of age - in an arranged marriage by her parents. Her husband, Paolo Mancini, was renowned as a quick-tempered and immoral man who had many enemies in the region of Cascia. Rita endured his insults, infidelities and abusive behaviour for many years. God blessed the marriage with two sons. It lasted 18 years, dur...

  THE FEAST OF THE ASCENSION THURSDAY 13th MAY                         Michaelangelo, "The Ascension" The Feast of the Ascension is a Holy Day of Obligation by which, forty days after the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection from the dead, we celebrate His Ascension into heaven, recounted by St Luke in Acts (1:1-11), in which Christ said to His disciples: “But you shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth. And when He had said these things, while they looked on, He was raised up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they were beholding him going up to heaven, behold two men stood by them in white garments. Who also said: Ye men of Galilee, why stand you looking up to heaven? This Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, as you have s...

  THE ASCENSION PROCESSION IN ORCIVAL, IN THE AUVERGNE REGION OF FRANCE ASCENSIO N DAY 13th MAY NOTRE DAME DES FERS (Our Lady of the Irons (or Shackles)) Orcival is situated in the Auvergne region of France, the most beautiful and historic town, with an ancient church, Notre Dame d’Orcival, in which a truly beautiful black Madonna is situated in a glass case on the altar of the Basilica, brought to the original church more than 1,000 years ago and said to have been carved by St Luke himself. The statue is called “Notre Dame Des Fers” or “Our Lady of the Shackles”, its special place in Catholic history illustrated by the many leg irons and shackles that are hung from the walls of the Basilica. These shackles are the irons of slaves, many of them captured French, Celt or Slavic people. The statue was brought to the primitive church (the church preceding the current Basilica) but was buried at a time when the area was invaded by barbarians. The place where she was buried is called La...