+++ HABEMUS PAPAM! +++

Let us pray for our new Vicar of Christ, Cardinal Robert Prevost, American-born, also a citizen of Peru, who has taken the name:

LEO XIV

He invoked Mary, Mother of God, in his initial speech. May our Mediatrix shower her graces upon his soul.

Most Holy Trinity, Have Mercy Upon Us!

Mary, Queen of Heaven, Pray For Us!

Saint Joseph, Pray For Us!

Saints Peter & Paul, Pray For Us!

Saint Michael the Archangel, Protect Our New Holy Father!

All Ye Angels & Saints of Heaven, Pray For Him and Us All!

Amen.

And we continue to pray for the eternal repose of Francis.

Amen.

VATICAN NEWS

We Keep Vigil....

…until the white smoke appears.

Thought for the Day

The Devil at his worst, is at his most self-defeating.

May is the Month of Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary

May is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, but begins with a feast of her earthly spouse, Saint Joseph the Worker.  This feast was instituted by Pope Pius XII in 1955 and remains the same in the post-Conciliar calendar.  Here is some of the original text:

“Wisdom rendered to the just the wages of their labours and conducted them in a wonderful way; and she was to them for a covert by day and for the light of stars by night; alleluia, alleluia.  Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.”

“O God, Creator of all things, who didst lay on the human race the law of labour:  graciously grant; that by following the example of Saint Joseph and under his patronage, we may carry out the work Thou dost command, and obtain the reward Thou dost promise.”

“Obtain for us, Joseph, grace to lead an innocent life; and may it ever be shielded by thy patronage.”

“From the work of our hands we offer sacrifice to Thee, O Lord; through the mediation of Saint Joseph may it be a pledge for us of union and peace.”

“Grant, O Lord, that what we have received may, by the intercession of blessed Joseph, crown our work and confirm our reward.”

The 11th is World Day of Prayer for Vocations, much needed.  The 15th is Saint Isidore the Farmer, invoked by gardeners and homesteaders…a great one for the topics we concern ourselves with here.  He is not to be confused with Saint Isidore, Archbishop of Seville and Doctor of the Church.  However, Isidore the Farmer was named after him, also being from Spain. 

The ASCENSION OF OUR LORD, on Thursday the 29th, is a Holyday of Obligation in the following provinces:  Boston, Hartford, New York, Omaha, and Philadelphia.  All other US provinces transfer the feast to Sunday, June 1st.  Ascension Thursday also possesses a vigil.

Remember the Major Rogation Day last month?  This month, the 26th, 27th and 28th are the Minor or Lesser Rogation Days.  They are traditional celebrations, similar to the Ember Days, in performing prayer and penance related to the season and the harvest.  I found a fabulous article at Catholic Culture connecting Saint Isidore the Farmer to the Rogation Days.  Here you will find references to the life of Saint Isidore and his wife Saint Maria de la Cabeza, the sanctity of the agrarian life, the liturgy of Saint Isidore, the Catholic Rural Life ministry, liturgical aspects of the Rogation Days and a number of links to prayers, more info on Rogation Days and Catholicism/Agrarianism…highly recommended reading…

SAINT ISIDORE THE FARMER & ROGATION DAYS

And now for OUR LADY…We have 3 Marian feasts:  Fatima on the 13th  (which celebrates the first of the 6 visions), and the Visitation & the Queenship of Our Lady on the 31st.  The 3rd is the First Saturday of the Immaculate Heart.  The First 5 Saturdays Communion of Reparation is one of Mary’s Fatima requests.  So in this month of Our Lady and the Fatima feast, isn’t it a great time to begin this devotion?  Check if your local parish performs this-if not, maybe you could start it!  See “Fatima Family Holy Hour” topic to the right>>> for a Fatima program we posted several years ago…to be done on the 13th of each month from May to October, including PDF’s.

Other notable feasts of May, in the trad and “new” calendars:

3rd-Saints Philip & James, Apostles

11th-Saints Philip & James, Apostles (trad)

14th-Saint Matthias, Apostle who replaced Judas

HOMESCHOOL ACTIVITIES FOR MAY

1)       Draw a picture of Our Lord’s Ascension.

2)      What were Our Lady of Fatima’s 4 main requests?

3)      Write an essay on the story of the 6 Fatima apparitions.  Follow this composition format:  Intro paragraph, 1 paragraph per apparition, concluding paragraph.

Pray for the Conclave: Novena & Litany

2025 Conclave Novena Prayer

Composed by Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke

From Cardinal Burke:

“The Church and the world have arrived at a most turbulent moment in their histories which are intimately related, for the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ is the instrument by which Our Lord continues His mission which is the salvation of the world. For the mission of Christ, the mission of the Church, the Roman Pontiff, the Successor of Saint Peter, fulfills an essential, indeed critical, service. According to the will of Our Lord, he “is the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 882).

The Sacred College of Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church will be soon gathering together in Papal Conclave to elect the Successor of Saint Peter, Vicar of Christ, Shepherd of the Universal Church. The intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary under her title Our Lady of Guadalupe is greatly needed so that the Cardinals in Conclave will humbly obey the promptings of the Holy Spirit and thus choose the most worthy man to fulfill the service of the Roman Pontiff, the Vicar of Christ on earth. 

Therefore, I ask that you join me in a Nine-Day Novena for the Papal Conclave…to Our Lady of Guadalupe, that she might plead for the Church at a time of great trial and danger, just as she came to the rescue of the Church at Tepeyac in 1531.” 

Litany for all Voting Cardinals

Take the “Pronounce All the Cardinals’ Names Challenge!”

A friend sent this litany to me. I don’t know where she got it, but it’s worth saying!

*** The Conclave begins May 7th and it usually only takes a few days for a Pope to be elected. ***

What is a Conclave? / For Conclave News....

Catholic News Agency explains:

What is a conclave and how does it work?

From Fr. Hardon’s Modern Catholic Dictionary:

CONCLAVE

“The enclosure of the cardinals while electing a pope. To avoid interference from the outside, Pope Gregory X, in 1274, ordered the papal election to take place in conclave. Gregory's own election was preceded by a record vacancy of two years and nine months. On occasion (for example, Pope Leo XIII) popes have permitted the cardinals, by majority vote, to dispense with conclave in case of emergency. Pope Paul VI, in the apostolic constitution Romano Pontifici Eligendo (October 1, 1975), introduced numerous changes in the laws governing the election of the Roman Pontiff. Thus: 1. only persons who have been named cardinals of the Church may be electors of the Pope; 2. the number of electors is now limited to 120, allowing each cardinal to bring two or three assistants to the conclave; 3. while the conclave is not strictly required for validity, it is the normal way a pope is elected, during what may be called a sacred retreat made in silence, seclusion and prayer; 4. three forms of election are allowed, i.e., by acclamation of all the electors, by compromise in which certain electors are given authority to act in the name of all, and by voting ballot; 5. if the newly elected person is a bishop, he becomes pope at once, but if he is not yet a bishop, he is to be ordained to the episcopacy immediately; 6. if no one is elected after three days, the conclave is to spend a day in prayer while allowing the electors freedom to converse among themselves; 7. secrecy is to be strictly observed under penalty of excommunication; 8. if an ecumenical council or synod of bishops is in progress, it is automatically suspended until authorized by the newly elected pontiff to proceed. (Etym. Latin con-, with + clavis, key: conclave, a room that can be locked up.)”

~ ~ ~

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For the Sake of His Sorrowful Passion...

Have Mercy on Us and on the Whole World!

I wanted to share something I discovered when reading the traditional Good Friday “Adoration of the Cross,” which is the third of four parts of that day’s liturgy.

There is a text shortly after the beginning of the Adoration, which reads:

O holy God! O holy strong One!

O holy immortal One, have mercy upon us.

I’m sure this is very familiar to all of you, the words of the prayer at the end of the Divine Mercy Chaplet:

Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One,

Have mercy on us and on the whole world.

Assuming Saint Faustina wrote those words, we now know where she most likely got it!

Some chaplet pamphlets will include an additional prayer from Faustina’s diary, “A Prayer for Divine Mercy.” Saying it this past week, I have been continually struck by the beauty of the last sentence:

“For Jesus is our Hope: through His merciful Heart as through an open gate,

we pass through to Heaven.”

It is fitting for this to be said during Paschal Time, as the Hebraic word “pasch” means “Passover” or “passage.” This originally referred to passing over the Red Sea. The idea of passage relates to so many facets of our Faith. There is a recurring theme of death leading to new life. Even nature sings this song, as the fallen leaves fertilize the ground for the next Spring. The sacramental life is all about various passages. The Passion, Resurrection and Ascension is all a flowing passage. It is an interwoven tapestry which gives us a lifetime of meditation upon these mysteries.

Easter Friday, Major Rogation Day / Dom Prosper Gueranger

Tomorrow, Easter Friday is a solemnity, as is every day in the Octave of Easter. Therefore, there is no Friday penance required.

However, the Major Rogation Day (or Greater Litanies) of April 25th still stands in the trad calendar, which typically IS a day of penance. Saint Mark’s feast is not celebrated.  So, how do we deal with the conundrum of a joyful Easter Week solemnity, in addition to a day of penance? 

Just so happens, I found the perfect answer to this question at Catholic Culture.  They gave an excerpt from Dom Prosper Gueranger’s The Liturgical Year, a 15-volume work written in the 19th century.  Here’s an excerpt of the excerpt…

“We gather from an expression of St. Gregory the Great that it was an ancient custom in the Roman Church to celebrate, once each year, a Greater Litany, at which all the clergy and people assisted. This holy Pontiff chose April 25 as the fixed day for this procession…The question naturally presents itself—why did St. Gregory choose April 25 for a procession and Station in which everything reminds us of compunction and penance, and which would seem so out of keeping with the joyous season of Easter?  [He explains the history of all this, see Catholic Culture link above for full piece]…

But there was a striking contrast resulting from this institution, of which the holy Pontiff was fully aware, but which he could not avoid: it was the contrast between the joys of Paschal Time and the penitential sentiments wherewith the faithful should assist at the procession and Station of the Great Litany. Laden as we are with the manifold graces of this holy season, and elated with our Paschal joys, we must sober our gladness by reflecting on the motives which led the Church to cast this hour of shadow over our Easter sunshine…”

It seems that Holy Church in her wisdom gives us the occasional reminder, when this date is within the Octave of Easter, that we are not to get too caught up in festivities.  Even after the long, penitential Lent, we must remain vigilant in this brief life, when our actions will determine our eternal fate.  This is what I glean from Gueranger’s analysis.  Read his words and see what you think.

Gueranger goes on to say that on this day, in Italy and France, there was abstinence from meat.  In France, it was also deemed a day of rest.  The Litany of the Saints would be prayed as well, through the centuries.  There was however, no fasting. 

So the answer seems to be:  Yes, be joyful, but give yourself a reminder of the Lent you just experienced.  Do not run to the opposite extreme and forget Our Blessed Lord on the Cross.  Do not abandon him, as did so many others.

So who was this intriguing Dom Gueranger, who wrote so eloquently?  Adoremus has an article written by Joseph O’Brien, a Catholic homesteader in Wisconsin (he’s quite the writer himself) on the book by Dom Guy Marie Oury:  Dom Gueranger: A Monk at the Heart of the Church.  Here’s a portion…

“Dom Guy Marie Oury’s [book]…is an important book, if only because it offers our dying culture a road map to recovery…It should come as a surprise to no one that our culture—and Western Civilization as a whole—is dying. I say this not as a matter of pessimism. Nor am I discounting divine intervention. But there are symptoms enough to show that our culture is very much like the ‘patient etherized upon a table’ in T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’…

The answer is right before our eyes—and present to our other senses as well—in the sacred liturgy [he follows with facts about the life and times of Gueranger]…

Dom Gueranger: A Monk at the Heart of the Church provides a fully drawn…portrait of the man who had almost singlehandedly renewed the liturgy as the cultural heart of the Church. It also provides a living example of how Catholics can save civilization, one celebration of the Holy Mass at a time.”

Isn’t it wonderful to revive these traditions that connect us, like a golden thread, with the Body of Christ, the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, through the ages?

  “I have no doubt that one day Catholicism will return to its place in this world, to which it alone holds the secret.”

Dom Prosper Gueranger

Divine Mercy Sunday ~ Plenary Indulgence

From the FSSP Liturgical Ordo:

“April 27, 2025, Divine Mercy Sunday: A plenary indulgence is granted to those who take part in the prayers and devotions held in honor of Divine Mercy, or who, in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament exposed or in the tabernacle, recite one Our Father and the Creed, adding a devout prayer to the merciful Lord Jesus. Those who for a just cause cannot get to church can gain the same indulgence by reciting one Our Father, the Creed, and a devout prayer to the merciful Lord Jesus before an image of the Divine Mercy.”

Note: The usual conditions for plenary indulgence (see link above) also apply. See if your parish is celebrating Divine Mercy Sunday with special devotions and use that opportunity to obtain the indulgence. Let your pastor know you appreciate this.

saint faustina, pray for us!

jesus, i trust in thee!

Easter Triduum Thoughts from FSSP

“Memento is a publication of the North American Province of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP).  It is published 10 times a year for the benefit of the supporters of the FSSP.”

If you support the traditional order of the Priestly Fraternity, you will receive the short newsletter mentioned above, at no additional cost.  It is very readable and very worth reading.  Here is a taste of what you will get, from their “Easter” April-May 2025 issue.  Here are a few quotes from 2 articles…

From the Provincial of the North American Province, Fr. William Lawrence:

“Without Our Divine Savior’s passion, death, and resurrection, death would have the ultimate victory over the human race, both physical and spiritual.”

“In the single most important aspect of our existence, our eternal salvation, we are unable to save ourselves, but are completely dependent upon the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ.”

“The ultimate goal of creation and each part of it, can only be the glory of God.”

“Only God can bring a greater good out of evil.  The greater the evil, the more opposed it is to good and thus the greater the glory of God in overcoming it and bringing forth the good.”

From Dr. David Arias, Professor of Philosophy at the Fraternity’s Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary, in Denton, Nebraska…he speaks of 2 mysteries related to the Resurrection, our bodily resurrection at the end of time and also the resurrection of the soul:

“According to the Angelic Doctor [Saint Thomas Aquinas], every time a sinner is justified by God’s grace, either in Baptism or by the forgiveness of mortal sin in Confession, his soul is quite literally raised from the dead.”

“St. Thomas and St. Augustine both maintain that when God raises souls from the dead, this divine work is greater than the creation of the heavens and the earth…

…every time God raises a soul from the dead through sanctifying grace, His act terminates at an imperishable supernatural good, namely, a created participation in the divine nature itself.”

Let us pray for the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter to flourish, receive many new vocations and continue to save souls throughout the world!  Please consider supporting them…and there may be a Fraternity parish near you, see above link.  My family has been very blessed by attending one of their parishes in New Jersey, Our Lady of Fatima, when we used to spend much time there.