Not a moment too soon to begin to plan your Corpus-Christi pilgrimage to Rocky Mount, Virginia.
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Sunday, June 2
8:00am Holy Mass
9:00am – 3:00pm
Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament
3:00pm
Solemn Procession with Benediction
4:00pm Picnic!
All living, breathing human beings are invited!
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Francis of Assisi
15 Glennwood Drive
Rocky Mount VA 24151
Hoyas 3-0! Yeah, buddy.
Speaking of which, it was nice to see our old homeboy Jeff Green on the court against the Wizards last night…
…Looking for an act of devotion in honor of the Solemnity of Christ the King?
Consider adding your e-signature to the Manhattan Declaration…
…After I finished high school, I got a job typing the reports of a company of local archaeologists.
The company specialized in pre-historic archaeology–that is, the study of artifacts produced by people who did not have writing.
In our area, you can discover a pre-historic artifact while you are out for a walk. There are still Algonquian arrowheads and potsherds lying on the surface of the earth.
Contrast this with archaeology in the Old City of Jerusalem. On Monday evening, we walked down four flights of steps from street level. We emerged into a cistern that was built to hold water for use in the Temple in the fifth century B.C.
There are books written about the building of that temple–they can be found in the Old Testament. My point is: In Jerusalem, archaelogists have dug and dug and dug, and they still have not gotten to the pre-historic level.
And here is some more perspective: In our day and age, since the beginning of the Digital/Organic Era (which began when Bill Gates’ net worth reached $1 trillion), “new” refers to something that came into being in the last half-nanosecond.
In Rome, there is a beautiful church called Chiesa Nuova, the “New Church.” It was completed in 1606.
In Jerusalem, the Nea, the “new” church in honor of Mary the Mother of God, has lay buried beneath the rubble of earthquake and Persian destruction for 1200 years.
Today is the day the Nea was dedicated in A.D. 543.
Our Lady was born in Jerusalem. She was among the girls who cared for the Temple paraphernalia.
When Mary brought the newborn Jesus to the Temple to present Him to the Father, she encountered the priest Simeon and the prophetess Anna. The three of them may already have known each other.
The above is a mosaic map of Christian Jerusalem. It is not easy to read. The Cardo, or main street, runs left to right through the middle of the city. The huge ancient basilica of the Holy Sepulcher is below the main street, the Nea is above it, to the right. There was an annual procession between the two churches.
…I am sorry that I allowed the following “Bests” list to get as stale as five-year-old granola bars. It is retired. An exciting new edition is available behind the Bests tab above.
…the patron saint of parish priests died. It is St. John Vianney’s Dies Natalis, the day he was born into the next lilfe.
Pope Benedict dedicated this year to priests because of this anniversary.
St. John Vianney’s heart is kept in a reliquary separate from the rest of his body. The heart is enshrined in a small chapel outside the basilica in Ars. The basilica houses both the entire parish church of Ars and the sepulchre of the saint.
Today, after Holy Mass in the Basilica, there was a somewhat rag-tag procession of the heart of the Curé through the town.
There is a monument down the hill from Ars which marks the place where the saint asked a boy to direct him to his new parish. (The priest was arriving on foot). He said to the boy: “If you tell me the way to Ars, I will tell you the way to heaven.”
Today the Curé’s heart was carried to this monument, as well as other places in the town. Looks like it was a pretty hot day over there. St. John Vianney never had air-conditioning, of course. And he hardly ever slept. And he ate only boiled potatoes.
But the main thing is that he loved the holy faith of the Church and never tired of teaching it.
T.S. Eliot wrote a complex, difficult, breathtaking poem for Ash Wednesday.
The Holy Father keeps Ash Wednesday in the Dominican church of Santa Sabina, on the Aventine Hill in Rome. He approaches the church in a solemn procession down Via Santa Sabina from the church of San Anselmo, which is about a quarter mile away.
First the poor Hoyas went from the basement to the sub-basement.
Then the pretty boy beat my man Roger.
Now, to give Rafi his due, he is incredible. His skills are amazing. But that is not the most impressive thing. As Dick Enberg put it: “Nadal does not play the score.”
Father Mark White Blog 