On Saturday, October 26th, 2019, the Reverend Mr. William Rock, FSSP, will be ordained to the Sacred Priesthood by His Excellency the Most Reverend Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan. The ordination will take place at 10:30 a.m. at St. Mary’s Church, our apostolate in Providence, Rhode Island, with first blessings and a reception to follow. Bishop Schneider will celebrate the 8 a.m. Low Mass the following day, Sunday, October 27th, and Mr. Rock will celebrate the 10 a.m. High Mass with first blessings afterwards. All are welcome!

This is the second time the Fraternity has had the privilege of welcoming Bishop Schneider as our ordaining bishop: in May of 2014, he came to St. Cecilia Cathedral in Omaha to confer Holy Orders on seven of our deacons. We are grateful for the opportunity to welcome him once again, and moreover, to one of our own parishes! The beautiful and historic church of St. Mary became an FSSP apostolate last year, with Fr. John Berg, FSSP, assigned as its first pastor.

For more information, you can download the flyer below or visit St. Mary’s website here. More details will follow in coming weeks regarding all the events surrounding the ordination, so stay tuned to the Missive for the latest. If you plan to attend, please RSVP on that same webpage by October 14th, 2019, and be sure to check out the discounted room rate available at the nearby Marriot for ordination attendees.

Please pray for Mr. Rock as he prepares to begin his life as a priest of God! +

If the name Randy Shed sounds familiar, it might be if you remember the Solemn High Mass that took place at Holy Trinity, the parish on the West Point campus, back in January of this year. It was Major Shed, a captain at the time, who was the mover and shaker behind that event, and he told us more about it, how he came to the Church and to the Latin Mass, and what being a faithful Catholic has to do with being a faithful soldier.

Major Shed hails from Rolla, Missouri, the son of two civilian employees of the Army. In addition to being raised in a military environment and enjoying war films growing up, he was motivated to serve by the events of 9/11 and by a history teacher who would inspire his students with stories from the Civil War and took them to visit the battlegrounds of Gettysburg and Vicksburg. Major Shed subsequently graduated from the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point in 2008, and as an infantry officer served two tours of deployment, one each in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A convert to Catholicism, Major Shed’s journey to the Faith began while attending graduate school at Columbia University in New York City. He remembers a teacher speaking on the idea of truth and how truth is subjective. He knew that this was absolutely erroneous.

“It kind of jostled me,” he said. “There’s got to be one truth out there.”

So he began to look at different aspects of his life that this idea of truth could apply to, including his faith. After the birth of their third child, his wife, Major Michelle Shed of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, who was raised Catholic, returned to the Faith of her upbringing. She told her husband that they needed to start practicing the faith that they professed, and she began taking the kids to Mass on Sunday while the other Maj. Shed stayed home. Maj. Shed himself was raised Christian, but had fallen away from regular church attendance.

One Sunday soon after, while Maj. M. Shed and the kids were at Mass, Maj. R. Shed remembers standing in his living room, looking at his dog Molly, who looked back at him as if to say, “You know that you should be there.” Maj. Shed indeed knew that, regardless of his own faith background, he needed to be there with his family. So he told his wife later that as the husband, as the father, as the leader of the household, he considered it imperative that he be there with his family at church, and if Catholic Mass was what they were attending for now, so be it.

He subsequently found himself attending Mass at Holy Trinity Parish at West Point, listening to a sermon by the chaplain, Fr. Pawlikowski, and as Providence would have it, the sermon was on apostolic succession. Fr. Pawlikowski explained that Christ had established a visible Church on earth, which He had entrusted to His Apostles and who had handed it on to their successors. Those successors had, in turn, handed the teachings and traditions of the Church on to their successors and so on, even to the present day. Each Bishop is a successor of one of the Apostles that sat at the feet of Our Lord.

“That absolutely blew my mind,” said Maj. Shed.

He proceeded to return home and devour everything he could find on the Catholic Faith. It wasn’t long before everything began to line up for him, and he entered the Church on Easter 2016.

Maj. Shed first encountered the Latin Mass when Fr. Ken Bolan celebrated a Low Mass at West Point. Even though Maj. Shed couldn’t hear most of what the priest was saying, he was struck by the ostensible sacredness of what was happening. You could tell, he said, that something was going on up there on the altar. In his research he discovered that there was something called a Solemn High Mass in this same “family” of Masses, and he heard his first one at St. Mary’s Church in Norwalk, Connecticut.

“It was the most beautiful thing on earth,” he said. “It was literally Heaven on earth.”

Maj. Shed met the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter at Our Lady of Fatima Chapel in Pequannock, NJ, where he attended a morning Low Mass and listened to the priests chanting the Divine Office before conversing with them afterwards. Recalling another Low Mass he attended at the National Shrine of St. Alphonsus Liguori, our apostolate in Baltimore, MD, he spoke of the effect the Mass had upon him.

“I remember being able to pray, being able to unite myself, my whole being with what was going on at the altar in an intimate way,” he said.

And certainly this 175-year-old Shrine, with its soaring Gothic Revival arches and celestial sanctuary, draws the soul to the contemplation of the divine. It is also a piece of American history, a Baltimore landmark whose former pastors include St. John Neumann, the fourth bishop of Philadelphia and the first male American citizen to be canonized. It was under the roof of this American treasure that Maj. Shed met a kindred spirit: St. Alphonsus pastor Fr. Joel Kiefer is himself a West Point grad and former Army officer.

There was no question that this beautiful liturgy had taken a profound hold on Maj. Shed. He sought to bring what he had experienced to West Point, and St. Mary’s in Norwalk, with the permission of the priests at West Point, was able to provide it. It was the first Solemn High to be celebrated at the United States Military Academy in decades.

We asked Maj. Shed about his views on being a Catholic soldier. He said he looks to his patron saint, St. Maurice of the Theban Legion, for an example of what it means to be a soldier and an officer. He mentioned that patriotism and love of country are ideals supported by the Church, that principles such as just war theory have their roots in Catholicism and that the ideas of sacrifice and service in Catholicism translate over into the military.

“I also think one of the big things is care of soldiers,” he added. “Catholicism teaches you how to genuinely love the people you are around. What is love? Willing the good of the other as other. As a leader, if you want to lead people, you gotta love them.”

And what he says echoes the words of Servant of God Chaplain Emil Kapaun. He is a beloved figure at West Point, Maj. Shed says, “because of the way he lived his life. Giving the full measure of one’s life for your soldiers in the capacity of chaplain.” Chaplain Kapaun said: “Men find it easy to follow one who has endeared himself to them.”

The Latin Mass has a particular appeal for those in the military, says Maj. Shed, and a desire for it exists within military communities. Referring to the order and discipline with which the Latin Mass is celebrated, he says, “just on the surface, the precision of the movements, the direction, the submission to the rubrics, that is very much woven in the fabric and the understanding of military people. We understand things like drill and ceremony and deeper meanings behind things.”

Maj. Shed strongly supports bringing the Latin Mass into military communities, since he believes it will find a welcome home there. It certainly seems that way from our perspective. The Fraternity not only counts former military men among its priests, but some of our parishes are situated close to military bases and hence see a lot of servicemembers in the pews. And, for the first time, the Fraternity has begun a military chaplaincy with the assignment of Fr. Kenneth Webb to the Canadian Forces Support Unit in Ottawa, Ontario on August 1st.

Now stationed at the Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the Sheds continue to attend the Latin Mass near their new assignment, often at St. Rose Philippine Duchesne, our apostolate in Kansas City. Through the efforts of those like the Sheds, who found themselves so inspired by the Latin Mass, perhaps “the most beautiful thing on earth” will find its way into many more military communities. It only makes sense that those who live out ideals of sacrifice would be drawn to a liturgy where the idea of sacrifice is so tangible, and those with hearts for tradition would be such fertile ground for the growth of the most ancient and glorious Tradition of them all. +

This story is part of a continuing series highlighting Catholic life in the military and the FSSP’s work with our servicemembers. If you have a story you’d like to share, please send us an email at missive@fssp.com.

by Ms. Katie Walton

This summer, seventy children came together for the second annual Corpus Christi Summer Camp hosted by Corpus Christi Chapel, the FSSP apostolate in Naples, Florida. The camp took place during the Octave of Pentecost and concluded with a Sung Mass for Trinity Sunday. It was perfect timing since the theme of the camp was “GOTBeauty,” a handy acronym FSSP Naples chaplain Fr. Jonathan Romanoski used to present the four transcendentals of the One Triune God: goodness, oneness, truth and beauty.

Every morning Fr. Romanoski and assistant chaplain Fr. Joshua Passo gave talks to the campers about various aspects of the four transcendentals. Students learned about the beautiful symbolism of the sacred image, Our Mother of Perpetual Help. They discovered that, as sacramentals, relics are gifts of God which help dispose us to grace. They practiced discerning the three qualities of beauty – proportion, integrity and clarity – in sacred art, and they discussed how the music we listen to can affect body and soul. Fittingly for the Octave of Pentecost, they were instructed about the language and symbolism of the Holy Ghost.

After these mini-classes, students had an opportunity to experience the beauty of sacred music with seminarian, Mr. Jared Leonard, and two parishioners, Nicky Rutherford and Katie Walton. Older campers learned how to sing a simple polyphonic Mass, and younger campers learned important chants and hymns including Credo III, Adoro Te Devote, Ave Maria and Soul of My Savior.

After working hard at singing, campers were able to relax and spend ample time in recreation. Many enjoyed playing soccer with Fr. Passo and Mr. Leonard, despite the Florida heat, while others attempted to capture the flag with counselors Paul Dinan and Danny Battis. In the gym, some campers tried – and often failed – to “knock out” Fr. Romanoski in basketball. Others spent time playing various board games or drawing. Despite the campers’ love for these various activities, the popular favorite was dodgeball, which was played with a serious but charitable spirit of competition.

Later on in the day, Mrs. Abril Borjon taught campers to apply their new knowledge of beauty in creating a metal embossed piece of sacred art. Students and parents alike were impressed with the results, and many campers’ bedroom walls will now be adorned with hand-made, beautiful sacred art.

Before the campers left for Vespers each day, Mr. Leonard gave them parting words addressing the different gifts of the Holy Ghost; thus the campers were brought back to where they had started – the Most Holy Trinity.

Each day ended on a high note as campers were given the opportunity to see the transcendentals first-hand through sung Vespers and sung Mass. The entire camp culminated on Trinity Sunday, when campers sang the various pieces they had learned for the greater glory of God and the edification of the faithful. According to one parishioner, she had “never heard anything so beautiful.” It was a satisfying answer to the question – GOTBeauty?

It’s the first time it’s happened for our Fraternity: an apostolate in a military archdiocese, or in this case, a military ordinariate – the Military Ordinariate of Canada, to be exact. Fr. Kenneth Webb, FSSP, most recently the pastor of St. Aloysius Parish, our apostolate in the diocese of St. Catharines, Ontario, took up his new assignment as a full-time military chaplain stationed at the Canadian Forces Support Unit (Ottawa) on August 1st. The Ordinariate works in much the same way as our Archdiocese for the Military Services, in that it is overseen by a bishop and, rather than being bounded by borders, extends to wherever members of the Canadian armed forces serve, at home or abroad. The chaplains who serve within it remain incardinated in their home dioceses or communities, but sometimes (unlike the US) they are incardinated in the ordinariate itself. In this case, Fr. Webb will remain a member of the Fraternity while serving full-time as a military chaplain.

Of course, the Fraternity is no stranger to military ministry, at least on the US side of the border – several of our parishes are situated close to US bases and hence count military families among their parishioners. But with Fr. Webb’s new assignment, a Fraternity priest will be serving for the first time as a full-time military chaplain on a military installation.

We’ll be checking in with Fr. Webb a little later in the year to learn more about his work with the Support Unit. ‘Til then, please pray for him, the military personnel he will be serving and for our success in this new venture. +

by Rev. Mr. Daniel Alloy, FSSP

It’s a humid Saturday morning in Guadalajara, Mexico. Francisco (Paco) Garcia is talking with a homeless man outside Our Lady of the Pillar Church, the FSSP parish in Guadalajara. Paco has to pause every now and then as metrobuses with old or non-existent mufflers roar by on the narrow street. After a few minutes, he helps the homeless man to his feet and invites him into the church.

This homeless man’s name is Alejandro. He is probably about thirty years old, and has been living on the streets of Guadalajara since he was six. When the Fraternity moved to Our Lady of the Pillar in 2011, Alejandro was already living in a niche by the front door. His living quarters consist of a blanket and pillow laid on the stone step, and one crutch for his bad leg. He always has a cheerful smile, and he’ll talk to anyone who stops by.

He is well-known among the priests and parishioners as the “Porter of Pilar” (“pillar” is spelled “pilar” in Spanish, with the accent falling on the second syllable). Many people will come up and talk to him on Sundays after the noon High Mass. But the one who has befriended him more than anyone else is Paco.

Paco is a candidate discerning his vocation with the FSSP, living at Casa Cristo Rey in Guadalajara. Throughout his 16-month discernment period, and even before, he has helped Alejandro on a journey of faith. Despite living in the shadow of a Catholic church (literally), Alejandro has never even been baptized. Once Paco discovered this, he began to mull over a plan.

He began with the Rosary. Once or twice every week, Paco would stay for an hour or more with Alejandro, teaching him to memorize the prayers and use the beads. On those evenings, there is always a steady cacophony of unmuffled buses, and dance music coming from the nightclubs of ill repute. In spite of the sights and smells, these two men quietly pray the Rosary on the church steps.

After three months of the Rosary, Paco moved on to the catechism. “The Creed is like a story,” he said, “and I wanted Alejandro to learn it.” Alejandro eagerly soaked up everything. And although he had little educational background, he progressed steadily.

It took several months for Alejandro to memorize the fundamental prayers: the Apostles’ Creed, the Act of Contrition, etc. But Paco is a patient teacher, and eventually, Alejandro could say them on his own. He also began to go to Mass every Sunday. Once, when he missed Sunday Mass at Our Lady of the Pillar, he grabbed his crutch and hobbled over to the next church to hear Mass. His conviction was growing.

One day, a group of Protestant missionaries came up to Alejandro and began discussing faith topics in earnest. They tried to convince him to give up trying to be Catholic. “There isn’t anything special about this place,” said one, pointing at the church. “It’s just a house.”

“Yes,” responded Alejandro, “but it’s God’s house.”

On this humid Saturday morning, Paco and Alejandro are in the church once again. But this is no ordinary Saturday. Today, after a 16-month catechumenate, Alejandro will be baptized a Catholic. He will undergo the ancient and beautiful rite of adult baptism. Rejecting Satan and his pomps, and armed with the five exorcisms of the rite, he will come to the baptismal font to die to his old self, and receive the new life of grace.

Alejandro will also receive Confirmation, taking the name of St. Nicolas. The choice of this patron saint is no surprise, as Our Lady of the Pillar has a side chapel dedicated to St. Nicolas of Bari. Alejandro has spent much of his catechumenate in this little chapel, thus developing a devotion to the famous bishop-saint. Finally, at the Solemn High Mass, Alejandro will receive Our Lord Himself for the very first time.

It’s an emotional day for Alejandro, the best day of his life. At the beginning of the baptismal ceremony, wearing a suit that a generous parishioner bought him, tears begin to well in his eyes. This man, who has known a hard and lonely life, is now surrounded by dozens of parishioners, assisting at his baptism, and rejoicing with the newest member of the Catholic Church. He brushes a hand across his eyes, and turns to his sponsor to see which response follows. And it’s no surprise who that sponsor is.

Thanks to Paco’s patience and charity, the Church receives today another lamb into the fold of Christ. Paco said very little about his own role in Alejandro’s journey, but he did make one very telling comment. “I saw Christ in him,” he said.

This is what Our Lord meant when He said: “Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these the least of my brethren, you did it to me” (Matt. 25:40). +

A happy and most glorious feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary! The most pure Heart of Our Lady, adorned with every virtue, was always united to the Sacred Heart of her Divine Son; indeed, it was from Mary that He took His human Heart. These Hearts loved one another more than we can comprehend, and they suffered in union with one another as well: in Our Lord’s Passion, Our Lady’s Heart was pierced by a sword when Our Lord’s Head was pierced by thorns and His Heart by a lance.

Our Lady’s Heart is filled with love for us too. She is truly our Mother, and her maternal Heart is a refuge for us sinners in all our needs. Whether we need a favor, the conversion of a loved one or anything at all, we should fly to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and she will hear us. Sweet Heart of Mary, be my salvation!

Adeámus cum fidúcia ad thronum grátiæ, ut misericórdiam consequámur, et grátiam inveniámus in auxílio opportúno.

Let us come with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and may find grace for a timely help.
– from the Introit for today

Fr. Rhone Lillard, FSSP, who teaches at Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary in Denton, Nebraska, recently appeared on Catholic Answers’ show Catholic Answers Live, where listeners can call in and ask questions of the guest. Fr. Lillard spoke on the history of the FSSP and answered such questions as how to discern between a diocesan and religious priest vocation, if you can use grape juice instead of wine in the Mass, and how to best participate in the Mass if you can’t receive Communion.

The segment featuring Fr. Lillard begins at about the 58:52 mark, and we’ve preset the video below to start right then. So just press play and enjoy the segment!

The FSSP recently appeared in the August edition of Legatus Magazine, the monthly publication of Legatus, an international organization of Catholic business leaders. The article by Trent Beattie highlights the work of the FSSP, particularly at our apostolates in Baltimore, Maryland and Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. The article appeared both in print and online, and you can click the link below to read it!

https://legatus.org/finding-reverence-in-abundance-with-priestly-fraternity-of-st-peter/

Why is St. Augustine called the greatest of the doctors? – Jeanne from Colorado Springs

Augustine has been called the greatest by various authors, e.g., Pope Benedict referred to him as “the greatest father of the Latin Church”[1] and The Catholic Encyclopedia even has a sub-entry under the Augustine entry titled, “the greatest of the Doctors.”[2] I share their opinion but the case must be proved.

To propose a value statement as a matter of fact is a tricky thing. Arguments would undoubtedly grow and opinions fly while the inquiry is made. I can already hear someone objecting, “What about St. Thomas?” Who is the best athlete, actor, scientist or saint? The broader your category, the more difficult the task. Moreover, when adjectives are employed, one mustn’t overlook the latent subjectivity. Who is the most beautiful? One needs facts to argue the case.

If one makes a value statement and wants it to stick, he must specify criteria and then give objective information. Since our current inquiry is on “the greatest of the doctors,” let us first consider whether we can’t narrow this a bit. The doctors of the Church have a long history within the Church, yet they did not all become doctors in quite the same way. Today there are thirty-six declared doctors of the Church, but at the beginning (1298) only four: Sts. Gregory the Great, Ambrose, Augustine and Jerome.

Nor did appreciation for these four suddenly arise in the thirteenth century; rather, the faithful for over half a millennium had recognized them as preeminent teachers. How could they not? These four were inescapable in any serious discourse concerning Christianity. If one pauses to consider how much of the Church’s culture flows through these individuals, he would be astonished: Gregory—preservation of chant, ecclesiastical administration, codification of liturgical texts; Jerome—the Latin Bible which was the norm in the Church until the twentieth century; Augustine—the philosophic thought which guided the Latin Church for almost 800 years, his Confessions (he invented the autobiography), City of God and On Christian Doctrine, just to name a very few of his works. Ambrose, a great writer on his own (Concerning the Mysteries, On Virginity, etc.), seems less domineering than the previous three, yet he also converted Augustine. Before any official proclamation of the Church, these four were already singled out by popular piety. Moreover, their influence didn’t diminish with time—it grew. Consider the decree of Boniface VIII, officially granting the title of doctor to them for the first time, almost 700 years after the death of Gregory:

These doctors’ clear and helpful instruction has illumined the Church, beautified her with virtues, and formed her with character . . . By their fruitful eloquence, heavenly grace has flowed and watered the Church, uncovered the mysteries of the Scriptures, unloosed knots, explained the obscure and answered doubts; the vast architecture of the very Church glows with their deep and beautiful sermons, like with shining jewels, and sparkles most gloriously with the singular and refined elegance of their words.[3]

Their writings influence all western clergy to some extent. For the clergy who recite the older Divine Office, as in the time of Boniface, the vast majority of scripture commentary is culled from the sermons of these authors. Boniface is referencing this fact when he says, “the vast architecture of the Church glows with their deep and beautiful sermons.” This alone gives them a formidable presence. They have passed away long ago into the night of the past age, yet their voices are still heard echoing in the darkened predawn hours of divine worship.

I fear there is some ambiguity with the title of doctor nowadays. It was once considered a closed class. Boniface enumerated them after the twelve apostles and four evangelists for a reason. The apostles, “the most glorious princes of the Christian faith,” built the Church, the evangelists “illumined the Church with their holy gospels,” and after the closing of the deposit of faith the four “extraordinary doctors” focused and reflected that light throughout the Church. The number four is intentional. Based on biblical symbolism, four represents the sufficiency for the entire earth, hence four major prophets anticipate Christ (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel), four evangelists record Christ, and—subsequently—four eminent doctors unwrap the teachings of Christ. Artistic representation has always appreciated this continuity. From stained glass windows to renaissance paintings the four evangelists are often accompanied by the four great doctors, even after new doctors were created.

250 years after the establishment of these four great doctors, six were added after the Council of Trent. Pope Pius V in 1567 assumed the “three holy hierarchs” of the east (Chrysostom, Basil and Gregory Nazianzus) along with Athanasius, in effect keeping the previous symbolism of four but branching it into a west and east division—Romans love symmetry. A real innovation had occurred the previous year, when he added Thomas Aquinas, an innovation which was continued by Sixtus V who made Bonaventure a doctor in 1588. These two “doctors” are of a different type from those previous, who were all from the patristic period. Moreover, they are dependent on the aforesaid doctors, and build upon them. They are scholastics and write distilled summaries of Church teaching in a highly organized fashion. One can detect a little politics here as well: Pius V, a Dominican, enrolled Thomas and Sixtus V, a Franciscan, enrolled Bonaventure. Many have been added in the modern age—four in the eighteenth century, nine in the nineteenth, ten in the twentieth and already three in the first quarter of the twenty-first. This new class of doctors, though their works may be impressive, are of a noticeably different order. A different criteria forms election, i.e. “eminent doctrine, outstanding holiness of life, and a declaration passed by the supreme pontiff.” Neither the essentialness of their doctrine to orthodoxy nor the breadth of their work is a factor (Francis de Sales, Bede, Peter Damien, Anthony of Padua, Peter Canisius, Lawrence of Brindisi don’t merit a citation in the new catechism, but the four great doctors are heavily cited, with Augustine claiming the most at eighty-seven). One can study theology for a decade and never find a John of Avila or Gregory of Narek in a footnote. On the other hand, it is impossible to read anything, be it in dogmatic, moral or mystical theology, and not run across Augustine. Most importantly, the Church’s own historic and lived experience dictated which doctors stood out above the rest, whereas the modern approach is much more top down. Boniface’s concern was one of proper piety and justice: the great western doctors were “raised up in the universal Church with tribute of more profound honor so that just as they enlightened the Church more than others, they
may know that they are all the more honored by her.” If we are unfamiliar with these great doctors, it is not because they are now irrelevant, rather, we have become ignorant. We do an injustice to place all doctors on a level field. St. Thomas is singular, I would admit that. He is a universal teacher and the most endorsed theologian of the Roman Church. He should have a class set apart—a class which stands upon the shoulders of the great four. If that holds for St. Thomas, a fortiori for all who follow. Therefore, if I am measuring the greatest doctor of the Church the contestants must be Gregory, Ambrose, Augustine and Jerome. Anything else is an equivocation. +

Next month, Part Two.

1. General Audience, January 9, 2008.
2. Charles Herbermann, ed., The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 2 (New York: Encyclopedia Press, 1913), 115.
3. Boniface VIII, Gloriosus Deus in Sextus Decretalium Liberorum, title 22.

A happy and most glorious feast of the Assumption of Our Lady! Our Lord, Who preserved His Mother immaculate from sin from the first moment of her conception, would not allow her to suffer bodily corruption but brought her to Heaven, body and soul, to join Him there. Our Lord’s Ascension and Our Lady’s Assumption are a beautiful reflection on our own humanity and its destiny. Our Lord, the God-Man, and Our Lady, the new Eve and the pride of our race, both reign in their glorified bodies in Heaven, a reminder that our humanity in its entirety, body and soul, will join them someday if we follow in their footsteps.

Don’t forget that today is a Holy Day of Obligation, so check with your local parish to find out the Mass times for today.

Almighty everlasting God, Who hast taken body and soul into Heaven the Immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of Thy Son: grant, we beseech Thee, that by steadfastly keeping Heaven as our goal we may be counted worthy to join her in glory. 

– the Collect for today