After a time of recollection and prayer, Fr. James W. Jackson, FSSP, pastor of our Denver apostolate, began to talk about the needs of his parish with the faithful.  As  he put it, “There is a point where you cannot suitably maintain an existing building, and you have to think about the options you have.” With this reality, one of our older apostolates, Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Littleton, Colorado, began to contemplate the idea of building a new parish home.

Choices had to be made, like whether to find new land and move, modify the existing structure to a new form, or start from a blank slate.  With more time and reflection, the decision was made to stay where they were and replace the existing building with a new church on the same property.

This decision, however, created a new problem: Where was the parish to offer Mass while the construction was ongoing?  As fortune has it, the adjacent property in Denver is a funeral home.  Due to a well-established and friendly relationship, Our Lady of Mount Carmel was able to carry on with Mass and the Sacraments next door, until the construction was complete.

Then more questions needed to be answered.  Choices on construction, materials, design, and the size and scope of the final parish campus had to be decided upon, along with fundraising.  On this note, the parish is an anomaly.  There has been no specifically crafted capital campaign that is typical of parish construction in the Church today.  Instead, like the priests of old, Father began to talk about it from the pulpit, and the pledges of support came to fruition naturally.  A local contractor with extensive experience in building churches was chosen, and the project got under way in the fall of 2012.

Demolition of the parish began in November. Construction is on track to be completed, and the parish ready for re-dedication, in March of 2013.  What follows is a collage of images detailing the renewal of a parish through the building of a new church edifice.

His Excellency, Bishop James Timlin, Bishop Emeritus of the Diocese of Scranton, traveled to Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary on Saturday, February 9, 2013, to confer the Major Order of Subdiaconate upon five seminarians.

We congratulate the five men raised to the Subdiaconate, and express our esteem and gratitude to His Excellency for his many years of guidance and conferral of Sacraments for the clergy and laity of the Fraternity.

Thanks are also in order for all of the family and friends that traveled to the seminary for this blessed event. Please, in your kindness, commend these five men to your prayers, that they may continue on the path of the Priesthood of Christ. We also ask that you continue to keep all the priests, deacons, subdeacons and seminarians of the FSSP in your prayers.

More coverage and pictures are in a forthcoming newsletter.  If you do not receive our newsletter, please sign up for the Fraternity newsletter.

Apostolates around North America concluded the Christmas season with the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, also known as Candlemas.

According to Mosaic Law, a mother who had given birth to a son remained unclean for 40 days after birth, in which time she completed her purification in blood.  After the 40 days, the new mother was to “bring to the temple a lamb for a holocaust and a young pigeon or turtle dove for sin” (Leviticus 12), where a priest prayed for her and she was cleansed.

Mary complied with this precept of the Mosaic Law, and redeemed Our Lord from the temple according to the law established by God, “Whatsoever is firstborn of all flesh, which they offer to the Lord, whether it be of men, or of beasts, shall belong to thee: only for the firstborn of man thou shalt take a price, and every beast that is unclean thou shalt cause to be redeemed…” (Numbers 18) In this act, Mary’s Immaculate Heart is pierced with a sword of sorrow by the prophecy of Simeon.

The celebration of the Purification of Mary is known to have been celebrated from the times of persecution, for we see its celebration in the Church at Jerusalem in the time of Constantine’s conversion.  At first celebrated 40 days after Epiphany, when Epiphany celebrated the Nativity of Our Lord, the Feast settled on February 2 after the Feast of the Nativity was established on December 25. In the Eastern Church it was called Hypapante tou Kyriou, the meeting of the Lord and His mother with Simeon and Anna.

During the Feast today, the priest offers five prescribed orations before he blesses beeswax candles by sprinkling and incensing. The candles are then distributed while the Canticle of Simeon is sung with the antiphon “Lumen ad revelationem gentium et gloriam plebis tuæ Israel,” “A Light to the revelation of the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel,” repeated after every verse.  Then follows the procession, and at which all the partakers carry lighted candles in their hands, the choir sings the antiphon “Adorna thalamum tuum, Sion”, composed by St. John of Damascus.

The solemn procession represents the entry of Christ, the Light of the World, into the Temple.

by Fr. Justin Nolan, FSSP
Assistant Chaplain, St. Philippine Duchesne

A joyous day was had by all as we witnessed St. Rose Philippine Duchesne Catholic Church officially come into existence. All of Kansas City rejoices as a humble structure built by human hands has the supreme honor of becoming a dwelling place for Almighty God and the offering up the Eternal Sacrifice of His Son for the Redemption of sin and the Sanctification and Salvation of the world!

A chilly winter morning greeted the crowds and the arrival of Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann, Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas. His Excellency performed the ceremony for the Blessing of a New Church. After the Blessing, the North American District Superior of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, Fr. Eric Flood, FSSP, celebrated the First Solemn Mass in honor of St. Rose Philippine Duchesne with His Excellency, Archbishop Naumann, assisting from the Throne. Many visiting clergy were also in attendance, both from the Fraternity of St. Peter as well as local priests and religious from local parishes here in Kansas City. Over 400 of the faithful were in attendance, packing the new church and offering up their prayers in union with the Archbishop for the glory of God and the sanctification of souls.

Many countless hours of work have gone into this project and we thank all especially who were directly involved, our benefactors, our parishioners, the contractors and laborers who have worked so tirelessly these past months to make the church so beautiful and worthy of God and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  Visit the St. Philippine Duchesne parish website for more pictures.

On January25th, the morning of the 2013 March for Life, the Traditional Latin Mass was offered by Fr. Gregory Pendergraft, FSSP, at St. Mary Mother of God (“Old St. Mary’s”) in Washington, D.C.

Father’s sermon focused on the interior conversion that each soul must experience, which drives them to act on behalf of their Faith.  As it was the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, he referenced the change that overcame Saul, which caused him not only to stop persecuting the Christians, but also to devote his life to the preaching and teaching the Faith.

Father also utilized the story of Jonah, the minor prophet of the Old Testament who was told by God to preach repentance to the city of Nineveh.  Rather than carry out the command of God, Jonah fled by ship, thus bringing punishment upon himself and his shipmates for refusing to carry out the Will of God.  Father emphasized that we, like Jonah, will experience the tempests of misfortune in our lives and nation until we carry out the Will of God and live out our Faith in word and deed.  Only then will our nation be converted and its citizens repent of the twin evils of abortion and contraception.    We must eradicate these sins from our nation or they will destroy it completely, and this must be accomplished one soul at a time.
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The Paulus Institute for the Propagation of Sacred Liturgy sponsored the Mass, which fell on the conversion of St. Paul, one of the feasts of their patron. The Mass was most appropriately offered in remembrance of and for the repose of the soul of Nellie Gray, the devoted leader of the March for Life. The propers were sung by St. Mary’s schola while the ordinary and motets were sung by a polyphonic choir.

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In the evening after the March for Life, a Pontifical Mass at the faldstool was organized by the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter and offered by the Most Reverend Joseph Perry, auxiliary bishop of Chicago.

Father Karl Marsolle, FSSP, was Deacon, Deacon Joseph DeGuzman, FSSP, was Subdeacon, and Fr. Beniot Guishard, FSSP, was the Assistant. Fr. Gregory Pendergraft, FSSP, was Master of Ceremonies.  In addition, Msgr. Charles Pope of the Archdiocese of Washington lectored the readings in English and Fr. Alfred Harris, pastor of St. Mary’s, assisted at Mass. Msgr. Francis Nave and Canon Jean Marie Moreau were in choir.

The Fraternity offers many thanks to Fr. Harris for the use of St. Mary’s for both Masses, and to His Excellency Bishop Perry for offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass on such an important day in the pro-life movement.
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Dear members of the Confraternity of Saint Peter,

Cordial greetings in our venerable Patron, the Apostle Saint Peter!

On Friday 22nd February, Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter, we will celebrate the sixth anniversary of the Confraternity’s foundation. On behalf of everyone, please allow me to express my heart-felt thanks for your spiritual commitment to and support of our priestly vocations and ministry.

You are doubtless aware of the fact that our young community will celebrate this year the twenty-fifth anniversary of its foundation. In the space of a quarter of a century, we have grown from the small group comprising a dozen founder members to roughly four-hundred, serving the souls of the faithful of one-hundred and sixteen dioceses spread across four continents. We work in the Lord’s vineyard as his humble and fallible servants, but made fecund by the strength of the Roman traditions of his Church and by the grace of hierarchical communion with the successors of his Apostles. However, do we not benefit from a third asset, less important than the first two, but essential for their concrete realisation? Indeed – your very selves. Each day, the 3800 souls of yours beg the Lord “to send labourers to his harvest,” as He commands us to do. Each day you recite, alone or with your family members, the beautiful Prayer of the Confraternity of Saint Peter, enhanced with quotations from our cherished Roman Missal. Wishing to be heard more speedily by the Lord, you request the intercession of His Blessed Mother, the Virgin Immaculate, by your daily recitation of a decade of the Holy Rosary. Finally, each year you arrange for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass to be offered for the Confraternity’s intentions, thus providing for ten Masses to be celebrated each day for our priestly vocations and ministry.

All of us who have learned to “live by the faith” (Hebrews 10:38) know how your invisible prayers are a fundamental cause of the numerical and geographical expansion of our little Fraternity, and even more importantly of the supernatural good that the Lord deigns to bring about through its apostolic work. Without your commitment in daily prayer as members of the Confraternity of Saint Peter, we would not have the grace of admitting many candidates each year at our two international seminaries. Without your faithful prayers our priests would be less protected against the world enemy of Christ and of his Church, and less fervent in their sanctification for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Allow me to share this in confidence. Like I do, surely my priest confrères ask themselves regularly how to improve our ministry. The hindrances to our priestly zeal are numerous: negative influence of the media, anti-natural laws voted by parliaments, lack of understanding of certain Churchmen in positions of responsibility, occasionally deficient time-tables and sacred edifices… Over the years however, the priest discerns more clearly the fundamental obstacle to his sacred ministry, which is his own lukewarmness. He laments his lack of mortification, of prayerfulness, of studiosity, of poverty, of purity, of obedience and of joyfulness. He understands more fully that the Lord Jesus wants to save the world through him and that only too often he does not love enough Jesus, the Church and the souls, that he is wasting the grace of his priesthood and rationing it out to souls.

Then it is, dear brethren, that the part you play is so important! Your prayer can obtain from the Lord an increase not only in the quantity but also in the quality of your priests and future priests. Satan said to the Curé of Ars: “Were there three like you in the world, my kingdom would be destroyed.” We are far more than three, and yet Jesus is still little known and poorly loved. Pray therefore dear friends and offer up sacrifices so that our seminarians will be docile and generous, and our priests faithful and supernatural. Fewer holy priests is better than many mediocre ones. Even better however is many, many, many eminently holy priests. And who will affirm that such is not God’s will! Dear friends, we also pray for you, for more holy married and single Catholics, for more holy young people, and for more holy clerics and consecrated persons within the Confraternity. You also pray for each other, even if you have not yet met all of the 3800 members of the Confraternity, you are present to them daily when they recite the Prayer, and at least each Sunday at Mass, and every month or more during Holy Hour. Let us thank God for this mutual support and let us offer up to Heaven more regular and more fervent prayers.

To that end, I shall inform you before Easter of an encouraging decision made by the Superiors of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter. In the meantime, your Chaplains offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for your intentions each month, and every 5th November the 236 priests of our Fraternity include your deceased members in the Memento of a Holy Mass of Requiem. Finally, I should like to remind you of the three plenary indulgences the Holy See granted you on the day of your incorporation and every year on 22nd February and 29th June.

With my best wishes in Saint Peter and Our Lady,

Fr Armand de Malleray, FSSP
General Chaplain of the Confraternity of Saint Peter

The priests and parishioners of Saint Michael’ Parish enjoyed a pastoral visit by the Bishop of Scranton, the Most Rev. Joseph Bambera, for the Feast of Epiphany on Sunday, January 6, 2013. Celebrating the Mass was Fr. Jose Zepeda, FSSP, Pastor, joined by Fr. Joseph Orlowski, FSSP, as Deacon, and Fr. Joseph Poisson, FSSP, as Subdeacon. In choir with the bishop was Fr. Brian Clark, in residence at the diocesan Cathedral of St. Peter.

The Feast of Epiphany, which means “manifestation,” is often referred to as Three Kings because the Gospel centers on the visitation of the wise men who visited Our Lord after following the Star of Bethlehem, falling down before Him in worship. Pious tradition holds that the kings were three in number, corresponding to the three gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh that they offered to Him. Their names are held to be Balthasar of Arabia, Melchior of Persia, and Gaspar of India.

Once Mass concluded, His Excellency joined with parishioners and choir in singing the Angelus in honor of Our Lady. The annual Christmas dinner in the parish hall followed. Parishioners shared a grand feast while the choir and children’’s Christmas choir sang hymns and other songs of the season.

After sharing company during the meal with the Mass celebrants, Fr. Flood, our District Superior, and other priests, His Excellency once again spoke to the parish, thanking the choir and reiterating his enjoyment of the Epiphany Mass and Christmas dinner. He commended the faithful for their commitment and faith, encouraging them to spread their faith, and make use of the gifts that God has given them.

The Rorate Caeli Mass is a traditional Advent devotion wherein the Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary for Advent is offered just before dawn. In many instances families and individuals travel an hour or more, rising and arriving very early for this stunningly beautiful Mass. The interplay of light and darkness speak to the meaning of Advent and the coming of the Light of the world.

The Mass takes its title, Rorate Caeli, from the first words of the Introit, which are from Isaiah 45:8:

“Rorate, caeli, desuper, et nubes pluant justum, aperiatur terra, et germinet Salvatorem.”

“Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just: let the earth be opened and bud forth a Saviour.”

The Rorate Mass is lit only by candlelight. Because it is a votive Mass in Mary’s honor, white vestments are worn instead of Advent violet. In the dimly lit setting, priests and faithful prepare to honor the Light of the world, Who is soon to be born, and offer praise to God for the gift of Our Lady. As the Mass proceeds and sunrise approaches, the church becomes progressively brighter, illumined by the sun as our Faith is illumined by Christ.

The readings and prayers of the Mass foretell the prophecy of the Virgin who would bear a Son called Emmanuel, and call on all to raise the gates of their hearts and their societies to let Christ the King enter; asking for the grace to receive eternal life by the merits of the Incarnation and saving Resurrection of Our Lord.

What follows are panoramic images from the Rorate Mass at St. Michael’s in Scranton, and images from the Rorate Mass celebrated by Fr. Matthew McNeely, FSSP, and the priests of St. Stephen the First Martyr in Sacramento.

The Fraternity parish of Holy Family in Dayton, Ohio, enjoyed the grace of caritas by performing a corporal work of mercy this past Advent season.

In mid-December, Fr. Mark Wojdelski, FSSP, the pastor of Holy Family, joined parishioners in creating twenty-three pans of lasagna. With a good dose of efficiency on the production line, the pans were created in a timely manner and then blessed by Father before delivery. The hearty food was able to feed nearly 450 souls in the Dayton area through the Saint Vincent de Paul Society.

It is edifying to see corporal works of mercy, since they are both commanded and rewarded by God.  As Our Lord admonished us in the strongest of terms:

And when the Son of man shall come in his majesty, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit upon the seat of his majesty. And all nations shall be gathered together before him, and he shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left.

Then shall the king say to them that shall be on his right hand: Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in; Naked, and you covered me: sick, and you visited me: I was in prison, and you came to me.

Then shall the just answer him, saying: Lord, when did we see thee hungry, and fed thee; thirsty, and gave thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and covered thee? Or when did we see thee sick or in prison, and came to thee? And the king answering, shall say to them: Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me.

Then he shall say to them also that shall be on his left hand: Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave me not to eat: I was thirsty, and you gave me not to drink. I was a stranger, and you took me not in: naked, and you covered me not: sick and in prison, and you did not visit me.

Then they also shall answer him, saying: Lord, when did we see thee hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to thee? Then he shall answer them, saying: Amen I say to you, as long as you did it not to one of these least, neither did you do it to me. And these shall go into everlasting punishment: but the just, into life everlasting.

~ Matthew 25:31-46

His Excellency Fabian Bruskewitz, Bishop Emeritus of the Diocese of Lincoln, made his return to Our Lady of Guadalupe on Saturday, November 17, 2012 in order to convey both Minor Orders and the Subdiaconate upon seminarians.

The Minor Order of Lector was administered upon 16 seminarians, the Minor Order of Exorcist and Acolyte on five seminarians, and two seminarians were raised to the Subdiaconate.

Of the twenty-three men who received orders, three are members of the Congregation of the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer, or Transalpine Redemptorists. When they are not studying at Our Lady of Guadalupe, they reside at Golgotha Monastery Island, Papa Stronsay, in the Orkney Islands of Scotland.

The Fraternity of Saint Peter again gives its most sincere thanks to Bishop Bruskewitz for his many years of support and guidance, his conferral of innumerable Orders upon the Fraternity members, and his kind and gracious support in establishing our seminary within the diocese of Lincoln.  In your kindness, please keep our ordinands and those of the Transalpine Redemptorists in your prayers, as they continue their journey towards the Priesthood of Our Lord.

More pictures and information of the ordinations can be found in the Fraternity Newsletter. Not a subscriber? Request your newsletter here.