Father John Brancich, FSSP, pastor of Immaculate Conception church, our parish apostolate in Omaha, recently had the privilege of administering First Communion to sixteen children of the parish. Father was assisted by two of our new Deacons, Rev. Mr. Joshua Houck, FSSP, and Rev. Mr. Christopher Mahowald, FSSP, and a contingent of seminarians from Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary.

On Saturday, March 14, 2015, the Most Reverend Glen Provost, Bishop of Lake Charles, Louisiana, traveled to Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary in Denton, Nebraska, in order to confer the Diaconate upon our four Subdeacons:

• Mr. Edward Brodsky
• Mr. Joshua Houck
• Mr. Christopher Mahowald
• Mr. Dominic Savoie

We express our thanks and gratitude to Bishop Provost for his gift of time and willingness to travel to Denton in order to advance these men on the path of the priesthood of Christ.

The process of ordination began on Friday, March 13, as the Subdeacons made their Assumption of Celibacy, recited the Profession of Faith, and took the Oath of Fidelity in the presence of Bishop Provost. The next day, Bishop Provost ordained them to the Diaconate.

We send our congratulations to the families of the newly ordained Deacons, and thank all of the family and friends that were present to celebrate this joyous occasion with us. The Fraternity asks that all of our supporters please pray for these men during their Diaconal period, and for their pending Ordination in 2016.

Additional coverage of this year’s ordinations will be in an upcoming Newsletter.

Don’t receive the newsletter currently? Sign Up Here

The Sacrament of Confirmation beseeches the Holy Ghost to perfect and seal the presence of His sevenfold graces in the soul of the confirmed. Sacramentally, the bishop is the sole ordinary minister of Confirmation, but he is free to delegate the faculty to pastors, should the need arise. This faculty was given to one of our pastors, Fr. Matthew McCarthy, FSSP, pastor of Saint Francis de Sales in Atlanta, in the traditional Rite.

Confirmation imparts:

• an increase of Sanctifying Grace
• a redoubling of the sevenfold graces of the Holy Ghost first given at Baptism, especially the strength and courage required to confess without fear the Name of Jesus Christ
• an indelible mark on the soul (thus it can only be received once)

Recently Father offered the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and then administrated the Sacrament of Confirmation to the confirmandi of  the parish.  The Fraternity gives thanks to God for the newly confirmed.

The clergy and seminarians of Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary in Denton, Nebraska, made a Lenten act of adoration to Our Lord in observing the Forty Hours Devotion.  The Forty Hours Devotion is of particular importance to the Fraternity not only because of the spirit of reparation and devotion contained in it, but because the devotion was central to St. Philip Neri, who began offering it in the year 1550 in the church that is now home to the FSSP parish in Rome – Santissima Trinita dei Pellegrini.

The Forty Hours Devotion can be offered in a single parish or series of parishes where the Blessed Sacrament is exposed and adored for a consecutive forty hours.  When offered as a series, as the Forty Hours ends in one church, a Forty Hours commences in another church.

Three Masses are typically offered during the Forty Hours: a solemn Mass of Exposition begins the devotion, a solemn Mass for Peace is offered during the second day, and the devotion concludes with a Mass of Deposition.

A good explanation of the purpose of the Forty Hours is offered by Pope Paul III in granting his approval of the devotion, and its first indulgence:

“Since … Our beloved son the Vicar General of the Archbishop of Milan at the prayer of the inhabitants of the said city, in order to appease the anger of God provoked by the offenses of Christians, and in order to bring to naught the efforts and machinations of the Turks who are pressing forward to the destruction of Christendom, amongst other pious practices, has established a round of prayers and supplications to be offered both by day and night by all the faithful of Christ, before our Lord’s Most Sacred Body, in all the churches of the said city, in such a manner that these prayers and supplications are made by the faithful themselves relieving each other in relays for forty hours continuously in each church in succession, according to the order determined by the Vicar … We, approving in our Lord so pious an institution, and confirming the same by Our authority, grant and remit…”

Enjoy a gallery of pictures from the Forty Hours in Denton.

Regina Pacis Chaplaincy is our apostolate in the Diocese of Lexington, and they were fortunate to be highlighted in the most recent issue of Cross Roads, the diocesan newspaper.

The article provided Fr. Mark Fisher, FSSP, a opportunity to extol the virtues of the Traditional Latin Mass, including grand architecture, Gregorian Chant and the solemnity and reverence of the ancient Roman Rite. Reaching out to a wider diocesan audience comes at a good time for our Lexington apostolate, which now has the fortune of offering Mass at two different parishes – St. Peter’s Church in Lexington and St. Francis de Sales in Georgetown.

St. Francis is the second oldest Catholic church west of the Allegheny mountains, and offers the faithful an opportunity for Catholic families to enjoy the Sacraments as they have been offered throughout the history of its existence.

Mass Times and Location Information – Original Article on Cross Roads

“Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.”
“Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.”
~ Gen 3:19

In the Old Law, ashes were a sign of repentance, mourning, and grief of soul. In the New Law, sackcloth and ashes represented the public repentance of sins in the early Church.

In time, the great Lent became fixed at 40 days, and began with the burning of the palms from the previous year’s Palm Sunday. In this act, the Church physically manifests the glory of Our Lord’s entry into Jerusalem, and at the same time it reiterates that humanity was fashioned from the dust of the earth, and to dust it shall return, by the corruption of the grave.

As the members of the Fraternity’s apostolate in Dallas began the forty days of Lent, Fr. Terrence Gordon, FSSP, assistant pastor of Mater Dei parish, blessed the ashes of Palm Sunday, and thereafter was joined by Fr. Thomas Longua, FSSP, pastor of Mater Dei, in imposing the cross upon the foreheads of all present, reciting God’s admonition, “Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.”

Fr. James Fryar, FSSP, chaplain of our new apostolate in Los Angeles, moves forward in the building up of everything necessary to grow. He now offers the Traditional Latin Mass in two churches of the diocese (locations and times), and is looking forward to offering Holy Week at St. John Chrysostom in Inglewood.

Comprehensive training is required for altar servers to assist even at Low Mass, and thus the demands of the Solemn High Mass require a much more extensive and well-trained altar server corps.  The Holy Week liturgies bring even more complexity, and so the need for training and practice increase all the more.  To that end, Fr. Fryar has now recruited and trained the corps that help to support, in a vital way, our newest apostolate.  What follows are pictures of training at San Felipe Chapel.

For those in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, read the schedule for Holy Week 2015.

The annual March for Life began as a small demonstration against abortion and rapidly grew to be the largest pro-life event in the world. The peaceful demonstration that has followed on the anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision every year, since 1973, is a witness to the truth concerning inviolability of unborn human life.

For 2015, Fr. Matthew McCarthy, FSSP, pastor of St. Francis de Sales in Atlanta, along with dozens of parishioners, joined in a march to the statehouse in downtown Atlanta. Sadly, they were met by hostile protesters, who hurled insults at the group and accosted them along their way for their witness of the right to life of unborn humans. This shocking behavior only served to increase the resolve of the marchers and to highlight the great importance that the prince of darkness places on preserving and increasing the horrific slaughter of those most innocent and helpless among us.

St. Damien of Molokai, our apostolate in Oklahoma City, recently showed its devotion to Our Lord’s Passion in the Feast of the Holy Face.  The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was offered by the newly returned Fr. Christopher Pelster, FSSP, who now administrators St. Damien, along with Fr. Robert Dow, FSSP.

Devotion to the Holy Face of Christ is of ancient origin, reaching back to the fourth century and before. From the 12th century on, the devotion began to revolve around the Veil of Veronica, held to be the cloth Veronica gave to Our Lord to wipe His face during the carrying of the Cross.  Popularity of the devotion grew enormously with St. Therese of the Child Jesus making known her devotion to the Holy Face, with an Archconfraternity of the Holy Face formed in Tours, France, in 1884.  A pious nun, Sr. Pierina, was deeply devoted to the Holy Face as a way to console Our Lord, to make reparation for the conversion of sinners, and make reparation for the negligence and contempt shown for the Blessed Sacrament.  She was miraculously able to obtain permission to cast a medal of the Holy Face, and its use was widespread amongst Italian soldiers in WWII.

Pope Pius XII extended the devotion the universal Church, and placed the Mass on Shrove Tuesday, in 1958. The following is a prayer of St. Therese of Lisieux to the Holy Face of Jesus:

O Jesus, Who in Thy bitter Passion didst become “the most abject of men, a man of sorrows,” I venerate Thy Sacred Face whereon there once did shine the beauty and sweetness of the Godhead; but now it has become for me as if it were the face of a leper! Nevertheless, under those disfigured features, I recognize Thy infinite Love and I am consumed with with the desire to love Thee and make Thee loved by all men. The tears which well abundantly in Thy sacred eyes appear to me as so many precious pearls that I love to gather up, in order to purchase the souls of poor sinners by means of their infinite value. O Jesus, Whose adorable Face ravishes my heart, I implore Thee to fix deep within me Thy Divine Image and to set me on fire with Thy Love, that I may be found worthy to come to the contemplation of Thy glorious Face in Heaven. Amen.

The Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter will soon be holding a workshop for priests desiring to learn to say the Traditional Latin Mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary in Denton, Nebraska.

Low Mass Workshop
18-22 May 2015 (Monday – Friday)
Cost: $400

Each workshop comprises a five-day residential course including both classroom sessions and practical hands-on instruction. All instruction, training materials, meals, and room & board at the seminary are provided.

The Low Mass workshop includes:

• A comprehensive introduction to the Extraordinary Form of the Mass and its liturgical principles
• An overview of the 1962 Roman Missal and liturgical calendar
• A complete explanation and demonstration, with practical hands-on instruction, in the ceremony of Low Mass according to the 1962 Roman Missal
• Tips and strategies for gaining proficiency in Latin
• An introduction to Sung Mass and Gregorian Chant

Established in June 2007, the Priest Training Program of the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter has provided personal training for over 130 priests in 72 different dioceses in North America. Over 80% of participants in this program are now saying the Extraordinary Form on a regular basis. If you know of a priest that may be interested, please have them find complete program and signup information at:

www.fssptraining.org