Parish Lenten Mission for 2024: Blessed Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire Conference I: Charlemagne and Lourdes

Fr. Higgins • February 26, 2024

Our Lenten Parish Mission this year is entitled: “Blessed Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire.”  Charlemagne–“Charles-Le-Magne”, “Charles-the-Great”–lived from 742 A.D. -814 A.D.  The King of the Franks, he established a great and powerful Kingdom stretching across what is today France and Germany.  On Christmas Day, 800 A.D., in the City of Rome, the Pope crowned him Roman Emperor, reviving the glory of that once-great Empire, which had first persecuted but finally embraced Christianity.  He is one of those great figures of history who both shapes events and sets in motion developments which continue for generations after he is dead.  In the human story, things could always have been different. For us as Christian believers therefore we are always alert to the golden threads of God’s Providence.

Let us begin our story in the year 732 A.D. The leader of the Christian Franks Charles Martel (“Charles-the-Hammer”) decisively defeated the Islamic invaders who had entered France through Spain. This was the Battle of Tours which prevented Europe from being overrun by the Muslims. The invader retreated back over the Pyrenees Mountains but some Muslim groups held out in their fortresses of Aquitaine (southwestern France). One of these was the castle of Mirambel which is on the rock overhanging Lourdes.Our Lenten Parish Mission this year is entitled: “Blessed Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire.” Charlemagne–“Charles-Le-Magne”, “Charles-the-Great”–lived from 742 A.D. -814 A.D. The King of the Franks, he established a great and powerful Kingdom stretching across what is today France and Germany. On Christmas Day, 800 A.D., in the City of Rome, the Pope crowned him Roman Emperor, reviving the glory of that once-great Empire, which had first persecuted but finally embraced Christianity. He is one of those great figures of history who both shapes events and sets in motion developments which continue for generations after he is dead. In the human story, things could always have been different. For us as Christian believers therefore we are always alert to the golden threads of God’s Providence.

Forty-six years later, in the Year 778 A.D., the grandson of Charles Martel, another Charles (our “Charlemagne”), 36 years-old and now the King of the Franks, was on his return from a military campaign against the Muslim Saracens in Spain. He laid siege to this Mirambel Castle.

The fortress was impregnable. Charlemagne tried to starve its defenders into submission. The siege went on and on. The Muslim commander, a man named Mirat, had sworn an oath by the Prophet Mohammed that he would never surrender the castle to any mortal man.

One day, an eagle carrying a trout caught from the River Gave, dropped it inside the Saracen castle walls. Mirat had a clever idea. He had the still floundering fish thrown over to the Christian besiegers as if to show them that it was an unwanted extra to the supplies of his garrison. “Hey, Christian Infidels! We’ve still got plenty of food! We’re fine!”

Thinking he had been besieging the fortress in vain, Charlemagne was on the point of giving up and marching away. But his chaplain, the Bishop of Le Puy, had a hunch that this was a bluff. He asked for and obtained a meeting with Mirat and he immediately saw that the Saracens were indeed starving and at the point of collapse. The Bishop encouraged submission on honorable terms but Mirat fell back on his oath to the Prophet.

So, the Bishop replied: “Brave Prince, you have sworn never to yield to any mortal man. Could you not with honor make your surrender to an immortal Lady? Mary, Queen of Heaven, has her throne at Le Puy, and I am her humble minister there.”

This persuasion broke the deadlock. Mirat the Saracen came to terms with Charlemagne. In a token of his vassalage, he brought to the sanctuary of Mary, to whom he had surrendered, some handfuls of grass from the banks of the River Gave. Mirat accepted Christianity and was baptized under the name Lorus. Charlemagne knighted him and gave him back the command of the fortress of Mirabel. It is from the Knight Lorus that the name of the town of Lourdes is derived. This is the story of Charlemagne at Lourdes.

Let us close our First Conference then with this thought: Mirat/Lorus surrendered his castle to Mary in 778. In 1858, one thousand and eighty years later, Mary the Queen of Heaven appeared on earth to manifest her particular sovereignty over this place.

(Source for the story of Charlemagne at Lourdes: St. Bernadette: A Pictorial Biography, By Leonard von Matt and Francis Trochu; Translated from the French by Herbert Rees, Henry Regnery Company, Chicago, 1957 A.D., “The Dedication of Lourdes to the Blessed Virgin Mary”, pp. 1-2.)

The Pleading of the Ninevites

By Fr. Higgins • February 22, 2025
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The Apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary Immaculate at Lourdes: 1858

By Fr. Higgins • February 14, 2025
In the Year 1858, a 14 year-old girl named Bernadette Soubirous, from the Pyrenean mountain town of Lourdes, received 18 APPARITIONS of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Blessed Virgin appeared to her in the cleft of a great rock known to the local people as the “Massabielle”. Bernadette received a total of 18 Apparitions. The first occurred on February 11th which has since become the Feast-day of Our Lady of Lourdes. That year it was the Thursday before Ash Wednesday, the first day of Shrovetide. According to the Liturgical Calendar of that Year, the Apparitions corresponded to the following days: First Apparition: Thursday of Shrovetide 2nd Apparition: Shrove Sunday 3rd Apparition: Thursday after Ash Wed. Apparitions 4-15, “The Fortnight” — From Friday after Ash to Thursday of the Second Week in Lent. Apparition 16: March 25th, the Feast of the Annunciation. Also, that year: Thursday in Passion Week. 17th Apparition: Easter Wednesday 18th Apparition: July 16th (Mt. Carmel) THE TWO GREAT SIGNS GIVEN TO THE WORLD AT LOURDES: THE FIRST SIGN: THE SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF THE FRESH SPRING OF WATER OUT OF THE SIDE OF THE GREAT ROCK OF THE MASSABIELLE, FEBRUARY 25th, at the NINTH APPARITION, A CLEAR SYMBOL OF THE WATER FLOWING FROM CHRIST’S SIDE ON THE CROSS AND THE BAPTISMAL REGENERATION.  THE SECOND SIGN: MARY IDENTIFIES HERSELF WITH HER SINGULAR PRIVILEGE OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. SHE SAID TO BERNADETTE: “I AM THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION”. THIS OCCURRED AT THE 16th APPARITION, ON THE FEAST OF THE ANNUNCIATION ITSELF, MARCH 25th. THE MYSTERY OF MARY’S FULLNESS OF GRACE IS INDICATED IN THE ANGEL GABRIEL’S GREETING: “HAIL, FULL OF GRACE, THE LORD IS WITH THEE.”

Good Counsel From St Francis de Sales as We Begin the New Year 2025

By Fr. Higgins • January 5, 2025
Prayer of Saint Francis de Sales: Do not look forward to what may happen tomorrow. The same everlasting Father who takes care of you today will take care of you tomorrow and every day. Either He will shield you from suffering or He will give you unfailing strength to bear it. Put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations and say continually, “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart has trusted in Him and I am helped. He is not only with me, but in me, and I in Him.”

St. Gregory the Wonderworker and the Faith that Moves Mountains

By Fr. Higgins • November 17, 2024
In the life of St. Gregory the Wonderworker (+270) we have the example of a Saint who fulfilled Christ’s words of the Gospel in a literal way: “ Amen I say to you that whosoever shall say to this mountain, Be thou removed and be cast into the sea and shall not stagger in his heart, but believe that whatsoever he saith shall be done: it shall be done unto him. (Mark 11:23) St. Gregory, the Bishop of Neocaesarea, performed great signs and wonders in the Name of Christ. As we read in the Roman Breviary: By his prayer he removed a mountain which was an obstacle to the building of a church. He also dried up a lake which was a cause of dissension between brothers. The River Lycus, which was inundating and devastating the fields, he restrained by fixing in the bank his stick, which immediately grew into a green tree, and served as the limit which the river henceforth never overpassed. The most powerful effect of St. Gregory’s prayers, however, was the graces of conversion for his city which he obtained: When he was dying, he asked how many infidels remained in the city of Neocaesarea: and on being informed that there were only seventeen, he gave thanks to God, and said: When I was made bishop, there were but seventeen believers. Indeed for anyone at all to be truly converted to Christ is the equivalent of a mountain being moved. And yet it does happens. May we be good instruments by prayer and good example.

The Mass of All Holy Relics

By Fr. Higgins • November 9, 2024
During All Saintstide there is a Mass which may be said: F east Of The Holy Relics Preserved In The Churches Of The Diocese,or, All Holy Relics . This Mass draw our attention to the Mystery of the Resurrection. The relics of the Saints—fragments of their bones, ashes, clothes, or other objects used by them—yet “ work wonders on earth.” Just as divine power emanated from Christ and worked miracles for people, even if they so much as touched the hem of His Garments, so Christ in His Church continues to heal and work wonders through the relics of His Saints. These relics “ exorcise devils, heal the sick, restore sight to the blind, cleanse lepers, drive away temptations and bestow on all the excellent gifts which come from the Father of Light.” (Lessons of the Second Nocturn at Matins for the Feast of All Holy Relics) This mysterious divine power of relics is a pledge to us of the future Resurrection. If God can work through their ashes here and now, how can He not also bring this dust back into a glorified, resurrected body on the Last Day? The early Christians had the spiritual intuition to connect the remains of the martyrs with the Sacrifice of the Mass. This is why Mass was celebrated near the tombs of the martyrs in the Catacombs “ in order to show that these Saints had mixed their blood with that of the Victim of Calvary.” (Vespers Antiphon) After the Persecutions had ended the beautiful churches erected served as vast reliquaries to preserve the tombs of celebrated martyrs. The remains of those who had confessed their faith were placed under the Church’s High Altar, in the Conf  essio . (For example, in St. Peter’s Basilica, the main altar is over the tomb of Peter. It is the Confession of St. Peter.) Related to this is the custom of placing martyrs’ relics in a small cavity of the altar stone called the “sepulchre” in the ceremony of the Dedication of a new Church. I can find no information on which particular martyrs’ relics are placed in the sepulchers of our parish altar stones, but we know that they are there. We also have our other visible reliquaries on the reredos over our High Altar. May the regular sight of them stir us to thoughts of Heaven and the Resurrection of the Body.

Prayers for Our New Archbishop

By Fr. Higgins • October 27, 2024
Thursday of this week, the Vigil of All Saints (All Hallows’ E’en) our new Archbishop, His Excellency Richard Henning formally takes possession of his Episcopal See of Boston with a Mass of Installation at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. This is an event of great significance for us as we receive our new Chief Shepherd. Our Thursday evening Mass at 5:30 PM will be offered for Archbishop Henning’s special intention.

Rosary Sunday

By Fr. Higgins • October 6, 2024
Today we are observing theFeast of Our Lady of the Rosary as an “External Solemnity”. (The actual Feast-day is October 7th.) The Feast has its origins as a Feast of Thanksgiving for the deliverance of Christendom from an Ottoman Turk invasion by sea. As we read in the summary from Dom Guéranger’s Liturgical Year: The Turkish fleet had already mastered the greater part of the Mediterranean, and was threatening Italy, when, on October 7th, 1571, it came into action, in the Gulf of Lepanto with the pontifical galleys supported by the fleets of Spain and Venice. It was Sunday: throughout the world the Confraternities of the Rosary were engaged in their work of intercession. Supernaturally enlightened, St. Pius V watched from the Vatican the battle undertaken by the leader he had chosen, Don Juan of Austria, against the three-hundred vessels of Islam. The illustrious Pontiff, whose life’s work was now completed, did not survive to celebrate the anniversary of the triumph; but he perpetuated the memory of it by an annual commemoration of Our Lady of Victory. His successor, Gregory XIII, altered this title to Our Lady of the Rosary, and appointed the first Sunday of October for the new feast …  It is to be emphasized here that the spectacular victory of the under-dog Christian navy against the invader was, on the higher, spiritual plane, a gratuitous gift of the Divine Mercy in answer to the earnest prayer of faith and so it was recognized by the people of that day. It was not in any way a matter of the Rosary as “spellcasting”, as if large numbers of people praying the same prayer could have generated a forcefield of energy to achieve the desired result. Our prayers, in and of themselves, are nothing. It is rather God compassionating our prayers that makes the difference. The clearer we are on this distinction, the stronger our prayer life will be and the greater our gratitude to God.

Michael Archangel

By Fr. Higgins • September 29, 2024
The Feast of St. Michael Archangel, also known as “Michaelmas” (Michael + Mass), is our gateway into the Mystery of the Holy Angels in God’s Plan of Redemption. In addition to being the Month of the Rosary, October is also the Month of the Holy Angels. October 2nd is the Feast of the Holy Guardian Angels. The two kinds of creatures of highest intelligence God created are Angels and Men (human beings). The Angels are pure spirits, of higher intelligence than us. We men are hybrids, with spiritual souls and physical bodies. In the beginning of creation, some of these pure spirits rebelled against God. “There was war in Heaven.” (Apoc. 12:7) The faithful Angels, led by Michael, “fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought, and his angels. And they prevailed not: neither was their place found anymore in Heaven. And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole world. And he was cast unto the earth: and his angels were thrown down with him.” (ibid, vv. 7b-9) As best we can understand it from the content of Divine Revelation, Satan had some claim on divine justice to try to seduce the human creatures into sin, which, in the Original Sin of Adam and Eve, he succeeded in doing. When Christ comes into the world as the Man-God, we see Him doing battle with Satan, as He must do if He is to be truly the Second Adam. The Victory of Christ’s Cross is complete and irreversible over Satan’s power and his “right-of-conquest”, which he was holding over the sinful earth with the purest malice. All that is left to defeated Satan now until the Second Coming of Christ is to fight a “rear-guard” action by trying to snatch human souls who will perversely reject the graces offered them for salvation to the very last moment when death separates their immortal souls from their mortal bodies. This is what is meant by the phrase “final damnation”. Of all the evils in the world, the only absolute one for us is that one: final damnation. We most definitely have need then of St. Michael, the “Prince of the Heavenly Host”, and all the good angels to come to our aid against the “wickedness and the snares of the Devil.” Let us give praise and thanks to God today for the ministry of His Angels!

The Nativity of Mary and the Blessing of Seeds and Seedlings

By Fr. Higgins • September 7, 2024
Today on the Nativity of Our Lady we will offer the Blessing of Seeds and Seedlings at the end of Mass. We will repeat this Blessing on Saturday morning, September 14th, at the end of our 9 AM Mass for anyone who was not prepared for the blessing of their seeds for planting today. It is a beautiful Ritual Blessing which beseeches God, as the “Sower and Tiller of the heavenly world” to “cultivate the field of our hearts with heavenly tools, hearken to our prayers, and pour forth bountiful blessings upon the fields in which these seeds will be sown. By Thy protecting Hand turn away the fury of the elements, so that this entire fruit may be filled with Thy blessing and may be gathered without hindrance into the granary.”

Assumptiontide and the Blessing of First-Fruits

By Fr. Higgins • August 18, 2024
With the celebration of Our Lady’s Assumption we reach the high-point of our Catholic summer. At the Assumption Day Masses on August 15th we had the Blessing of the FirstFruits associated with this Feast-day. The texts of these prayers are particularly beautiful and fill the natural world with a heightened sense of God’s higher power of grace enfolding us. I quote sections of these prayers from the Roman Ritual: O GOD, by Moses, Thy servant Thou didst command the children of Israel to carry their sheaves of new grain to the priests for a blessing, to pluck the finest fruits of the orchards, and to make merry before Thee, the Lord their God. Hear Thou our supplications, and bestow blessings in abundance upon us and upon these bundles of new grain, new herbs, and this assortment of produce which we gratefully present to Thee on this festival— blessing them in Thy Name … Through the merits of the Blessed Virgin Mary whose Assumption we celebrate, may we likewise, laden with sheaves of good works, deserve to be lifted up to Heaven … O GOD, Who on this day hast raised up to heavenly heights the rod of Jesse, the Mother of Thy Son, Jesus Christ, Our Lord, that through her prayers and patronage Thou mightiest communicate to our mortal nature the Fruit of her womb, Thy same Son; we pray that we may use these fruits of the soil for our temporal and eternal welfare— the power of Thy Son and the patronage of His glorious Mother assisting us. Through the same Jesus Christ, Thy So, Our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, forever and ever Amen. And may the blessing of Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost come upon these creatures and remain for all time. Amen.
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