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.

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.

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!

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.”

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.

This past week we learned who will be our next Archbishop. It will be His Excellency Richard G. Henning, the current Bishop of Providence, Rhode Island. According to the Announcement made at the beginning of the week His Excellency will be formally installed as Archbishop of Boston on October 31st, the Vigil of All Saints. The era of Cardinal Sean’s stewardship will draw to its peaceful close and a new era for the life of our local church will begin. We want to make sure to do our part to welcome our new Archbishop and support him in the office of great responsibility which Pope Francis has placed upon him. Archbishop Henning’s Coat-of-Arms takes the motto Put Out Into The Deep . These words are taken from the Gospel scene where Christ commands Simon Peter to “launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a draught” (Luke 5:4) . Peter is reluctant to do so. “And Simon answering said to Him; Master we have labored all the night and have taken nothing: but at Thy word I will let down the net. And when they had done this, they enclosed a very great multitude of fishes and their net broke. And they beckoned to their partners that were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came and filled both the ships, so that they were almost sinking. Which when Simon Peter saw, he fell down at Jesus’ knees saying: Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. For he was wholly astonished, and all that we with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken. And so were also James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were Simon’s partners. And Jesus saith to Simon: Fear not: from henceforth thou shalt be a fisher of men. And having brought their ships to land, leaving all things, they followed Him.” (Luke 5:5-11)

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On Monday, July 15th, amidst the rumors that Pope Francis was on the point of issuing new restrictions upon the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass, an open letter was published, signed by a group of prominent cultural and intellectual personalities in the United States, both Catholics and nonCatholics. The Letter was entitled: An Open Letter from the Americas to Pope Francis. The Letter was a plea for the Mass as a part of the patrimony of human civilization: We come to you with humility and obedience but also the confidence of children, telling a loving father of our spiritual needs … To deprive the next generation of artists of this source of mystery, beauty and contemplation of the sacred seems short-sighted … All of us, believers and non-believers alike, recognize that this ancient liturgy, which inspired the works of Palestrina, Bach, and Beethoven and generations of great artists, is a magnificent achievement of civilization and part of the common cultural heritage of humanity. It is medicine for the soul, one antidote to the gross materialism of the postmodern age. The “Open Letter” was organized by the former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Dana Gioia. Among other signatories: Morten Lauridsen, composer (“O Magnum Mysterium”, “Les Chansons des Rose”, “MidWinter Songs”) , Nina Shea (international religious freedom advocate), composer Frank LaRocca (Mass of the Americas), David Conte (Chair and Professor of Composition at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music), Larry Chapp (theologian and founder of Dorothy Day Workers’ Farm), Eduardo Verástegui (film producer and actor), and public intellectual Andrew Sullivan. Their plea to Pope Francis: “[That] no further restrictions be placed on the Traditional Latin Mass so that it may be preserved for the good of the Catholic Church and of the world.” Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco singled out this Open Letter for praise on his social media account. A week earlier, in an essay published in the National Catholic Register , His Excellency said that the beauty of the Latin Mass in an important part of the Church’s ministry in “a de-Christianized age that is becoming increasingly inhospitable to any traditional sense of religion.” The Second Vatican Council sought to “read the signs of the times.” “One sign staring at us right now in large block letters is: BEAUTY EVANGELIZES.” “We live in an age when we need to leverage the power of beauty to touch minds, hearts, and souls for beauty has the quality of an inescapably real experience, one that is not subject to argument … In an age of anxiety and unreason, beauty is thus a largely untapped resource for reaching people, especially young people, with the Gospel message of hope.”

On the Calendar of Saints for today we commemorate the feast of St. Kateri Tekakwitha (+1680), who was raised to the altars by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012. She is the first Native American so honored and therefore has a special pride-of-place for American sanctity. Kateri’s mother was a Christian Algonquin who had become enslaved by the Mohawks in a warraid. Her father was the Mohawk Chief Great Beaver who had made the captive-slave his wife. Her parents died from a small-pox epidemic which swept the village when she was a very little girl and she was raised by her father’s family. When Kateri was eleven Jesuit missionary priests—“blackrobes”— were allowed into the Mohawk village to minister to the Christian Indian captives. In 1675, circumstances converged to make it possible for Kateri to become a catechumen and she was baptized on Easter Sunday, 1676. In the eyes of her father’s family this was a betrayal and they persecuted her with great cruelty: Because she found joy in her freedom to live her Christian religion Kateri’s aunts became jealous of her happiness. They would never call her by her Christian name (Kateri = Catherine), and when she tried to observe the Lord’s Day by not doing any servile work, the aunts refused to share their food with her. Kateri remained firm in her resolve though each succeeding Sunday meant a fast day. Since the aunts did not achieve their aim in breaking Kateri’s determination the resorted to new forms of persecution—scolding her and finding fault with all that she did, criticizing and insulting her as well as making her do all the household chores. In all this Kateri never complained. The non-Christian villagers soon began to imitate the aunts in ridiculing her and spitting upon her, and even young braves were told to lie in wait and threaten to kill her if she did not abandon her Christian faith. Kateri realized the purpose of this harassment and bravely bore the humiliations. (Portraits in American Sanctity, ed. By Joseph N. Tylenda, S.J., Franciscan Herald Press, 1982 A.D.) In August, 1677, Kateri was spirited away to refuge with other Christian Mohawks in a Christian Indian “prayer village” near Montreal. The Jesuit missionary priest sent with her a letter of introduction to her new director: Kateri Tekakwitha now comes to join your community. Granting her your spiritual guidance and direction, you will soon realize what a jewel we have sent you. Her soul is very close to the Lord. May she progress from day to day in virtue and holiness of life, to the honor and glory of God. Although it was the practice not to allow Indian converts First Communion until they had given sufficient proof that they were sincere about living a Christian life, Kateri was allowed to receive the Holy Eucharist barely a year after her Baptism. She made her First Communion at Christmas Midnight Mass, 1677. Kateri had a great desire to live like the French nuns she met at Ville-Marie (the original name of Montreal) and dedicate her life to caring for the sick. When it came time for the winter hunt pf 1679 she stayed behind at camp to care for the sick and elderly as if she were a French nun. Her own health, however, failed her and after receiving the Sacraments, she died on Wednesday of Holy Week, 1680. She was 24 years old. In 1715, only 25 years after her death, her missionary Spiritual Director Père Cholenc wrote the following: All the French living in these colonies as well as the Indians have a singular veneration for her. They come from far off to pray at her tomb and several through her mediation have been cured of their illnesses, and have received from heaven other wonderful favors. Devotion to Kateri, known as the Lily of the Mohawks , spread throughout the United States and Canada. As early as 1884, the American Bishops petitioned Rome to consider her cause for canonization. This petition was renewed by the Bishop of Albany, New York, in 1922. Pope Pius XII, in 1943, approved the decree declaring Kateri Tekakwitha “Venerable”. During the 300th Anniversary Year of her death, 1980, John Paul II beatified her. Then in October, 2012, in what would be the last canonizations of his Pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI raised Kateri Tekakwitha, the Lily of the Mohawks, to the altars.