CAPG's Blog 

From the multitude that followed Him, He chose His apostles. At the Last Supper He ordained them priests to offer sacrifice. After His resurrection He commissioned them to go forth and to teach and sanctify all nations. He promised to be with them all days, even to the consummation of the world. The Priesthood, therefore, will continue to exist on earth till the last day. Without it, the holy sacrifice of the Mass would not be offered, the sacraments would not be administered, the word of God would not be preached to the faithful, and the true religion would soon disappear. It is principally through the priesthood that Christ continues to maintain and establish His kingdom; and it is through those who have entered this state, that is, through the priests of His holy Church, that He is accomplishing His greatest achievements in the work of salvation and sanctification. Truly have they been called other Christs, for none are more Christlike in the duties to be performed, of in dignity or in power than the duly ordained priest.

Source: The Sunday-School Director's Guide to Success by Rev. Patrick James Sloan 1909

Saint Paul, Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral, Raleigh NC. 

  Prayer to Saint Paul: O Glorious Saint Paul, after persecuting the Church you became by God's grace its most zealous Apostle. To carry the knowledge of Jesus, our divine Savior, to the uttermost parts of the earth you joyfully endured prison, scourgings, stonings, and shipwreck, as well as all manner of persecutions culminating in the shedding of the last drop of your blood for our Lord Jesus Christ.

May your example inspire our parish priests today to be zealous in their service to God's people. Obtain for our priests the grace to labor strenuously to bring the faith to others and to accept any trials and tribulations that may come their way. Help them to be inspired by your Epistles and to partake of your indomitable love for Jesus, so that after they have finished their course they may join you in praising him in heaven for all eternity. Amen.

The Mass is the memorial of the passion of Jesus Christ. His death is here mystically represented by the separate consecration of the bread and of the wine. The ornaments are all marked with the sign of the the cross, which is used in all ceremonies and benedictions. But above all, the silence, the meekness, the patience of the adorable Victim, everything at the altar, vividly remind us of the ignominious and sorrowful scenes of Calvary. Moreover, outrages ceased not to be offered to Jesus Christ with the termination of His mortal life. We know what indignities have been reserved for Him hidden under the Eucharistic veils. Alas! does He not find in our churches renewal of the cruel trials of Calvary? Does not His heart experience the same sorrow at the sight of the crimes daily committed by men, whilst He offers Himself to the Eternal Father as a victim of propitiation? Does He not find also coldness, indifference, abandonment, and that, too, on the part of those very persons who were the recipients of his greatest favors and on whose fidelity He had therefore the strongest claims. On the cross He was loaded with opprobrium by the Jews; on the altar He is overwhelmed with it by the heretics and the impious. But in this example of the Savior, who not only devotes Himself to torments and to death, but who also, as it were, prolongs and perpetuates His passion by leaving Himself in the hands of men, there is a wonderful power to make us love mortification, or at least render the practice of is more agreeable.

Jesus Christ foresaw everything. Therefore, when through love for men He constituted Himself a prisoner in the Holy Eucharist, the persecutions of the future were as clearly present to Him as those which He was actually undergoing. His tender love for us triumphed over every feeling of repugnance. He accepted the twofold chalice. Oh, that thought alone, which everything connected with the celebration of the sacred Mysteries so vividly recalls, ought to suffice to inspire the priest with unbounded generosity and courage!

Thou hast, O Lord! constituted Thyself my Victim; shall I refuse to be Thine? When instituting the Sacrament of the Altar, and pre-ordaining me to be its privileged minister, Thou didst well know how many tribulations Thou wouldst have to undergo from that moment to this. Thou hast ever present to Thee those numberless impieties, those horrible sacrileges, committed against Thee in Thy holy sacraments during this long interval of nearly nineteen hundred years. Thou didst distinctly foresee how many Judases Thou wouldst encounter on Thy way, how many times on multiplied Calvaries Thy thirst wouldst be sated with vinegar and gall; yet that terrifying prospect could not allay the fervor of Thy love, nor prevent Thee accomplishing this prodigy of charity in my behalf. Will it now be said that I have nothing but a lukewarm heart to offer Thee in return for all Thou has done for me? For love of me Thou hast sacrificed consolations, glory, life itself; shall I hesitate to sacrifice for Thee my love of ease, my sensitive emotions? For the love of me Thou hast consented to be spit upon, to be trampled under foot, to be crucified; Thou has abandoned Thyself to the fury of Thy enemies, to be rejected, insulted, vilified by many even of Thy own disciples, and all this Thou endurest till the consummation of the world; and shall I complain of remaining in obscurity during the few days of my sojourn on earth? Shall I permit a slight insult or contradiction to irritate me to such an extent as completely to upset my mind? Shall I continued to be proud, impatient, excitable, exacting? Such a contrast should not be tolerated.

Source: The Sacrifice of the Mass Worthily Celebrated by Rev. Pierre Chaignon S.J., 1897

"O Persecutor of the Church of God,
Who when converted valiantly wrought
In Missionary labors for the Lord,
Preaching the Cross which our salvation bought:
Assist the missionaries - thou the first -
To gain the conquest of the world for Christ.

Then praise we God the Father, God the Son,
And God the Holy Spirit - Three in One,
That one in him and one together we
In unity may praise the Trinity
Till all the ransomed fall before His Throne
And give all glory to our God alone. Amen"

Source: Catholic Hymns for the People, James Martin Raker 1919

Prayer intention: Missionary Conquest of World (For the conversion of Muslims and the faithful of other religions)

(Form of prayer decreed by Pope Benedict XV: to be recited Daily during the Octave.  + One decade (at least) of the Rosary for this particular intention, Holy Communion if possible.)

 Ant. That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, in me and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that Thou has sent me.

 ℣. I say to thee, that thou art Peter,

 ℟. And upon this rock I will build my Church.

•  Let us pray: Lord Jesus Christ, Who didst say to Thine Apostles: peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, look not upon my sins, but upon the faith of Thy Church; and vouchsafe unto Her that peace and unity which is agreeable to Thy will: Who livest and reignest God forever and ever. Amen.
• Lord Jesus, most gracious savior of the world, we humbly beg of Thee by Thy most Sacred heart, that all the sheep now wandering astray may be converted to Thee, the Shepherd and Bishop of their souls: Who livest and reignest through all eternity. Amen (Pius X, 26 Oct., 1905)

Source: The Church Unity Octave, 1939  American Ecclesiastical Review, Volume 100

Reflection

"On this glorious feast of the Apostle our minds think of God's grace as it fairly flung Saul to the ground on his way to Damascus, and of its effect upon him and upon the entire Church. Miracles are unusual; they are not the ordinary way. But the unmistakable lesson is here: God's grace can overcome the proud intellect and the stubborn will, but someone must pray. In the case of St. Paul perhaps Our Lady was praying for him; surely she was praying for the good of the Church when the voice from the clouds spoke to the stricken man: "Saul, Saul, why persecuteth thou Me?"

When we consider the millions of souls who have absolutely no contact with Christianity, even in its most distorted forms, who do not know the mercy of Christ or the Mother-love of Mary, we are appalled by the difficulty of converting them. But in words adapted from the votive Mass of the Propagation of the Faith, we must pray: "O Mother of God, who willest that all men should be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth, send, we beseech thee, laborers to the the harvest of thy Son; grant them to speak the truth with all confidence, that the message of God may spread and be made known and that all people may know thee and thy Son..." Missioners in foreign lands report the devotion of many non-Catholic people to Our Lady. It is not a Catholic veneration, of course, but it is genuine and sincere. Perhaps in the Providence of God this respect for Our Lady will be the bridge whereby millions will enter the Church of Christ. At the boundaries of Nepal in India three thousand Hindus and Moslems joined three hundred Catholics to honor the Pilgrim Statue of Our Lady of Fatima, as four elephants carried the statue to the church for the Rosary and Benediction. At Rojkot, with practically no Catholics, unbelieving ministers of the state and other officials came to venerate the statue. The mayor of Nadiad read a speech of welcome and declared how proud he was to be present. For twelve hours crowds passed through the church, crowds that were mostly non- Christian. As one old Indian expressed it: "She has shown us that your religion is sincere; it is not like ours. Your religion is a religion of love; ours is one of fear." (Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, The world's First Love pp193)

The passing of the Pilgrim Statue was like a triumphant march. At Patna, the Brahman governor visited the Catholic Church and prayer before the statue. In the tiny village of Kesra Mec more than twenty-five thousand people came to view the statue and the Rajah sent 250 rupees and his wife a petition of prayers. In other parts of India, and in Africa too, Moslems crowded the churches to render homage to the Mother of God. Moslemism has, in fact, many references to Mary. In the Koran there are several mention so Mary, the Annunciation, the Visitation, and the Nativity. Angels are shown accompanying the Virgin and saying: "Oh Mary, God has chosen you and purified you and elected you above all the women of the earth." It is said too that the Moslems believe in the Immaculate Conception and the Virgin Birth.

Many other instances might be cited which seem to indicate the "The Age of Mary" of which Grignion de Montfort spoke has begun. Surely the increased societies and works in her honor, the new theological studies, the emphasis given to her role in the economy of salvation and sanctification lead one to believe that this era has been initiated. St. Grignion spoke of the glorification of Mary in these terms:

"Mary must shine forth more than ever in mercy, in might, and in grace in these latter times; in mercy, to bring back and lovingly receive the poor strayed sinners who shall be converted and shall return to the Catholic Church; in might, against the enemies of God...who shall rise in terrible revolt against God to seduce all who shall be contrary to them, and to make them fall by promises and threats; and finally she must shine forth in grace, in order to animate and sustain the valiant soldiers and faithful servants of Jesus Christ who shall battle for His interests. (True Devotion pp33)"

Source: Rev. Father Titus Cranny, S.A. The American Ecclesiastical Review, Volume 130, Herman Joseph Heuser Catholic University of America Press, 1954

The hardship is great, because the enemy has long been prowling around the flock and with subtle cunning has endeavored to bring havoc upon it, succeeding to such and extent that more than every, what the Apostle wrote to the ancients of the Church of Ephesus, seems to be realized: "I know that ravening wolves will enter among you, not sparing the flock" (Acts XX. 29)

Those among us who are prompted by zeal for the glory of God and who seek the reasons for the present decay of religion, ascribe it to various causes; and each, according to his own views, adopts different methods in the endeavor to protect and restore the kingdom of God on earth.

To Us, Venerable Brethren, without rejecting the opinions of others, it seems that we must agree with the judgment of those who attribute the remissness, or rather the intellectual debility of our times, as the condition from which such grave evils arise, chiefly to ignorance of divine things. There seems to be in our day a recurrence of what God said by the mouth of the Prophet Oseas: " There is no knowledge of God in the land. Cursing and lying and killing and theft have overflowed, and blood hath touched blood. Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth in it shall languish" (Osee iv. 1-3)

Source: On the Teaching of Christian Doctrine, Pope St. Pius X