Pray the Rosary for Our Country
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
As you know, public worship has once again stopped on orders of the Governor and local county health officials. This means that we will go back to live-streamed Masses on weekdays at 8:00 a.m. and on Sundays at 10:30 a.m. (English) and 1:30 p.m. (Latin). (The Spanish Mass vigil will be live-streamed at 6:30 p.m., Saturday.) We have set up a television monitor and speaker at the east entrance of the church, overlooking the Fatima Grotto area. For those who are able, we invite you to come and set up a lawn chair, if you have one, and follow the Mass in this fashion. The priest will come outside to distribute Holy Communion and then return back to the Church to conclude the Mass. Until we are told otherwise, we will continue hearing confessions in the church every Saturday from 3:00 - 4:30 p.m. We will have all of the doors open to maintain sufficient airflow. We ask that upon finishing in the confessional, you return home to say your penance, rather than saying it in the church.
Believe me, we are all frustrated with this situation, but must make the best of it. To help us cope, I am including some quotations from the late, great Archbishop Fulton Sheen.
“Only those who live by faith really know what is happening in the world; the great masses without faith are unconscious of the destructive processes going on, because they have lost the vision of the heights from which they have fallen.”
“America, it is said, is suffering from intolerance — it is not. It is suffering from tolerance. Tolerance of right and wrong, truth and error, virtue and evil, Christ and chaos. Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded.”
“We become like that which we love. If we love what is base, we become base; but if we love what is noble, we become noble.”
—Fr. Epperson
Prayer to the Mary Immaculate Patroness of the United States
On December 8, 1950, the 99th anniversary of the proclamation of the Immaculate Conception dogma, Pope Pius XII proclaimed 1951, the 100th anniversary of the Lourdes visitation by Mary, the Marian year. We asked to ask Divine assistance in fighting the communist threat the world was facing. In that connection, the U. S. Catholic Bishops proclaimed Mary as the Patroness of America. The prayer below was developed in connection with that declaration.
Immaculate Mary, Mother, teacher and Queen, watch over with a loving smile this blessed land of America and her children. Your heart expands so as to welcome and enfold all peoples in the loving embrace of peace.
You continue to look down on the earth, upon the just and the erring, ever solicitous for the salvation of all. You remember that Jesus when dying on the cross, assigned you as our Mother and inflamed your heart universal love and solitude. Therefore, continue to inspire vocations, comfort the evangelical laborers and render all hearts docile to the Divine Master.
Through you may this great people ever more find in Christ the Way, the Truth and the Life; may they let his light shine before the world; and may they always seek the kingdom of God and His justice.
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