Sunday's Readings: Joshua 5:9-12 Psalms 34:2-7 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

Here are a couple of commentaries on these readings:

• St. Charles Borromeo Lectionary Site (PDF)


• Found Alive Again (Also available to be heard as an MP3) from St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology


• Atonement and the Prodigal Son from The Crossroads Initiative

Sodality of Our Lady

The Sodality of Our Lady, an association formed by the Society of Jesus and approved by the Holy See, aims at fostering in its members an ardent devotion, reverence and filial love towards the Blessed Virgin Mary and seeks through this devotion to help Catholics reach sanctity in their state in life and to help save and sanctify their neighbor.

The website gives the interesting history and spirituality of the Sodality and features notable sodalists. This organization was a well-known part of the life of Catholic communities worldwide prior to Vatican II. Hopefully it will be again.

From Catholic Culture.

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The Decalogue in the Church's Tradition

The Ten Commandments are familiar, but through the Catechism, we can better grasp the tremendous importance of these ten words God first gave to His people through Moses. Tradition has embraced the Ten Commandments as a means for teaching the faith and showing us how to live the Gospel.

2064   In fidelity to Scripture and in conformity with the example of Jesus, the tradition of the Church has acknowledged the primordial importance and significance of the Decalogue.

2065   Ever since St. Augustine, the Ten Commandments have occupied a predominant place in the catechesis of baptismal candidates and the faithful. In the fifteenth century, the custom arose of expressing the commandments of the Decalogue in rhymed formulae, easy to memorize and in positive form. They are still in use today. The catechisms of the Church have often expounded Christian morality by following the order of the Ten Commandments.

2066   The division and numbering of the Commandments have varied in the course of history. the present catechism follows the division of the Commandments established by St. Augustine, which has become traditional in the Catholic Church. It is also that of the Lutheran confessions. the Greek Fathers worked out a slightly different division, which is found in the Orthodox Churches and Reformed communities.

2067   The Ten Commandments state what is required in the love of God and love of neighbor. the first three concern love of God, and the other seven love of neighbor.

As charity comprises the two commandments to which the Lord related the whole Law and the prophets . . . so the Ten Commandments were themselves given on two tablets. Three were written on one tablet and seven on the other.

2068   The Council of Trent teaches that the Ten Commandments are obligatory for Christians and that the justified man is still bound to keep them; The Second Vatican Council confirms: "The bishops, successors of the apostles, receive from the Lord . . . the mission of teaching all peoples, and of preaching the Gospel to every creature, so that all men may attain salvation through faith, Baptism and the observance of the Commandments."

Catechism of the Catholic Church

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Prayer to the Holy Face One devotion that reminds us of the infinite love that our Lord has for us is the devotion to His Holy Face. The traditional sixth station of the cross is Veronica's wiping of Jesus' face. In this station, Veronica's love for the Lord is shown in her willingness to publicly identify with Him as He carries the cross to Calvary.

O Blessed Face of my kind Savior,
by the tender love
and piercing sorrow
of Our Lady as she beheld You in
Your cruel Passion,
grant us to share in this
intense sorrow and love
so as to fulfill the holy will
of God to the utmost
of our ability.

Amen.

Lenten Fast and Abstinence Rules

Each Catholic is asked to preserve Lent's penitential purpose and character, which begins Ash Wednesday. Therefore:

• Catholics who have celebrated their 14th birthday are bound to abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday and each Friday of Lent.


• Catholics who have celebrated their 18th birthday, in addition to abstaining from meat, should fast, that is, eat only one full meal on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Smaller quantities of food may be taken at two other meals, but no food should be consumed at other times during those two days. The obligation of fasting ceases with the celebration of one's 59th birthday.

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The following are highlights from this Sunday's bulletin. To read the entire parish bulletin for March 7, 2010, click here.

NEED FOR ALTAR SERVERS:  There is a need for Altar Servers for the 5:00 p.m. Saturday Mass. Individuals should be willing to serve 1-2 times per month. Anyone from 9 to 90 should consider this important ministry. Training will be provided. Please call Jim Morrisard at 973-6570 if you are interested.

STATIONS OF THE CROSS:  The Stations of the Cross will be held Fridays at 6:30 p.m. and will be followed by a simple soup supper. Your participation is needed. Each Friday two readers, a Cross bearer and two candle bearers are needed. Sign-up is on the credenza. No experience is needed and training will be provided. Call Jim Morrisard at 973-6570 for more information.

CANTORS NEEDED:  We are in need of additional singers to serve as cantors for the 5:00 p.m. Saturday mass and the 8:30 a.m. Sunday mass. Any interested persons should speak to Bill Polhill, Minister of Music or contact him at gwpolh3@yahoo.com.

CCS CONTINUES TO ACCEPT APPLICATIONS: Charlottesville Catholic School (CCS) continues to accept applications for Pre-kindergarten through 8th grade and are in the process of considering applicants in our applicant pool.  If you are interested in learning more about all that CCS has to offer, please call our Admissions Coordinator, Ann Michel, at 964-0400. Appointments may be made for tours Monday through Friday.

AUCTION:  Just one week until CCS’s 14th Annual Gala Auction!  Make your online reservation now to join us next Saturday, March 13th at the Boar’s Head Inn Pavilion as we "Celebrate the Journey"!  Buy a raffle ticket (prizes include a new 46" flat screen TV, a Dell Mini Laptop, Vacation weeks, UVA sports packages and much more!) and/or join us for a fun, memorable community evening.  Silent and live auctions, dinner and dancing included!!  This weekend is your last chance to register! For more information, visit http://www.cvillecatholic.org/auctionupdate2010/.

PHILOSOPHY CLUB:  The Philosophy Club has moved to daylight hours!  We now meet the second Sunday of the month at 12:30 p.m. (right after the 11:00 a.m. mass) in the Bernard Moore Room.  All are welcome to join us at any time.  At our next meeting, on March 14th, we will discuss St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica, Question II and Question III, Articles 3 and 4, on the existence of God.
Please contact Suzanne Bailey (sbailey@nlrg.com or 296-5033) with any questions.

IMPACT:  Mark your calendars!  The IMPACT Nehemiah Action Assembly takes place at U-Hall on Monday, March 22.  Although the program starts at 7:00 p.m., it's a good idea to plan to arrive at 6:15 to park and sign-in.  Even if you have ignored all the other IMPACT programs this year, your attendance at Nehemiah is crucial.  IMPACT works to bring justice for the poor through the power of numbers -- a very large number of people of faith.

PANTRY:  The amount of food we receive from the government has increased lately, but that doesn't mean we can eliminate the pantry bags provided by the parish.  We always need protein foods like tuna and chunky soups, and toilet articles are especially welcome.  It's amazing how many people ask for soap and toilet paper, and how pleased they are when we tell them those items are automatically included in all pantry bags.

SALTADÈRE UPDATE:  Please continue to pray for our brothers and sisters in Haiti. Father Blot and our twin parish of St. Michel are helping to support about 500 refugees in the community through care at the clinic and education at St. Michel School. Watch for updates and recent pictures at the Haiti table. Updates on relief efforts are being posted on the Saltadère website, www.saltadere.org.

ANNUAL DIOCESAN HAITI GATHERING:  St. Thomas Aquinas is hosting the Diocesan Haiti Gathering on March 20th. Please take advantage of the opportunity to learn more about the work of our diocese in Haiti. The new bishop of Hinche (sister diocese to Richmond) will be a speaker. Help is needed with all aspects of organizing this all day event. To register, call Patrice at (804)545-5974 or email patrice.schwermer@cccofva.org.

BI-PARISH HAITI COMMITTEE:  The committee’s next meeting will be March 7th at St. Thomas Aquinas at 1:00 p.m. in the Library. For more information, please contact Laurie Duncan at Laurie Duncan.

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Sunday's Readings: Exodus 3:1-8,13-15 Psalm 103:1-4, 6-8, 11 1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 10-12 Luke 13:1-9

Here are a couple of commentaries on these readings:

• St. Charles Borromeo Lectionary Site (PDF)


• Fruits of the Fig (Also available to be heard as an MP3) from St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology


• Lenten Fasting or Feasting? (en español La Higuera) from The Crossroads Initiative

Musings of a Catholic presently consists of a short course on prayer and a course on the Mass. The course on the Mass is partially complete. The portion that is available is a detailed study of the Mass. The unfinished portion consists of a history of the Mass and a study on the Real Presence. A third course on the Liturgical Year is planned. The courses our aimed at the average Catholic.

From Catholic Culture.

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The Decalogue in Sacred Scripture, Part 2

The Ten Commandments are familiar, but through the Catechism, we can better grasp the tremendous importance of these ten words God first gave to His people through Moses. Part 1 of this section can be read here.

2060   The gift of the commandments and of the Law is part of the covenant God sealed with his own. In Exodus, the revelation of the "ten words" is granted between the proposal of the covenant and its conclusion - after the people had committed themselves to "do" all that the Lord had said, and to "obey" it. The Decalogue is never handed on without first recalling the covenant (“The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb.").

2061   The Commandments take on their full meaning within the covenant. According to Scripture, man's moral life has all its meaning in and through the covenant. the first of the "ten words" recalls that God loved
his people first:

Since there was a passing from the paradise of freedom to the slavery of this world, in punishment for sin, the first phrase of the Decalogue, the first word of God's commandments, bears on freedom "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery."

2062   The Commandments properly so-called come in the second place: they express the implications of belonging to God through the establishment of the covenant. Moral existence is a response to the Lord's loving initiative. It is the acknowledgment and homage given to God and a worship of thanksgiving. It is cooperation with the plan God pursues in history.

2063   The covenant and dialogue between God and man are also attested to by the fact that all the obligations are stated in the first person ("I am the Lord.") and addressed by God to another personal subject ("you"). In all God's commandments, the singular personal pronoun designates the recipient. God makes his will known to each person in particular, at the same time as he makes it known to the whole people:

The Lord prescribed love towards God and taught justice towards neighbor, so that man would be neither unjust, nor unworthy of God. Thus, through the Decalogue, God prepared man to become his friend and to live in harmony with his neighbor.... the words of the Decalogue remain likewise for us Christians. Far from being abolished, they have received amplification and development from the fact of the coming of the Lord in the flesh.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

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St. Katharine Drexel

The feast day of St. Katharine Drexel is March 3rd.

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. on 26 November 1858, Katharine was the second daughter of Francis Anthony Drexel, a wealthy banker, and his wife, Hannah Jane. The latter died a month after Katharine's birth, and two years later her father married Emma Bouvier, who was a devoted mother, not only to her own daughter Louisa (born 1862), but also to her two step-daughters. Both parents instilled into the children by word and example that their wealth was simply loaned to them and was to be shared with others.

Katharine was educated privately at home; she traveled widely in the United States and in Europe. Early in life she became aware of the plight of the Native Americans and the Blacks; when she inherited a vast fortune from her father and step-mother, she resolved to devote her wealth to helping these disadvantaged people. In 1885 she established a school for Native Americans at Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Later, during an audience with Pope Leo XIII, she asked him to recommend a religious congregation to staff the institutions which she was financing. The Pope suggested that she herself become a missionary, so in 1889 she began her training in religious life with the Sisters of Mercy at Pittsburgh.

In 1891, with a few companions, Mother Katharine founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People. The title of the community summed up the two great driving forces in her life—devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and love for the most deprived people in her country.

Requests for help reached Mother Katharine from various parts of the United States. During her lifetime, approximately 60 schools were opened by her congregation. The most famous foundation was made in 1915; it was Xavier University, New Orleans, the first such institution for Black people in the United States.

In 1935 Mother Katharine suffered a heart attack, and in 1937 she relinquished the office of superior general. Though gradually becoming more infirm, she was able to devote her last years to Eucharistic adoration, and so fulfill her life’s desire. She died at the age of 96 at Cornwell Heights, Pennsylvania, on 3 March 1955. Her cause for beatification was introduced in 1966; she was declared Venerable by Pope John Paul II on 26 January 1987, by whom she was also beatified on 20 November 1988.

From EWTN

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Via Crucis

Of all the pious exercises connected with the veneration of the Cross, none is more popular among the faithful than the Via Crucis. Through this pious exercise, the faithful movingly follow the final earthly journey of Christ: from the Mount of Olives, where the Lord, "in a small estate called Gethsemane" (Mk 14, 32), was taken by anguish (cf. Lk 22, 44), to Calvary where he was crucified between two thieves (cf. Lk 23, 33), to the garden where he was placed in freshly hewn tomb (John 19, 40-42).

The love of the Christian faithful for this devotion is amply attested by the numerous Via Crucis erected in so many churches, shrines, cloisters, in the countryside, and on mountain pathways where the various stations are very evocative.

The Via Crucis is a synthesis of various devotions that have arisen since the high middle ages: the pilgrimage to the Holy Land during which the faithful devoutly visit the places associated with the Lord's Passion; devotion to the three falls of Christ under the weight of the Cross; devotion to "the dolorous journey of Christ" which consisted in processing from one church to another in memory of Christ's Passion; devotion to the stations of Christ, those places where Christ stopped on his journey to Calvary because obliged to do so by his executioners or exhausted by fatigue, or because moved by compassion to dialogue with those who were present at his Passion.

In its present form, the Via Crucis, widely promoted by St. Leonardo da Porto Maurizio (+1751), was approved by the Apostolic See and indulgenced, consists of fourteen stations since the middle of seventeenth century.

The Via Crucis is a journey made in the Holy Spirit, that divine fire which burned in the heart of Jesus (cf. Lk 12, 49-50) and brought him to Calvary. This is a journey well esteemed by the Church since it has retained a living memory of the words and gestures of the final earthly days of her Spouse and Lord.

In the Via Crucis, various strands of Christian piety coalesce: the idea of life being a journey or pilgrimage; as a passage from earthly exile to our true home in Heaven; the deep desire to be conformed to the Passion of Christ; the demands of following Christ, which imply that his disciples must follow behind the Master, daily carrying their own crosses (cf Lk 9, 23).

From Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy (131-3)

Lenten Fast and Abstinence Rules

Each Catholic is asked to preserve Lent's penitential purpose and character, which begins Ash Wednesday. Therefore:

• Catholics who have celebrated their 14th birthday are bound to abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday and each Friday of Lent.


• Catholics who have celebrated their 18th birthday, in addition to abstaining from meat, should fast, that is, eat only one full meal on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Smaller quantities of food may be taken at two other meals, but no food should be consumed at other times during those two days. The obligation of fasting ceases with the celebration of one's 59th birthday.

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This post is from the Holy Comforter Catholic Church eNewsletter which is sent out once a week via email. If you would like to subscribe to the eNewsletter, click here.

Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. - Romans 12:12

The Holy Father's prayer intentions for March are:

General:   That the world economy may be managed according to the principles of justice and equity, taking account of the real needs of peoples, especially the poorest.

Mission:   That the Churches in Africa may be signs and instruments of reconciliation and justice in every part of that continent.

Sunday's Readings: First Reading:  Genesis 15:5-12, 17-18 Psalm:  Psalm 27:1,7-9, 13-14 Second Reading:  Philippians 3:17-4:1 Gospel:  Luke 9:28-36

Here are a couple of commentaries on these readings:

• St. Charles Borromeo Lectionary Site (PDF)


• The Glory in Sight (Also available to be heard as an MP3) from St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology


• From Tabor to Calvary: Did God Abandon Jesus? (en español
  La Transfiguración y la Cruz) from The Crossroads Initiative

Salvation is from the Jews celebrates, the relationship between Judaism and the Catholic Church and the conversion of the Jews. It is the website of Roy Schoeman, a convert from Judaism and author of Salvation is from the Jews.

From Catholic Culture.

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