Saint Mary's Newsletter

Society of Saint Pius X St. Mary’s House Ribblesdale Place Preston - PR NA Contact: Tel.: — Email: stmarys@fsspx.uk SAINT MARY’S NEWSLETTER FEBRUARY 2018 My Dear Faithful, his month marks the start of a new reparation for sin be made so that justice towards season of Lent. Every year we anticipate Him may be done. Thus, we, too, must do our share this season approaching with stupor and in this work of reparation. trembling, or sometimes with a bit of Furthermore, reparation means that we must, in a sadness and frustration remembering that we have way, repair our nature. Our nature is wounded as a regularly failed at making a good Lent in years past. consequence of original sin and these wounds are Yes, to find the right resolutions and to keep them misleading us; they are diverting us from the path generously till the end is difficult. So, we easily get which leads to Heaven. The only way to stop these discouraged at the thought of this new season wounds misleading us is to correct them, to rectify coming. Yet, we must try to make a good Lent this their inclinations so that we may turn all our human year. faculties towards God. Hence the necessity of our The Church wisely imposes Lent on us in order for us Lenten resolutions. to make progress in our Christian life. Indeed, to Forgive me this simple remark, but Lent is not just a make a good Lent demands different dispositions question of giving up sweets and chocolate! Giving which are the capital dispositions required if we want up some things we like is one thing, but doing to walk on the right path and ultimately reach our something positive in good works is quite another. goal which is Heaven. Our Lord Jesus Christ showed Certainly we have to determine what are our bad us the way by performing His work of Redemption habits and make a serious effort to correct them. But and now we must use it for the salvation of our souls. as a general consideration, we should resolve to One important disposition during Lent is that of refocus our priorities and act positively by, for reparation. It is important to have this spirit of example, extra prayers, spiritual reading, and works reparation for our faults. We don’t do this believing of mercy such as visiting those who are sick or that we are still guilty before God for sins we have isolated. Actually, this time properly used will be the humbly and properly confessed already. To make first means to avoid doing things which we usually reparation is an important disposition to have in do and often harm our souls. In other words, when order to increase what we could call a holy horror of we do our duties towards God and have good sin. Sin is an offence against activities, we avoid sin. God who is all goodness to us. Let us be generous during Lent. The best attitude for Original sin is, as it were, what persevering is to do it in a spirit of penance for our attracted the Word of God to past sins. What is more, it will be a beautiful proof of become man and it was to our current love for God and will certainly bring perfectly atone for sin that He many blessings afterwards for our sanctification and was condemned to the death salvation. of the Cross. By this, we see that God demands that Father Vianney Vandendaele + Preston — Manchester — Liverpool — Rhos-on-Sea — Bingley Reparation Reparation is a theological concept closely oneness and solidarity of the mystical Body of connected with those of atonement and Christ, we can also make satisfaction and satisfaction, and thus belonging to some of the reparation for the sins of others. deepest mysteries of the Christian Faith. It is the This theological doctrine, firmly rooted in the teaching of that Faith that man is a creature who Christian Faith, is the foundation of the numerous has fallen from an original state of justice in which confraternities and pious associations which have he was created, and that through the Incarnation, been founded, especially in modern times, to Passion, and Death of the Son of God, he has been make reparation to God for the sins of men. Thus redeemed and restored again in a certain degree to the Archconfraternity of Reparation for the original condition. Although God might have blasphemy and the neglect of Sunday was founded condoned men's offences gratuitously if He had on th June , in the Church of St. Martin de chosen to do so, yet in His Providence He did not La Noue at St. Dizier in France by Mgr. Parisis, do this; He judged it better to demand satisfaction Bishop of Langres. With a similar object, the for the injuries which man had done Him. It is Archconfraternity of the Holy Face was established better for man's education that wrong doing on at Tours, about , through the piety of his part should entail the necessity of making M. Dupont, the "holy man of Tours". In an satisfaction. This satisfaction was made association was formed in Rome to offer adequately to God by the Sufferings, Passion, and reparation to God on behalf of all nations. The Death of Jesus Christ, made Man for us. By idea of reparation is an essential element in the voluntary submission to His Passion and Death on devotion of the Sacred Heart. the Cross, Jesus Christ atoned for our disobedience and sin. He thus made reparation to the offended The Mass, the representa- majesty of God for the outrages which the Creator tion of the sacrifice of so constantly suffers at the hands of His creatures. Calvary, is specially suited We are restored to grace through the merits of to make reparation for Christ's Death, and that grace enables us to add sin. One of the ends for our prayers, labours, and trials to those of Our which it is offered is the propitiation of God's Lord "and fill up those things that are wanting of wrath. A pious widow of Paris conceived the idea the sufferings of Christ" Colossians :. We can of promoting this object in . By the authority thus make some sort of reparation to the justice of of Pope Leo XIII the erection of the Archconfrater- God for our own offences against Him, and by nity of the Mass of Reparation was sanctioned in virtue of the Communion of the Saints, the . From Catholic encyclopedia The Secret of the Rosary Twelfth Rose should also be our heav- The Our Father — I enly Master and should teach us how to pray. The Our Father or the Lord's Prayer has great value— The beautiful order, the above all because of its Author Who is neither a man tender forcefulness and nor an Angel, but the King of Angels and men, Our the clarity of this Divine Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Prayer pay tribute to our Divine Master's wisdom. It Saint Cyprian says that it was fitting that our Saviour is a short prayer but can teach us so very much and it by Whom we were reborn into the life of grace is well within the grasp of uneducated people, while scholars find it a continual source of meditation on were ashamed of saying the Prayer that Our Lord the mysteries of our Faith. told us to say. The Our Father contains all the duties we owe to You have managed to convince yourself that the God, the acts of all the virtues and the petitions for prayers in these books are for scholars and for rich all our spiritual and corporal needs. Tertullian says people of the upper classes and that the Rosary is that the Our Father is a summary of the New only for women and children and the lower classes. Testament. Thomas à Kempis says that it surpasses As if the prayers and praises which you have been all the desires of all the Saints; that it is a reading were more beautiful and more pleasing to condensation of all the beautiful sayings of all the God than those which are to be found in the Lord's Psalms and Canticles; that in it we ask God for Prayer! It is a very dangerous temptation to lose everything that we need; that by it we praise Him in interest in the Prayer that Our Lord gave us and to the very best way; that by it we lift up our souls from take up prayers that men have written instead. earth to Heaven and unite them with God. Not that I disapprove of prayers that the Saints have Saint John Chrysostom says that we cannot be our written so as to encourage the faithful to praise God, Master's disciples unless we pray as He did and in the but it is not to be endured that they should prefer the way that He showed us. Moreover God the Father latter to the Prayer which was uttered by Wisdom listens more willingly to the Prayer that we have Incarnate. If they ignore this Prayer it is just as learned from His Son rather than those of our own though they pass up the spring to go after the brook making which have all our human limitations. and refusing the clear water, drink dirty water instead. Because the Rosary made up of the Lord's We should say the Our Father with the certitude that Prayer and the Angelic Salutation, is this clear and the eternal Father will hear it because it is the prayer ever flowing water which comes from the Fountain of of His Son Whom He always hears and we are His Grace, whereas other prayers which they look for in members.

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