CAPG's Blog 

Apparition of the Cross over Jerusalem

Mary as Mother of Priests is in the Dominican Priory Church of the Holy Cross in Leicester. by Lawrence OP

The Priest's Saturday:

It is something quite simple and easy, yet immeasurable great in its results. You should make it a point to offer the Saturday after the First Friday of each month to your Savior, through the hands of Mary, the great mediatrix of all graces, for the sanctification of all the priests and students for the priesthood throughout the whole world. For this purpose you should give the Saturday wholly and entirely to Him, that is to say, Holy Mass, Holy Communion, all prayers, labors, sacrifices, joys and sorrows. Whatever you cannot do on this day (Holy Mass and Holy Communion) you ought to supply immediately on Sunday. So there is really nothing new for you to do. You merely offer up this Saturday (or even every Saturday or some other day) for the sanctification of priests. It is not a case of any sodality of fraternity or anything like that. Like the First Friday in honor of the Sacred Heart, the Priest's Saturday seeks to become something religiously observed by all the Catholics of the world.

(...) Concern about the holiness of priests is the concern of the Heart of the Divine Savior and of His blessed Mother. Therefore, you also should be sure to take part in this "apostolate to the apostles. " The Holy Father, all bishops, all priests, all students for the priesthood, and especially also your own pastor, earnestly beg of you thus to participate."

Priests' First Saturday

Divine Savior, Jesus Christ, Who hast entrusted the whole work of Thy redemption, the welfare and salvation of the world, to priests as Thy representatives, through the hands of Thy most holy Mother and for the sanctification of Thy priests and candidates for the priesthood I offer Thee this present day wholly and entirely, with all its prayers, works, sacrifices, joys, and sorrows.

Give truly holy priests who, inflamed with the fire of Thy divine love, seek nothing but Thy greater glory and the salvation of our souls.

And thou, Mary, good Mother of priests, protect all priests in the dangers of their holy vocation and, with the loving hand of a Mother, also lead back to the Good Shepherd those poor priests who have become unfaithful to their exalted vocation and have gone astray. Amen

In addition to the above make it a point also to recite frequently the following:

Divine Savior, Jesus Christ, Who Hast entrusted the weal and woes of Thy Holy Church to priests, with all the fervor of my heart I recommend to Thee the wants of my pastor and all priests. Enrich them more and more with true priestly sanctity. Give them generous, all embracing, apostolic hearts, full of love for Thee and for all Thy souls, so that they, being themselves sanctified in Thee, may sanctify us who are confided to their care, and may lead us safely to heaven. Bestow upon them in rich abundance all Thy priestly graces!

Let them ever give us a glowing example of love and fidelity towards Holy Mother Church, towards the Pope, and bishops, and grant that by word and example they may shine as models of every virtue.

Most loving Jesus, bless all their priestly labors and sacrifices! Bless all their prayers and words at the altar and in the confessional, in the pulpit, and in school, in confraternities, and at the bedside of the sick!
Protect and preserve them in all dangers from within and from without.

Divine Savior, give to Thy Church priests who abound in true holiness! Call many good boys and young men to the priestly and religious state! Aid and sanctify all those who are to become Thy priests! And to the souls of departed priests grant everlasting rest.

But to me give a true spirit of faith and humble obedience, in order that in my pastor I may ever behold the representative of God and willingly follow all his teachings. Amen

Source: Priest's Saturday Series, #2 Prayers and Devotions for Priest's Day. used with permission

Perseverance and Success: St. Helen, the pious mother of Constantine the Great, had conceived the purpose of restoring to the veneration of the faithful the saving wood whereon the Son of God expiated the sins of the world. When nearly eighty years old she repaired to Palestine, to carry out the holy search; but the pagans had for three centuries concealed from the reverence of the faithful this precious memorial, and no one knew what had become of it. Acting on vague suggestions, however, the princess undertook the task of directing excavations to be made towards the summit of Calvary, and, contrary to general expectation, first one cross was discovered, then a second, and subsequently a third, but without an indication to show the reliable worth of either. As perplexity increase, St. Macarius, bishop of Jerusalem, caused a sick woman to be brought to the spot, who, by contact with one of the crosses, was straightway cured; he had a dead body exhumed, and the dead was restored to life. Thenceforth to doubt was no longer possible; this was the Holy Cross of the Savior; it was borne aloft in triumph, and Christendom at large raised its loud acclaim.

Moral reflection: In every undertaking, the beginning merely does not suffice. "Whosoever shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved. St. Matthew 24. 13.

Little Pictorial of the Saints 1910 Abbe Lecanu

The way of the Cross for Priests

Holy Mass being celebrated on Gaudete Sunday by a priest of the Congregation of the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer by Brett Crandall

"The lights of hope and joy, the shadows of despondency and sorrow are ever flitting over the surface of human life, teaching the heart the solemn lesson of detachment from earth and giving it glimpses of heaven, that city of perpetual brightness whose "light is the Lamb," the uncreated splendor of the Father. We need this succession of light and shade; continual prosperity would make us love the world, and we would forget that the days of our pilgrimage are few and evil, whilst lasting adversity would deaden the elasticity of the heart and drive it to despair. The Church knows the requirements of our nature in this respect and provides for them. The penitential seasons of Advent and Lent are succeeded by the joys of Christmas and the glories of Easter. The sorrows of Holy Week are interrupted by the Gloria of Holy Thursday, and then again the last notes of the Angelic Hymn die away in the wail of the Miserere of Tenebrae and the Improperia of Good Friday.

Advent has its Gaudete Sunday, when the Church bids her children rejoice in the Lord always, because He is near, because He is soon to be manifested to the world as the Babe of Bethlehem; so too on the fourth Sunday of Lent a cry of joy resounds through the office, Rejoice O! Jerusalem! Rejoice thou barren that bearest not. The time for the reconciliation of the penitents is approaching; the children that were dead in sin will come to life and be restored to the arms of their mother, and in anticipation her heart beats high with gladness. Then her eye turns to Palestine, ranges the dark sky that overhangs the scenes of the Passion and rests on the horizon just reddening with the first faint streaks of light from the Easter Sun. Sorrow and penance yield for a moment to the exultation of triumphant love and from her lisp breaks forth an anthem of gladness Laetare, Laetare, Rejoice, Rejoice."

The Sacramentals of the Holy Catholic Church; Or, Flowers from the Garden of the Liturgy By Rev. William James BARRY, 1858