CAPG's Blog 

St. John Vianney, Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral, Raleigh NC

 
St. John Vianney, Who Accepted the Cross, O holy priest of Ars, as a young seminarian you encountered many obstacles on the road to the Priesthood, but you realized that to suffer was to suffer with Christ on Calvary, and so, if following our Lord meant taking up His cross, you lovingly embraced it. Your motto in life became loving while suffering and suffering in order to love. You did not get discouraged, but your strong faith united you closer to Jesus every day of your life.

Oh great St. John Vianney, you know what is needed for Father ___ʼs salvation: a strong faith able to accept the will of God in all things. To serve Christ, he too must take up his cross and follow Him. By your prayers, obtain for him a heart full of courage and strength. Obtain for Father ___ that same courage and strength to follow Jesus wholeheartedly even if it means following Him to Calvary. Intercede for him before the Lord that he may do the will of God, obey the commandments, and loyally love the Church, the Bride of Christ.

Novena Prayer:

O holy Priest of Ars, St. John Marie Vianney, you loved God and served Him faithfully as His Priest. Now you see God face to face in heaven. You never despaired but persevered in your faith until you died. Remember now the dangers, fears and anxieties that surround Father ___ and intercede for him in all his needs and troubles especially console him in his most difficult moments, grant him serenity in the midst of crisis, and protect him from evil. O St. John Vianney, I have confidence in your intercession.
Pray for Father ___ in a special way during this novena.

Source: Cure d'Ars Prayer Group

Lord, Jesus, Eternal Pontiff, Good Shepherd, Fount of Life, Who, through no merit of our own, has raised us to the ranks of Your priesthood by the special favor of Your Most Sacred Heart, accord us the abundant assistance of Your ever helpful mercy, that we may fulfill the desires to which Your grace has moved our mind. You, Who for us sanctified Yourself that we, too might be holy in truth (cfr. John XVII, 9), grant, that never straying from You Who are the Way, wise in Your teaching, faithful in following the precepts of Your law, we may bring back the image of Your Most Sacred Heart to our way of living, and in You and through You we may please the Heavenly Father in all things.

May all form of justice shine forth and may the strength of fortitude be joined to the chaste moderation of temperance. May sincere faith dwell, in our heart, may hope of eternal reward imbue us with the waters of consolation; and may heavenly fire then inflame those whom Your Most Sacred Heart, a burning furnace of charity, enkindles. Grant that our unending meditation may be concerned with Your words, in which eternal wisdom shines forth, and thus nourished, may we in turn feed the sheep of Your flock, our charge. May those opposed to Your Gospel, be brought into the circle of our unity, and may they find nothing in us in any way, that those who are acquainted with sin and shame might ascribe to Your church our Mother.

Grant, finally, that, seeking not our own advantages, but rather Your glory, we, with the pure conscience of a right will, may be steadfast in our duty to our last breath; and when our body yields to death, may we in the glory of the saints, gain the eternal reward of Yourself, Whom we have on earth as Leader and Companion. Who lives and reigns with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen

Pope Pius XII

(Written for a Sacerdotal Jubilee.)

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By Rev. H.T. Henry, Litt.D.

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“Thou art a Priest forever,”
To offer bread and wine—
A mystic King of Salem
At great Jehovah’s shrine:
Melchizedek prefigured
Thy Priesthood more divine,
That fills the empty Symbol,
And deifies the Sign!


For God lies on thy Altar
Beneath the veils of Bread;
The Wine thy Chalice lifteth
Is Precious Blood instead;
Thou offerest the Victim,
And lo! from Heaven are shed
God’s graces on the living,
His mercies on the dead.


How oft that Cup was lifted
Thy flock from hell to save!
How oft that Bread of Angels
Thy hand anointed gave!
How oft thy mighty blessing
Released the demon’s slave,
And thy last benediction
Made sweet the dreaded grave!


Who then shall tell the story
The court of Heaven hears?
How oft this wondrous Priesthood
Through five and twenty years
Hath spurred the saintly onward
And calmed their pressing fears,
Or sweetly drawn from sinners
A flood of saving tears?
O mightier thy power

Than earthly kings may claim:
More splendorous thy glory
Than Seer’s or Sage’s name:
Who canst, with lip of human,
God’s word of pardon frame,
That lifts from hopeless sinners
An everlasting shame!


To-day with joy thy people
The silver chaplet see
That crowns an epoch rounded
Of fruitful ministry:
O may the praise they utter
A mystic presage be
Of the unending triumph
In Heaven’s Jubilee—


Where thou, “a Priest forever,”
Shalt see no more the Sign:
The fat of wheaten harvest,
The ferment of the vine;
Shalt see no more the Symbols
Of lowly Bread and Wine,
But face to face the Victim
In the New Salem’s shrine!



Source: Eucharistica
Verse and Prose in Honour of the Hidden God H. T. Henry, Litt.D.
The Dolphin Press (Philadelphia: 1912) pp. 32-33.

Father JaVan Saxon (1950-2021)

Diocese of Raleigh: Funeral Arrangements

Rorate Caeli Purgatorial Society

"For most people the claims of nature are sufficient to awaken a prayerful remembrance for relatives and friends, but it is for another call which is too often forgotten that we would bespeak your charity here. It is for the souls of your dead priests. How few there are who think to pray for them!

When November eve comes around and the names of the dead are handed in; when the priest looks over the list, and that often with dimmed eyes, seldom does he find mention of the priests who have gone before. Fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, distant relatives, even strangers, but the dead priest's name is not there. Is it because he is forgotten? No, his memory may be still fresh, his words quoted, his example cited. Is it because the people whom he served are ungrateful? No, that is not one of the failings of Catholics.  Why, then, is his name so seldom found upon their lips in prayer, or the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is never asked in his behalf? We have often heard people say of their dead priests, "They do not need prayers," "If they do not go to heaven who will?" Ah, my brethren, that may be very flattering for the living, but it is poor consolation for the dead. The priest himself feels no such assurance. He knows better than any one else how much he needs the prayers of his people. If Saint Paul asked his brethren to pray for him, lest while he preached to others he himself should be cast away, with how much more reason can the everyday priest, far from the holiness of saint Paul, ask his brethren to intercede with God for him?
 
It is true that the priest is the channel through which grace comes to the souls of men for their salvation. But he is only a human channel withal, and that grace may pass by and leave him barren and dry. He receives special graces from God, it is true, and helps for sanctification which others do not share, but his accounting will be the greater for that, "To whom much is given, much shall be required," and what priest is there who does not tremble at his responsibilities? The fact that he is a priest does not imply that his salvation is assured. And even though he save his souls, how many defects have entered into his work! He has been dealing with souls, and God's graces have been the talents entrusted to his care. Can he say, " Of those whom thou hast given me I have not lost any one?" Though God, in His mercy, may save him in the end, yet, his reckoning will be great and his punishment severe.

What claims has the dead priest upon your prayers?

He was your father in Christ. He it was who engendered you in the Lord, he who poured the saving waters of baptism upon your head and made you children of God, with the right to heaven. He it was who cleansed you again and again from sin, in the Sacrament of Penance. He it was who broke for you the bread of Life. In sickness he succored you, in sorrow he consoled you. He blessed your marriage, instructed your little ones in their duty towards God, and lighted the dim vision of your dying with the glory of heaven beyond. He prayed for your dead and lightened your bereavement. Who can count his many offices for you? and are not all these so many claims upon your Christian charity? How can you better repay them than by the tribute of your prayers? Ah, your poor dead priest will prize these more than anything else earth can bestow. It matters little to him whether a costly monument be raised over his last resting place, or that his form be molded in imperishable bronze. A place in the hearts of a grateful people and a memento in their prayers he prizes more than these. It is for this reason that many a great and holy bishop has asked to be buried, not in the crypt of a cathedral church, but in the chapel of an orphanage, where the little ones will see his simple monument and offer a prayer for his soul, or, like the late bishop of Portland, whose wish was to lie in the common cemetery with the hope that his name would find place in the prayers of the people who came there to pray for their beloved dead.

If you, the sheep of his fold, do not pray for him, who will? Father and mother, he has none. They have gone before him. Children, he leaves none behind. Family and friends he forsook for your sake. Surely you will not turn a deaf ear to the voice of his petition coming from the grave: "Have pity, on me, have pity on me, at least you my friends, the hand of God hath touched me."

Source:  The Life and Writing of Right Reverend John Bernard Delany, D.D. Second Bishop of Manchester N.H. 1911

Prayer for a Deceased Priest

O God, Thou didst raise Thy servant, Father JaVan Saxon to the sacred priesthood of Jesus Christ, according to the Order of Melchizedek, giving him the sublime power to offer the Eternal Sacrifice, to bring the Body and Blood of Thy Son Jesus Christ down upon the altar, and to absolve the sins of men in Thine own Holy Name. We beseech Thee to reward his faithfulness and to forget his faults, admitting him speedily into Thy Holy Presence, there to enjoy forever the recompense of his labors.This we ask through Jesus Christ Thy Son, our Lord. Amen.

St. Eugenius, Source: wikipedia

"His virtue gained him the respect and esteem even of the Arians; but at length envy and blind zeal got the ascendant in their breasts, and the king sent him an order never to sit on the episcopal throne, preach to the people, or admit into his chapel any Vandals, among whom several were Catholics. The saint boldly answered that the laws of God commanded him not to shut the door of His church to any that desired to serve Him in it. Huneric, enraged at this answer, persecuted the Catholics in various ways. Many nuns were so cruelly tortured that they died on the rack. Great numbers of bishops, priests, deacons, and eminent Catholic laymen were banished to a desert filled with scorpions and venomous serpents. The people followed their bishops and priests with lighted tapers in their hands, and mothers carried their little babes in their arms and laid them at the feet of the confessors, all crying out with tears, "Going yourselves to your crowns, to whom do you leave us? Who will baptize our children? Who will impart to us the benefit of penance, and discharge us from the bonds of sin by the favor of reconciliation and pardon? Who will bury us with solemn supplications at our death? By whom will the Divine Sacrifice be made?" The bishop Eugenius was spared in the first storm, but afterwards was carried into the uninhabited desert country in the province of Tripoli, and committed to the guard of Antony, an inhuman Arian bishop, who treated him with the utmost barbarity. Under (Thrasimund) Saint Eugenius was again banished, and died in exile, on the 18th of July, 505, in a monastery which he built and governed, near Albi." Source: Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints

Prayer for Holy Bishops

Lord, according to Your promise that the Gospel should be preached throughout the whole world, raise up men fit for such work. The Apostles were but soft and yielding clay till they were baked hard by the fire of the Holy Ghost. So, Good Lord, do now in like manner again with Thy Church Militant; change and make the soft and slippery earth into hard stones; set in Thy Church strong and mighty pillars, that may suffer and endure great labors, watching, poverty, thirst, hunger, cold and heat; which also shall not hear the threatenings of princes, persecution, neither death but always persuade and think with themselves to suffer with a good will, slanders, shame, and all kinds of torments, for the glory and laud of Thy Holy Name. By this manner, good Lord, the truth of Thy Gospel shall be preached throughout all the world. Therefore, merciful Lord, exercise Thy mercy, show it indeed upon Thy Church. Saint John Fisher (Sermon in 1508) from Saint John Fisher Forum

St. Goar

For Zealous Priests

Sanctify to Thyself, O my Lord, the hearts of Thy priests, that, by the merits of Thy sacred humanity, they may become living images of Thee, children of Mary, and full of the fire of the Holy Ghost, that they may guard Thy house, and defend Thy glory, and that through their ministry the face of the earth may be renewed, and they may save those souls which have costs Thee all Thy blood. Amen

Queen of the Apostles, pray thy Son, the Lord of the Harvest, to send laborers into His harvest, and to spare His people.

The Prayer Book. Imprimatur Samuel Cardinal Stritch
Archbishop of Chicago, May 10, 1954.

St. Michael The Archangel 25th Anniversary Mass with Bishop Zarama: 

Sunday, Oct 3rd at 10:30 am 

"I imagined entering the church, eyes immediately being drawn to the brightness and beauty of the marble sanctuary.

The most sacred things deserve the finest materials and workmanship: interestingly, this principle brought me to consider God’s lavish creation and the sacred order He established to reflect His glory. "

Fr. Steven Costello St. Michael Catholic Church, Cary. NC

• Source: Saint Michael the Archangel Catholic Church, Cary, NC
  

Father Tyler Sparrow, Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral, Raleigh NC.

"Bear in mind that Holy Mass is the True and Supreme Sacrifice of the Christian religion and that all those who would assist at it correctly should join in offering it to the most high God. The Mass to the Christian is not merely a form of prayer; it is an act of worship and a sacrifice; for all who hear Mass offer the Divine Oblation together with the priest.

First of all, there is the great High Priest, the Chief Sacrificer, Christ, who Himself offers every Mass that is said to His heavenly Father. Then there is the officiating priest, who immolates the Divine Victim. Thirdly, there are the Faithful, who, present at the Holy Sacrifice, have also the power of offering it - and in fact, sometimes do so with greater profit that the priest himself. Fourthly, there are those who either "pay for the Mass" (ie. give the priest a stipend for offering it), or provide something necessary for celebrating it, such as the chalice of the vestments. Lastly, those too must be included who, unable to assist in person, unite themselves in spirit to the priest and join with him in his sacrificial act while remaining in their own homes. They also, since they participate in a certain measure in offering the Holy Sacrifice, participate in its fruits and may, if they so will, assign to others the benefit of those fruits.

Ponder well these truths, for they contain valuable instruction and comfort."

Source: The Incredible Catholic Mass by Fr. Martin Von Cochem