10. We adore Thee, the delight of heaven and earth! And to repair the neglect, indifference and contempt which mankind show of that loving invitation, by which Thou callest them to Thy sweet embraces in the Holy Eucharist, we offer up to Thee the ready obedience, content, and happiness of the Angels. Eternal praise and thanksgiving be to the Most Holy and Most Divine Sacrament.

O Queen of heaven and earth, hope of mankind, who adores thy Divine Son incessantly! We entreat thee, that, since we have the honor to be of the number of thy children, thou would interest thyself in our behalf and make satisfaction for us, and in our name, to our Eternal Judge, by rendering to Him the duties which we ourselves are incapable of performing. Amen.

Saint Firmin

"He was a native of Pampeluna in Spain, initiated in the Christian faith by Honestus, a disciple of St. Saturninus. After a holy youth, he was ordained priest and bishop by St. Honoratus, bishop of Toulouse. A charitable zeal pressed him to preach the gospel to such as were yet in darkness, and he visited many towns in France, and every where with great fruit. He went to Beauvais to comfort the Christians, who were under severe persecution; where, though he suffered much, yet his life was spared. Going afterwards to Amiens, he there chose his residence, having founded there a numerous Church of faithful disciples. He converted there in a short time three thousand souls to the faith of Christ. Upon this, the officers of Dioclesian being exasperated, they beheaded him in prison, to prevent the tumult of the people; and cut his body into pieces, that his relics might not be preserved by the faithful. This is a spirit, which you ought to beseech God to pour forth on all pastors; that they may be zealous for the good of the flock; that they may not think of rest, but of labor; and by daily spending themselves in their duty, sacrifice their lives, without the hand of the executioner.

Learn to be industrious in whatever state you are: be ashamed to be found idle. If you are not obliged to work for bread, work at least for heaven. This is not to be gained but by labor. If a lazy humor ties up your hands from other work, it is to be feared that the same will hinder you from working for heaven. Accustom yourself to be ever employed, that so you may not lay yourself open to the temptations of idleness. Thus you will be in a good way of taking pains in the affairs of your soul. Habitual idleness and intemperance are too common among Christians. Must not you forsake these to be a Christian in earnest? You are not to be invited by the greater number; but to follow the gospel, though the greater number be against you?"The Catholic Year; Or Daily Lessons on the Feasts of the Church by Fr. John Gother

Prayer for Priests Who Have Become Unfaithful to Their Vocation

Divine Savior Jesus Christ, Thou are the Good Shepherd who gives His life for His sheep. Oh, be in a very special way the Good Shepherd of those poor lost priests who are also appointed by Thee to be leaders of Thy people, but who have broken the oath of their holy ordination and have become unfaithful to their exalted calling. Bestow upon these poorest of the poor the very fullness of that pastoral solicitude with which Thou dost so faithfully seek the sheep that are lost! Touch their hearts with the irresistible ray of grace which emanates from Thine all-merciful love! Enlighten their minds and strengthen their wills, that they may turn away from all sin and error and come back to Thy holy altar and to Thy people. O most compassionate Savior! Remember that Thou didst once redeem the souls of Thine erring priests with Thy Precious Blood and in infinite preferential love didst impress upon them the indelible character of the priesthood. Put wholly to shame those miserable helpers of Satan who lay snares for the virtue of priests and endanger the holy ideal of the priesthood. Most graciously accept our prayers and sacrifices for poor priests who have gone astray and hear our earnest petition. Amen

St. Anthony of Padua, defender of the Holy Eucharist, obtain for us holy priests.

St. John-Mary Vianney, model of sacerdotal holiness, obtain for us holy priests.

St. Francis Xavier, patron of missionary priests, obtain for us holy priests.

St. Therese of the Child-Jesus and of the Holy Face, victim offered for the sanctification of priests, obtain for us holy priests.

Saints and Servants of God, obtain for us holy priests.

Imprimatur - Bishop John F. Null (April 18, 1948)

• Prayers for Ember Days:
  

Listen, Almighty God, we beseech Thee, to the prayers which Thy universal Church offers to Thee at this time, beseeching Thy blessing on those who are about to be admitted to Thy Holy Service of the Altar, in particular on ..... Give Thy grace to all who are called to any office and administration amongst Thy clergy, and so replenish them with the truth of Thy doctrine, and indue them with innocence of life, that they may faithfully serve Thee, to the glory of Thy great name and the benefit of Thy Holy Church. Amen

O God, of Whose mercies there is no number, and of Whose goodness the treasure is infinite, we humbly thank Thee for the gifts thou hast bestowed upon us. Continue Thy mercy to us, and give us also so much of Thy temporal blessings as Thou knowest to be for our good. Grant that the fruits of the earth may, by Thy holy favor, increase and multiply. Defend them from all drought, frosts or tempests, or whatever else may be hurtful to them. It is from Thy hand only that we look for succor, and to Thee we have recourse in all our necessities. Amen. Source: St. John's Manual 1856, Archbishop of New York John J. Hugues

Ember Wednesday in September:

Chant (Institute Christ the King)

Introit: Ps. 80.2-5

Lesson: From Amos the Prophet, 9.13-15

Gradual: Ps. 112. 5-7

Collect: Grant, we beseech Thee, O Lord, to Thy suppliant house hold, that while they abstain from bodily food, they may likewise refrain from sin in their minds. Through our Lord...

Lesson: From the Second Book of Esdras, 8.1-10

Gradual: Ps. 32. 12,6

Gospel: St. Mark, 9. 16-28

Offertory: Ps. 118. 47,48

Secret: May this Victim, we beseech Thee, O Lord, cleanse us from our sins: and sanctify Thy servants both in body and mind to make us fit to offer the Sacrifice. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee...

Communion: 2 Edras 8.10

Post communion: As we receive Thy Heavenly gift, O Lord, we humbly pray: that what of Thy bounty we dutifully hold, of Thy bounty too may we worthily keep. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost...

  "The Observance of ember-days is of great antiquity in the Church. Their connection with the ordination of the ministers of religion renders them particularly worthy the regard of the faithful. We cannot be too deeply impressed with the blessing granted a people, whose priests are according to Godʼs own heart. To obtain such, no humiliation should be deemed too great; no supplication should be neglected. Whilst therefore we thank God for the fruits of the earth, and humble ourselves for the sins we have committed, we should beg God to supply his Church with worthy pastors." St. Vincentʼs Manual, 1854

Ember days are:

Wednesday: the day Christ was betrayed (Fast and half-abstinence)
Friday: Christ was crucified (Fast and abstinence)
and Saturday: the day Christ was entombed. (Fast and half-abstinence)

These fasts were instituted to sanctify each season of the year, and thus obtain the favors of God, especially His mercy. They were also established to obtain the blessing of the Almighty on the fruits of the land. In spring we pray for fertility; in summer, for preservation of the crops; in autumn, for a good harvest; and in winter we offer up our grateful thanksgiving for the blessings received.

  The Church, too, wishes us to pray for those who are to be ordained priests on these days, that they may obtain the graces necessary to fulfill all their obligations, and the virtues that adorn their sacred calling. “And when they had ordained for them priests in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, in Whom they believed.” (Acts xiv.22.)

  As alms generally accompany fasting and prayer, a donation toward the education of priests for the foreign mission would be in keeping with the spirit of the Church on these occasions. We ought also to pray for vocations, especially for the foreign missions. “The harvest is great, but the laborers few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He send laborers into the vineyard.” (Matt. ix. 37,38.).

  These days should also remind us of asking ourselves how we stand with regard to God. If there be anything troubling our conscience, we ought to set it right, and then make good resolutions for the coming quarter. Thus, keeping ourselves always ready for the final summons, death will be disarmed of its terrors, and the close of life will be marked with a beautiful serenity.

“And grant us, while by fasts we strive
This mortal body to control,
To fast from all the food of ins,
And so to purify the soul.”

Padre Pio

Mgr. Giuseppe Petralia, Bishop of Agrigento in Sicily said:

"I believe that the moments in which this priest was truly Christ's Cyrenean were those in which he celebrated Mass. Artists have attempted to interpret the meaning of Padre Pio's Mass and I feel sure that theologians will also have a lot to explore in that extraordinary Mass. I believe that Padre Pio received the grace and the burden not merely of renewing in a mystical manner the sacrifice of the cross but of living over again in his heart and in his body the tragedy of the Passion. He was made to suffer in those moments the agony of Gethsemane, the scourging in the praetorium, the crowning with thorns, the mockery of the crowd, of the Sanhedrin and the Roman soldiers, the humiliation of the unjust sentence, the carrying of the cross, and the crucifixion with all its torments and humiliations. This was Padre Pio's Mass: a genuine participation, a mission of reparation." ------Padre Pio: His Life and Mission, pp. 99-100.

"In fine, to obtain eternal life, the soul must be found, at judgment, to have led a life conformable to the life of Jesus Christ. Whom he foreknew, he predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son. (Rom 9. 29) It was this that made Job tremble. What shall I do when God shall rise to judge me? and when he shall examine, what shall I answer him? (Job 31. 14)  Philip II. rebuking a domestic for having told him a lie, said to him: "Is it thus you deceive me?" The domestic went home, and died of grief. What will the sinner do? What answer will he make to Jesus Christ, His Judge? He will, like the man in the Gospel, who came to the feast without the nuptial garment, remain silent, because he will not know what to answer. His very sins will close the sinner's mouth. All iniquity shall stop her mouth. (Ps. cvi 42) St. Basil says that the sinner will then suffer more from shame than from the very fire of hell.

Finally, the Judge will pass sentence. Depart from Me ye cursed into everlasting fire." (Matt. xxv. 41) Oh! what an awful thunder-clap will that sentence be to the sinner! "Oh! how frightfully," says Denis, the Carthusian, "will that thunder resound!" "He," says St. Anselm, "that does not tremble at such thunder, sleeps not, but is dead." Eusebius writes, that the terror of sinners at hearing the sentence of their condemnation, will be so great, that, if they could, they would die again." "The wicked shall be seized with such dismay at the sight of the Judge pronouncing sentence, that, were they not immortal, they should die a second time." There is then no more time for prayer, no more intercessors whom the sinner can invoke. "There," says St. Thomas of Villanova, "there is no opportunity of praying; there no intercessor, no friend, no father, shall assist." To whom will the sinner then have recourse? Is it to God, whom he has so much despised? "Who,"says St. Basil, "shall deliver you? Is it that God whom you have insulted?" Perhaps he may have recourse to the saints, or to Mary? No: for then the stars that is, his holy advocates - shall fall from heaven, and the moon, which represents Mary, shall not give her light. "Mary," says St. Augustine,"will fly from the gate of heaven."

 "O God! with what indifference," exclaims St. Thomas of Villanova, "do we listen to persons speaking on judgment! We appear to feel as little as if the sentence of condemnation could not fall upon ourselves, or as if we were not to be judged. And is it not," says the same saint, "great folly to entertain security in so perilous an affair." My brother, St. Augustine admonishes you not to say: Will God really send me to hell? Say it not, says the holy Doctor; for even the Jews did not persuade themselves that they should be exterminated. So many of the damned did not believe that they would be cast into hell, but afterward the final vengeance came upon them. "An end is come, the end is come...Now I will accomplish My anger in thee, and will judge thee." (Ezek. 7.6) And thus, as St. Augustine says, the same will also happen to you. "The day of judgment will come, and you shall find the threats of God verified."Ps. Lxxiii At present it depends on us to choose whatever sentence we please. It is in our power, says St. Eligius, to determine the character of the sentence which we shall receive. What then must we do? We must adjust our accounts before judgment. Before judgment prepare thee justice. (Ecclus XViii 19.) St. Bonaventure says that, to escape the danger of failing in business, prudent merchants frequently review and settle their accounts. The Judge may be appeased before judgment, but not during judgment," says St. Augustine. Let us then say with St. Bernard: "I desire to present myself before Thee already judged, and not to be judged." O my Judge, I wish to be judged and punished during life, which is a time of mercy and pardon; for after death will be the time of justice."

• Affections and Prayers:

My God! if I do not appease Thee now, there will then be no more time for turning away Thy anger. But how shall I, who have so often despised Thy friendship for miserable beastly pleasures, be able to appease Thy wrath? I have repaid with ingratitude Thy immense love. How can a creature ever make sufficient satisfaction for having offended the Creator? Ah, my Lord! I thank Thee, for giving me in Thy mercy a means of appeasing Thy anger and satisfying Thy justice. I offer Thee the blood and death of Jesus Christ, Thy Son, and behold! I see a superabundant atonement and satisfaction made to Thee. To appease Thy anger, my repentance is also necessary. Yes, my God! I repent with my whole heart of all the injuries I have done Thee. Judge me now, O my Redeemer! I detest above all things all the offenses I have offered to Thee. I love Thee with my whole heart and above all things, and I purpose to love Thee always, and to die rather than ever offend Thee again. Thou hast promised to pardon all who repent. Ah! judge me now, and absolve me from my sins. I accept the punishment which I deserve, but reinstate me in Thy grace, and preserve me in it till death. Such is my hope. O Mary, my Mother! I thank thee for all the mercies which thou hast obtained for me. Ah! continue to protect me to the end."

Source: The Complete Works of Saint Alphonsus de Liguori: The Ascetical Works, Volume 1 page 247

The Resurrection of the Widow's Son at Nain (La résurrection du fils de la veuve de Naïm) - James Tissot

"Behold a dead man was carried out."— Saint Luke vii. 12. 

1. Description of the miracle. 
2. Same mercy shown to us; can we expect it again and again? 
3. The influences that keep us in sin: 
Attachment to sin ; 
Cowardice ; 
Foolish hope of a long life ; 
Presumption. 
4. “‘He gave him to his mother”—the Church. 


"The prophet of old said : “‘ These things I shall think over in my heart, therefore will I hope. The mercies of the Lord that we are not consumed: because His commiserations have not failed.” (Lam. iii. 21, 22.) This thought comes back to our mind when we read the Gospel today. The young man was dead ; they were carrying him to the grave, his poor widowed mother following him in her grief and desolation, and a great multitude of the city accompanying her. And the mercy of God met and stopped that mournful procession, raised the youth to life, and gave him to his mother. 

God in His goodness, not once, but many a time, has worked this miracle upon our souls! Let us recall to mind days gone by when our souls, alas! were borne along by evil influences, dead to God’s grace, the Church, our Mother, and the angels mourning the lost one. And God’s mercy has stopped that procession of death, forgiveness has raised our soul to life, and we have been restored to the Church. 

The danger is that we are not sure that this may happen again. Sure of it? No, we have no right to expect it or to claim it. For when we sin mortally, in that same moment we deserve to be abandoned by God, to be handed over to the devil, and be eternally lost. It is therefore the ineffable mercy of God that the sinner, who has offended Him so grievously, is not only not condemned, but even meets with mercy and forgiveness. 

Let us see, then, what are the evil influences that prevent a sinner repenting at once, and that carry us on in our sins without reflection, without fear of our destruction. What more helpless than the dead carried to the grave! And such are we, when in sin, borne on by these bearers, these evil influences. 

And what are they? First, the love of sin. The attachment to vanity and pleasure, the feeling that we could not live without them. How many have turned away from repentance because they could not give up that wicked and impure love; because they could not attempt to master that craving for drink; because they could not bring themselves to restore that ill-gotten gain which their avarice clings to; because they could not forgive their neighbours ! 

And another bearer to destruction is the fear of spiritual labour—the work of penance and piety. We think God’s service is hard; it is repugnant to us to fight against temptation and to do penance. We look at the labour and are appalled ; we have not the courage nor the strength. Oh, we have forgotten to raise our eyes and look at Him, who bids us “Come to Me, all ye that labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you.” (Matt. xi. 28.) 

The third bearer is the false hope of a longer life. We comfort ourselves with vain and empty words. Oh, there is time yet for repentance ; we need not abandon our pleasant, easy, sinful ways as yet. And this in spite of what our Blessed Lord has said: “Watch, for ye know not the day nor the hour.” (Matt. xxv. 13.) And if we are assured of a long life, of many years to come, when should we be stronger to break with sin and begin a new life ? For the longer we remain in sin, the heavier our burden and the weaker we become ; the more under the power of the devil, the more estranged from our insulted Saviour. 

And the last bearer is presumption of God’s mercy. Our Heavenly Father delays His Divine justice, and we take advantage of that, and presumptuously reckon on His forgiveness as assured. "Add not sin upon sin; and say not the mercy of God is great, and He will have mercy on the multitude of our sins. For mercy and wrath quickly come from Him, and His wrath looketh upon sinners. Delay not to be converted to the Lord, and defer it not from day to day. For His wrath shall come on a sudden, and in the time of vengeance He will destroy thee.” (Ecclus. v. 5, 9.) 

Whilst, then, the mercy of God is still with us, let us earnestly beg of Him grace to fear these evil influences which seek to carry our souls to perdition. Beware of them — attachment to sin; the fear of making an endeavour, the foolish hope of a long life, the presuming on God’s goodness, Let us drive them from our hearts, and implore our Blessed Lord to restore us to the life of grace and to the care of the Church. “And He gave him to his mother.” (Luke vii. 15.) There is our safeguard and our hope —to be taught by the Church, advised by the Church, guided by the Church, strengthened by the Church. Strengthened ! Yes, strengthened by prayer, by the Holy Mass, by the Sacrament of Penance, by frequent Communion. Greater strength than this God Himself cannot give us. “If any man eat of this Bread, he shall live for ever.” (John vi. 52.) 

And with the Church there is "the great multitude of the city" -the angels and Saints of God, and the prayers of good friends, whose wish and endeavour is to counteract the evil influences bearing us to destruction. Within the Church we are in communion with these, are strengthened and encouraged by them to be manful and earnest as they were; we are helped by their prayers, filled with hope by their example. Alas! on the other hand, if we wander away from the Church, we shall fall under the evil influences of sin once again, and, borne along to death, we shall trust to a mere chance whether the mercy of God will meet us once again, raise us to life, and restore us to our Mother." Short sermons,by Rev. Fr. F. P Hickey 1913, 15th Sunday after Pentecost

Carravagio, St. Matthew's Martyrdom

- Saint Matthew was killed at the altar by the Ethiopian King Hirtacus, while offering the sacrifice of the Mass, for refusing consent to the king's marriage to the virgin Eugenia who was dedicated to God. Source: Explanation of the Epistles and Gospels for the Sundays and Holy days by Rev. Leonard Goffine  1880, Vol. 25, St. Matthew page 870

- A Galilean by birth, his name before his conversion was Levi; he was a publican. This profession which consisted in collecting the Roman taxes was very odious to the Jews, who were thus reminded of their dependence. Generally harsh and greedy, the publican was considered by the Pharisees the type of the sinner. Wherefore the Church shows us Jesus as the healer of souls which He calls to penance.

- We read in the Gospel, St. Matthew's own account of his conversion. The Epistle describes the famous vision where Ezekiel saw four symbolical animals in which the four Evangelists were recognized from the earliest centuries. St. Matthew is represented by the animal with a human face, because he commences his Gospel by the line of ancestors from whom Jesus descended as man. His object in writing this book, which is stamped by truly divine wisdom (Introit) was to prove that Jesus realized the prophecies relating to the deliverer of Israel and that He is therefore the Messiah.

After Pentecost, the Apostle preached the good news in Palestine and in Ethiopia, where he was martyred. The name of St. Matthew is in the Canon of the Mass in the group of the Apostles. Every Parish Priest celebrates Mass for the welfare spiritual and temporal of his parishioners.

Daily Missal with Vespers for Sundays & Feasts by Dom Gaspar Lefebvre