Saint Francis de Sales, Bishop and Confessor (1567-1622)
by VP
Posted on Thursday January 29, 2026 at 12:00AM in Saints
St Francis de Sales, by Giovanni Battista Lucini
"He was bishop of Geneva; and spent his life in looking after the lost sheep. In this, his zeal was so great, that no difficulties or dangers discouraged him. He considered not himself, but only the misery of those seduced souls, who stood in need of his help; and God blessed his endeavours with the conversion of many thousands. Pray for all the bishops of Christ's Church, that they may be animated with the spirit and zeal of this holy prelate: that duly attending to all the necessities of their charge, neither errors nor vice may have the opportunity of spreading through their neglect. Pray for the people of Geneva, that being delivered from all their errors, they may become faithful professors of the truth.
Notwithstanding the immense charity and apostolic labours of this holy pastor, he could not escape the tongues of men, who misrepresented him at the court of Rome, and in France and Savoy, and traduced his books as heretical. But none of these calumnies made any impression upon his mind, or discouraged him in the faithful discharge of his duty. Pray for his meekness and constancy; and let his example convince you, that neither fidelity nor innocence can secure you against calumnies. And when these come to be your portion, follow his advice in doing right to truth by justifying yourself; and to humility, by submitting to those trials, which God shall permit for your exercise. Be faithful to your duty, and discreet in your conduct: and then, however folly or malice may murmur against you, go on with courage, having God for your witness, and the testimony of a good conscience to comfort you.
The charity of this saint still lives and brings forth fruit in his holy books; and in that holy order of the Visitation, which he instituted. Pray and endeavour that his books may lead you to a devout life, and increase in you the love of God. Never be tired, till his directions become your rule. Pray for all the religious of the order of the Visitation, that they may answer the designs of their founder, and give proof of his holy spirit." The Catholic Year by Rev. Fr. John Gother
CHAPTER XI. OF THE UNIVERSALITY OR CATHOLICITY OF THE CHURCH: THIRD MARK.
"THAT great Father, Vincent of Lerins, in his most useful Memorial, says that he must before all things have a great care to believe "that which has been believed by all [always and everywhere]"... such as the jugglers and tinkers; for the rest of the world call us Catholic; and if we add Roman, it is only to inform people of the See of that Bishop who is general and visible Pastor of the Church. And already in the time of S. Ambrose to be Roman in communion was the same thing as to be Catholic.
But as for your church, it is called everywhere Huguenot, Calvinist, Heretical, Pretended, Protestant, New, or Sacramentarian. Your church was not before these names, and these names were not before your church, because they are proper to it. Nobody calls you Catholics, you scarcely dare to do so yourselves. I am well aware that amongst you your churches call themselves Reformed, but just as much right to that name have the Lutherans, and the Ubiquitarians, Anabaptists, Trinitarians, and other offshoots of Luther, and they will never yield it to you. The name of religion is common to the Church of the Jews and of the Christians, in the Old Law and in the New; the name of Catholic is proper to the Church of Our Lord; the name of Reformed is a blasphemy against Our Lord, who has so perfectly formed and sanctified his Church in his blood, that it must never take other form than of his all lovely Spouse, of pillar and ground of truth. One may reform the nations in particular, but not the Church or religion. She was rightly formed, change of formation is called heresy or irreligion. The tint of Our Saviour's blood is too fair and too bright to require new colours.
Your church, then, calling itself Reformed, gives up its part in the form which the Saviour had established. But I cannot refrain from telling you what Beza, Luther, and Peter Martyr think on this. Peter Martyr calls you Lutherans, and says you are brothers to them; you are then Lutherans; Luther calls you Zwinglians * and Sacramentarians; Beza calls the Lutherans Consubstantiators and Chymists, and yet he puts them in the number of Reformed churches. then the new names which the reformers acknowledge for one another. Your church, therefore, not having even the name of Catholic, you cannot with a good conscience say the Apostles' Creed; if you do, you judge yourselves, who, confessing the Church Catholic and universal, obstinately keep to your own, which most certainly is not such. If S. Augustine were living now, he would remain in our Church, which from immemorial time is in possession of the name of Catholic." Source: St. Francis de Sales: The Catholic controversy
Home Altars and Private Chapels
by VP
Posted on Thursday January 29, 2026 at 12:00AM in Articles
"How ironic it would be if the “Christian house church” — that
concept so dear to the antiquarianizing liturgical revolutionaries who
took it as a pretext for their streamlined modern prayer-service —
turned out to be the place where the Tridentine Mass in all its medieval
and Baroque density, albeit in temporarily humble circumstances,
survived the coming persecution of Catholics." New Liturgical Movement.
- Building Home Altar (New Liturgical Movement)
- Private Chapels brought to Light by Social Distancing (Liturgical Art Journal)
- Portable Altars in Malta (Liturgical Art Journal)
- The Domestic Church: The Catholic Home (The Fish Eater)
- A family realizes a longtime dream of a Home Chapel (Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis)
Catholic Persecution and Private Chapels in America
"It was to gain religious liberty that the pioneer Catholics of the old world left their comfortable homes in Europe to brave the unknown hardships of the new Province upon the shores of Maryland; which freedom of conscience they granted to all comers as far as was in their power. But they themselves met with intolerance when English rulers later came into power and sought to enforce the then bigoted laws of Great Britain.
Colonel Bernard U. Campbell in his “Life and Times of Archbishop Carroll” tells us that as late as 1758 an attempt was made to pass a bill to prevent the growth of Popery, by which priests were to be rendered incapable of holding any lands and forbidden to make any proselytes under penalty for high treason; and which further provided that no person educated at foreign Popish seminaries should be qualified to hold land or inherit any estate within the new province.
This bill, which did not pass, seems to have been aimed particularly at John Carroll, who later became the first Catholic Bishop of the New World; Charles Carroll, signer of the Declaration of Independence; and Robert Brent, afterwards, first Mayor of Washington, who were all heirs to large estates in Maryland and at that time were boys being educated abroad at Catholic institutions.
Colonel Campbell further states that though this bill did not pass, the early Catholics were compelled to pay a land tax exactly double that exacted from others; that Catholic places of worship were forbidden and Catholic education not permitted; that Catholics were declared unfit to hold public office and that the Council even granted orders to take children away from the “pernicious contact of their Catholic parents.”
Nor did these days of intolerance pass until the Revolutionary period had broadened the minds of men and united all Americans in a more truly Christian spirit.
“In 1774 when the Reverend John Carroll returned to America, a priest, it is not believed,” says Colonel Campbell, “that there was a public. Catholic Church in all of Maryland.” “St. Peter's in Baltimore had been begun but never finished, being closed by the authorities.” And it was not until 1776 that the ban against public Catholic worship was removed.
It is not to be inferred from this, however, that Catholicity was crushed out, nor Catholic worship abolished. The well-to-do Catholics of that period had private chapels in their own homes upon their large estates and here the family and its many retainers, would gather for service whenever a faithful pastor came that way in the ministry of his duties. Of these early private chapels, in the vicinity of the present city of Washington are known to have been three: Queen's Chapel, a part of the large estate of Richard Queen, Esq., situated amid the wooded hills of Langdon; the Capitol Hill Chapel of Cern Abbey on the Duddington estate; and one in the manor house of Notley Young near the present corner of Tenth and G Streets S. W., where Father Devitt, Professor of History at Georgetown College says public Mass was first said in Washington, after it was permitted.
Father John Carroll finding this condition of catholicity in 1774 began his ministry from his own home near Rock Creek in the vicinity of Forest Glen. Here his zealous mother had maintained a small private chapel for her own family use and this was the nucleus of the present St. John's Church. After 1776, however, when the law against public Catholic worship was abolished, Father Carroll built an humble frame Church near his home, which was without doubt the first public Church in the vicinity of the District of Columbia. Father Carroll was ordained the first Catholic Bishop of the New World and was later made Archbishop. In 1789, Georgetown College was built with a small chapel attached, which in 1792 was superseded for public worship by Trinity Church, served by the same Jesuit Fathers."
Source: Records, Volume 23,Columbia Historical Society (Washington, D.C.)
