Ash Wednesday is a day of penitential prayer, abstinence and fasting.
In addition, Fridays during Lent are obligatory days of abstinence.
Although Ash Wednesday is not a holy day of obligation, we invite you to join us for Mass at 8am, noon or 6 pm
Please join us on Sunday, June 4 after the 8:30 and 11 am masses for coffee, juice and donuts in the dining hall to welcome Deacon Christopher to Holy Rosary.
There will be a Farewell to Father Steiner gathering in the HRA dining hall after each mass the weekend of June 10-11. Please join us for a wine and cheese reception after the 5:00 mass, coffee and donuts after the 8:30 mass, or appetizers after the 11:00 mass. Please click this link to RSVP or sign up on the sheets in the narthex so we can plan accordingly. If you would like to bring an item for the gatherings, sign up HERE.
I would like to share with you from the Liturgy of the Hours, the second reading on Feb. 27, 2021.
From the pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world of the Second Vatican Council.
(Gaudium et spes, Nn. 9-10) Man’s deeper questionings)
The world of today reveals itself as at once powerful and weak, capable of achieving the best or the worst. There lies open before it the way to freedom or slavery, progress or regression, brotherhood or hatred. In addition, man is becoming aware that it is for himself to give the right direction to forces that he himself has awakened, forces that can be his master or his servant. He therefore puts questions to himself. The tensions disturbing the world of today are in fact related to a more fundamental tension rooted in the human heart. In man himself many elements are in conflict with each other. On one side, he has experience of his many limitations as a creature. On the other, he knows that there is no limit to his aspirations, and that he is called to a higher kind of life.
Many things compete for his attention, but he is always compelled to make a choice among them, and to renounce some. What is more, in his weakness and sinfulness he often does what he does not want to do, and fails to do what he would like to do. In consequence, he suffers from a conflict within himself, and this in turn gives rise to so many great tensions in society.
Very many people, infected as they are with a materialistic way of life, cannot see this dramatic state of affairs in all its clarity, or at least are prevented from giving thought to it because of the unhappiness that they themselves experience.
Many think that they can find peace in the different philosophies that are proposed. Some look for complete and genuine liberation for man from man’s efforts alone. They are convinced that the coming kingdom of man on earth will satisfy all the desires of his heart.
There are those who despair of finding any meaning in life: they commend the boldness of those who deny all significance to human existence in itself, and seek to impose a total meaning on it only from within themselves.
But in the face of the way the world is developing today, there is an ever-increasing number of people who are asking the most fundamental questions or are seeing them with a keener awareness: What is man? What is the meaning of pain, of evil, of death, which still persist in spite of such great progress? What is the use of those successes, achieved at such a cost? What can man contribute to society, what can he expect from society? What will come after this life on earth?
The Church believes that Christ died and rose for all, and can give man light and strength through his Spirit to fulfill his highest calling; his is the only name under heaven in which men can be saved.
So too, the Church believes that the center and goal of all human history is found in her Lord and Master.
The Church also affirms that underlying all changes there are many things that do not change; they have their ultimate foundation in Christ, who is the same yesterday, today and forever.
Praised be Jesus Christ, Now, and Forever!
I would like to share with you from the Liturgy of the Hours, the second reading on Feb. 27, 2021
From the pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world of the Second Vatican Council
(Gaudium et spes, Nn. 9-10) Man’s deeper questionings
The world of today reveals itself as at once powerful and weak, capable of achieving the best or the worst. There lies open before it the way to freedom or slavery, progress or regression, brotherhood or hatred. In addition, man is becoming aware that it is for himself to give the right direction to forces that he himself has awakened, forces that can be his master or his servant. He therefore puts questions to himself.
The tensions disturbing the world of today are in fact related to a more fundamental tension rooted in the human heart. In man himself many elements are in conflict with each other. On one side, he has experience of his many limitations as a creature. On the other, he knows that there is no limit to his aspirations, and that he is called to a higher kind of life.
Many things compete for his attention, but he is always compelled to make a choice among them, and to renounce some. What is more, in his weakness and sinfulness he often does what he does not want to do, and fails to do what he would like to do. In consequence, he suffers from a conflict within himself, and this in turn gives rise to so many great tensions in society.
Very many people, infected as they are with a materialistic way of life, cannot see this dramatic state of affairs in all its clarity, or at least are prevented from giving thought to it because of the unhappiness that they themselves experience.
Many think that they can find peace in the different philosophies that are proposed.
Some look for complete and genuine liberation for man from man’s efforts alone. They are convinced that the coming kingdom of man on earth will satisfy all the desires of his heart.
There are those who despair of finding any meaning in life: they commend the boldness of those who deny all significance to human existence in itself, and seek to impose a total meaning on it only from within themselves.
But in the face of the way the world is developing today, there is an ever increasing number of people who are asking the most fundamental questions or are seeing them with a keener awareness: What is man? What is the meaning of pain, of evil, of death, which still persist in spite of such great progress? What is the use of those successes, achieved at such a cost? What can man contribute to society, what can he expect from society? What will come after this life on earth?
The Church believes that Christ died and rose for all, and can give man light and strength through his Spirit to fulfill his highest calling; his is the only name under heaven in which men can be saved.
So too the Church believes that the center and goal of all human history is found in her Lord and Master.
The Church also affirms that underlying all changes there are many things that do not change; they have their ultimate foundation in Christ, who is the same yesterday, today and forever.
Praised be Jesus Christ, Now, and Forever!
My dear family,
I would like to strongly encourage each of you to consecrate yourselves to Mary this year. Our Lord calls her our eternal Mother and Mary wants to protect us and keep us close to Her Son’s Most Sacred. Here is a beautiful Consecration prayer to Mary. When we give ourselves to Mary she takes us immediately to Her Son, while pleading for us at His side so we may receive His Divine life. Mary is the mother of all living and desires you and me to live in freedom from sin and death.
In Christ, through Mary, Father Steiner
Prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary
Prayer of Consecration
As the Father has chosen you, O Mary, to be His Immaculate Child, Joseph’s spouse, and the Mother of His beloved Son and of the whole Church, in full communion with the Holy Spirit, so we choose you this day as Mother and Queen of our whole family; and we consecrate to you our souls and our bodies, all that we do and all that we have, without exception. Envelop each one of us with your most maternal mercy. Teach us to love Jesus and the Father always more, and in and through them, to love one another in the Holy Spirit, discovering one another ever more profoundly in the light of Jesus, respecting one another, and choosing one another each day with a more divine and simple love. O Mary, grant that each of us fulfill the Father’s will each day in a more personal gift of ourselves., so that our whole family may bear witness, in the midst of the world, to the love of Jesus victorious over evil.
Amen
Mother, I am yours now and forever. Through you and with you I always want to belong completely to Jesus. Amen.
From the constitution on the sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council:
Christ is always present to his Church, especially in the actions of the liturgy. He is present in the sacrifice of the Mass, in the person of the minister (it is the same Christ who formerly offered himself on the cross that now offers by the ministry of priests) and most of all under the eucharistic species. He is present in the sacraments by his power, in such a way that when someone baptizes, Christ himself baptizes. He is present in his word, for it is he himself who speaks when the holy Scriptures are read in the Church. Finally, he is present when the Church prays and sings, for he himself promised: Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in their midst.
(Sacrosanctum Concilium, nn. 7-8. 106) Christ is present to his Church
Indeed, in this great work which gives perfect glory to God and brings holiness to men, Christ is always joining in partnership with himself his beloved Bride, the Church, which calls upon its Lord and through him gives worship to the eternal Father.
It is therefore, right to see the liturgy as an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ, in which through signs addressed to the senses man’s sanctification is signified and, in a way proper to each of these signs, made effective, and in which public worship is celebrated in its fullness by the mystical body of Jesus Christ, that is, by the head and by his members.
Accordingly, every liturgical celebration, as an activity of Christ the priest and of his body, which is the Church, is a sacred action of a pre-eminent kind. No other action of the Church equals its title to power or its degree of effectiveness.
In the liturgy on earth we are given a foretaste and share in the liturgy of heaven, celebrated in the holy city of Jerusalem, the goal of our pilgrimage, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, as minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle. With the whole company of heaven we sing a hymn of praise to the Lord; as we reverence the memory of the saints, we hope to have some part with them, and to share in their fellowship; we wait for the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, until he, who is our life, appears, and we appear with him in glory.
By an apostolic tradition taking its origin from the very day of Christ’s resurrection, the Church celebrates the paschal mystery every eighth day, the day that is rightly called the Lord’s day. On Sunday the Christian faithful ought to gather together, so that by listening to the word of God and sharing in the Eucharist they may recall the passion, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus and give thanks to God who has given them a new birth with a lively hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The Lord’s day is therefore the first and greatest festival, one to be set before the loving devotion of the faithful and impressed upon it, so that it may be also a day of joy and of freedom from work. Other celebrations must not take precedence over it, unless they are truly of the greatest importance, since it is the foundation and the kernel of the whole liturgical year.
In Christ, through Mary,
Father Steiner
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
A Saviour is born unto us!! We rejoice in the Lord al-ways! In our Catholic Church we celebrate many things, however; the most important is the coming of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came into the world to make the Father’s love and power known to every man and woman. Jesus continues to draw us into His love and power through the Sacraments, where God’s divine life is shared with us.
This last year has been full of challenges and some surprises. Each one of these challenges invite us to depend more on God for His endless help and grace. The question is have we been able to keep our eyes on Christ in the midst of difficulties and the abnormal-cy. I pray and hope this has been a time for you to seek the Lord in new ways and to learn new ways He desires to work in our lives.
If we need inspiration and hope, we should turn to the saints. They are not only our family members, but they desire us to be with them in heaven in the pres-ence of God forever! Each saint allows us to see how God works in each person’s daily life and reveals the possibility of us becoming saints too. Find a favorite saint, or two, or three, or fifty. You will be amazed when we speak to them and ask for their help, how they truly enjoy while waiting for us to ask them to intercede for us.
May the Holy Family always remind us that they are the ONLY ONE PERFECT FAMILY! We have been given our families to learn how to love them as God loves. A task that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph are happy to help within each of our family’s. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph plead for us with the Father to help us become the saints He is making us into!
In Christ, through Mary,
Father Steiner
Join Father Steiner every Wednesday in December from 3:30 – 3:45 pm to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet. You may join him in church or pray at home.
Prayed on ordinary rosary beads, The Chaplet of The Divine Mercy is an intercessory prayer that extends the offering of the Eucharist, so it is especially appropriate to use it after having received Holy Communion at Holy Mass.
“By this Novena, [of Chaplets] I will grant every possible grace to souls.”
The Lord requested that this Chaplet be said not only by Sr. Faustina, but by others: “Encourage souls to say the Chaplet that I have given you.”
It is likewise appropriate to pray the Chaplet during the “Hour of Great Mercy” — three o’clock each afternoon (recalling the time of Christ’s death on the cross). In His revelations to St. Faustina, Our Lord asked for a special remembrance of His Passion at that hour.
Jesus said to Sr. Faustina; “Say unceasingly this chaplet that I have taught you. Anyone who says it will receive great MERCY at the hour of death. Priests will recommend it to sinners as the last hope. Even the most hardened sinner, if he recites this chaplet even once, will receive grace from My infinite Mercy. “I want to give unimaginable graces to those who trust in My Mercy”
To learn more about the history of the Divine Mercy Chaplet, please visit this page of The Divine Mercy website.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
I pray that you all had a blessed Thanksgiving with your families! Every day we are called to give thanks to God for every gift He provides us. Have you thanked Him for your life, faith, family (even difficult members), the food you eat, the roof over your head, the heat to warm your home, transportation to get you from one place to another, your health, and what He will provide for your salvation?
We turn to the Catechism of the Catholic Church to remind us of what and why we are to be thankful to God. In paragraph 2624 it says, “In the first community of Jerusalem, believers “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and the pray-ers.” 95 This sequence is characteristic of the Church’s prayer: founded on the apostolic faith; authenticated by charity; nourished in the Eucharist.”
We must notice the blessings God gives to us, the CCC states, “Blessing expresses the basic movement of Christian prayer: it is an encounter be-tween God and man. In blessing, God’s gift and man’s acceptance of it are united in dialogue with each other. The prayer of blessing is man’s re-sponse to God’s gifts: because God blesses, the human heart can in return bless the One who is the source of every blessing. Two fundamental forms express this movement: our prayer ascends in the Holy Spirit through Christ to the Father – we bless him for having blessed us; 97 it implores the grace of the Holy Spirit that descends through Christ from the Father – he blesses us.98
So why do we have adoration of the Blessed Sacrament? Back to the Catechism in paragraph 2628 “Adoration is the first attitude of man ac-knowledging that he is a creature before his Creator. It exalts the greatness of the Lord who made us99 and the almighty power of the Savior who sets us free from evil. Adoration is homage of the spirit to the “King of Glo-ry,”100 respectful silence in the presence of the “ever greater” God.101 Adoration of the thrice-holy and sovereign God of love blends with humili-ty and gives assurance to our supplications.”
Thanksgiving characterizes the prayer of the Church which, in celebrat-ing the Eucharist, reveals and becomes more fully what she is. Indeed, in the work of salvation, Christ sets creation free from sin and death to conse-crate it anew and make it return to the Father, for his glory. The thanksgiv-ing of the members of the Body participates in that of their Head.
I leave you with these insights again from our faith and teachings in the CCC, 2638 As in the prayer of petition, every event and need can become an offering of thanksgiving. The letters of St. Paul often begin and end with thanksgiving, and the Lord Jesus is always present in it:
“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you”;
“Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.”
In Christ, through Mary,
Father Steiner