Fr. Pecchie's Message 05/08/22

Paul and Barnabas knew all about perseverance. The First Reading gives us a glimpse of how their careers as Christian missionaries unfolded. They traveled from city to city preaching the Good News of Christ. Most ofen, their first stop was at the Jewish synagogue, where they would announce that the Messiah had finally come. In this case they arrive in the city of Antioch in Pisidia - modern-day Turkey.

On the Sabbath they go to the synagogue and preach. They spend the following week talking with individuals and families. The next  Sabbath they go to the synagogue again, and the whole city crams into the building to hear them. They must have been excited about their success. But then the leaders start getting jealous - they are afraid that Paul and Barnabas are going to steal their popularity and prestige. So a shouting match breaks out in the synagogue, and Paul and Barnabas lose.

The two saints are subsequently kicked out of the fashionable crowd. How did they react? Complain? Give up? No, they just started preaching to the Gentiles instead, confident that God would bless their efforts. Their success grew, and converts started pouring in "from the whole region". Again they must have been elated. And again, just when things were picking up, opposition strikes. A persecution was engineered against them, and Paul and Barnabas were expelled from the entire territory. How did they react this time?
Get discouraged? Give up? No, they "went to Iconium" and started the whole process over again.

Suffering and opposition are daily bread for the Christian, just as they were for Christ. Only by persevering through the cross can we come to the Resurrection; only by enduring Good Friday can we celebrate Easter Sunday.

Perseverance is something that God wants to grant us; he is eager for us to grow in our friendship with him, to become the noble, wise, and joyful men and women that he created us to be. I am sure that each one of us wants the same thing. So is there anything we can do to make sure we will always persevere?

We need to pray each day, to come frequently to confession and to Holy Communion, to strive every day, no matter how difficult it gets, to love God with all our hearts and to love our neighbors as ourselves. We need to stay close to the Blessed Virgin Mary, refuge of sinners. But that depends on keeping our hearts focused on Christ.

How can we do that in a world that is focused on so many other things, that is always trying to seduce us and make idols of pleasure, power, success, and prestige? There is a secret weapon: we can help those around us persevere. If we are constantly concerned with bringing others closer and closer to Christ, how will we be able to stray from Him ourselves?

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Have you noticed that at the end of all the Masses we sing the Marian Hymn Regina Caeli: Queen of Heaven. Why? The Regina Caeli is a musical antiphon addressed to the Blessed Virgin Mary that is used in the liturgy of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church during the Easter season, from Easter Sunday until Pentecost. During this season it takes the place of the traditional thrice-daily Angelus prayer.

Jacobus de Voragine's thirteenth-century Golden Legend includes a story that, during a procession with an image of the Blessed Virgin that was held to pray for the ending of a pestilence in Rome, angels were heard singing the first three lines of the Regina Caeli antiphon, to which Pope Gregory the Great (590604) thereupon added the fourth, after which he saw atop what in consequence is called the Castel Sant'Angelo a vision of an angel sheathing his sword, thus signifying the cessation of the plague.

The translation of this prayer is found on the back cover of our pew missal.

As we talk about our true Mother the Blessed Virgin Mary, I wish to extend to all our mothers the blessings of the Lord on this Mother’s Day. As we crown our Lady as Queen and Mother today at all Masses, may she wrap her loving Mantle upon you keeping you ever close to her Son, our Lord.

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