Announcements
Sunday, May 5th - 5th Sunday after Easter - St Pius V, PC
Monday, May 6th - St John before the Latin Gate, ApEv - Rogation Monday
Tuesday, May 7th - St Stanislaus, BM - Rogation Tuesday
Wednesday, May 8th - Apparition of St Michael the Archangel - Vigil of the Ascension
Thursday, May 9th - Ascension Thursday - St Gregory Nazianzen, BCD
Friday, May 10th - St Antoninus, BC - Ss Gordian & Epimachus, Mm
Saturday, May 11th - Ss Philip & James, App
Sunday, May 12th - Sunday after the Ascension - Ss Nereus, Achilleus, Domitilla & Pancras, Mm
- Cinco de Mayo Potluck: Join us after the 9:30 Mass in the St Joseph Hall! Please bring a dish to share or donate $5 per person.
- Ascension Thursday: May 9th is a holy day of obligation and must be treated as a Sunday.
- Catechism Class: Class today after both Masses for students who are preparing to receive sacraments.
- Choir Workshop: Saturday, May 11th, from 10:00 to 2:30 an instructor will have a learning session with the choir at the church. All are welcome to attend!
- May Crowning: May 12th, Mothers' Day, the children who wish to participate gather in the St Joseph Hall at 9:15 a.m.
- Boys Camp: July 15th-19th in Durango, CO. See the flyers in the vestibule for more information.
- Choir Practice: In the upstairs classroom at 8:45 a.m. for the 9:30 a.m. Mass
Meditation on the 5th Sunday after Easter
From The Year Made Holy by Msgr Matthias Premm
The Introit is still pure rejoicing at the happiness of Easter, at the Resurrection of Jesus, and our own, with Him, in baptism. "Declare the voice of joy, and let it be heard, alleluia! Declare it even to the ends of the earth: the Lord has delivered His people, alleluia, alleluia!" That is our inner happiness at Eastertide: we are delivered from sin, from Satan, and even from death, which comes to us of course, but only to set us free again. We have been redeemed!
We are children of God! And so we turn our thoughts to God: "My God and my all!" At the Collect we pray to God that we may preserve the spirit of Easter throughout our life and translate it into fact. "Grant that by thy inspiration we may think those things that are right, and do them under thy guidance." Only thus shall we become true and perfect Christians, whose piety shows itself also in our lives. There must be no contradiction between our prayers in the church and our everyday life in the world. Always and everywhere we must be seen to be "risen with Christ," to be dead to all sin, to be true men of Easter.
The same earnest exhortation is addressed to us by the Apostle James in today's Epistle. It seizes in fact on the last words of the Collect and enlarges on them: "Dearly beloved: Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves... Not becoming a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, [this man] shall be blessed in his deed." If we wish to preserve the Easter grace of spiritual resurrection, we must put into practice all the teachings that Jesus expounded to us during His life on earth. The Apostle lays special stress on love of our neighbor in word and deed. "If any man think himself to be religious, not bridling his tongue, this man's religion is vain. Religion clean and undefiled... is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their tribulation, and to keep one's self unspotted from this world." We may notice that at other times too the texts of the Mass, especially the Epistles, are wont to contain exhortations to a virtuous life. Today we have it all in a nutshell: true Faith, and a life in accordance with it - these alone make the perfect Christian.
As if in echo to this solemn Lesson we now sing with glad hearts the Easter Alleluia. For we are firmly resolved by God's grace always to live as children of God and to be "doers of the word" as counseled by the Apostle. "Alleluia, Alleluia! Christ is risen, and hath shone upon us whom he redeemed with his blood. Alleluia."
Recessional Hymn
Hail, holy Queen, enthroned above, O Maria!
Hail, mother of mercy and of love, O Maria!
Triumph all ye Cherubim;
Sing with us, ye Seraphim,
Heaven and earth resound the hymn:
Salve, salve, salve Regina!
Our life our sweetness here below, O Maria!
Our hope in sorrow and in woe, O Maria!
Triumph all ye Cherubim;
Sing with us, ye Seraphim,
Heaven and earth resound the hymn:
Salve, salve, salve Regina!