Portal:Catholic Church/Patron Archive/22 May 2007

Purge cache to refresh this page

Archive of Patrons of the day items

To suggest an item, please do so here.

Years: 2005-6 • 2007

Saint Rita (1381 – May 22, 1457), a pre-eminent Augustinian saint was born at Roccaporena near Cascia in the Diocese of Spoleto, Italy. The name is perhaps a shortening of Margherita, the Italian version of the name "Margaret".

She was wife to a rich man named Paulo, mother of twin boys named James Anthony and Paul Maria, and after the murder of her husband and the death her two sons, she spent 40 years as a nun living to the The Augustinian Rule in the monastery of Saint Mary Magdalen at Cascia.

Attributes:Crown of thorns, rose, bees Prayer:Dear Rita, model Wife and Widow, you yourself suffered in a long illness showing patience out of love for God. Teach us to pray as you did. Many invoke you for help, full of confidence in your intercession. Deign to come now to our aid for the relief and cure of {name of sufferer}. To God, all things are possible; may this healing give glory to the Lord. Amen.

May 23 2007

Saint William of Perth (Saint William of Rochester) (died ca. 1201) was a Scottish saint who was martyred in England.

Born at Perth, practically all that is known of this martyr comes from the Nova legenda Anglie, and that is little. In youth he had been somewhat wild, but on reaching manhood he devoted himself wholly to the service of God. A baker by trade (some sources say he was a fisherman), he was accustomed to set aside every tenth loaf for the poor.

He went to Mass daily, and one morning, before it was light, found on the threshold of the church an abandoned child, whom he adopted and to whom he taught his trade. Later he took a vow to visit the Holy Places, and, having received the consecrated wallet and staff as a palmer, set out with his adopted son, whose name is given as "Cockermay Doucri", which is said to be Scots for "David the Foundling". They stayed three days at Rochester, and purposed to proceed next day to Canterbury (and perhaps thence to Jerusalem), but instead David willfully misled his benefactor on a short-cut and, with robbery in view, felled him with a blow on the head and cut his throat.

The body was discovered by a mad woman, who plaited a garland of honeysuckle and placed it first on the head of the corpse and then her own, whereupon the madness left her. On learning her tale the monks of Rochester carried the body to the cathedral and there buried it. He was honored as a martyr because he was on a pilgrimage to holy places. As a result of the miracle involving the madwoman as well as other miracles wrought at his intercession after death, he was acclaimed a saint by the people.

Attributes: dog and staff
Patronage: Adopted children
Prayer:

May 24 2007

Saint Manahen (also Manaen) was a teacher of the Church of Antioch and the foster brother (Gk. syntrophos, Vulg. collactaneus) of Herod Antipas.

Little is known of Manahen's life. He is said to be one those who, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, laid hands upon Saul and Barnabas and sent the two Apostles on the first of St. Paul's missionary journeys (Acts 13:3). Since St. Luke was an Antiochene, it is not unlikely that Manahen was on of the "the prophets and doctors" of the Church of Antioch was one of the "eyewitnesses and ministers of the word" (Luke 1:2), who delivered unto Luke the details which that sacred writer has in regard to Antipas and other members of the Herodian family (Luke 3:1, 19, 20; 8:3; 9:7-9; 13:31, 32; 23:8-12; Acts 12). He may have become a disciple of Jesus with "Joanna, the wife of Chusa, Herod's steward" (Luke 8:3).

In AD 39, Antipas left for Rome to gain the favor of Caligula, but instead received an order of perpetual exile. (Jos., "Ant.", XVIII, vii, 2). During this time, the Church of Antioch was founded by Jewish Christians, who "had been dispersed by the persecution that arose on the occasion of Stephen" and had taught the Gospel also to the Greeks of Antioch, (Acts 11:19-24). It is quite likely that St. Manahen was one of these founders of the Antiochene Church. His feast is celebrated on May 24.

May 25 2007

Portal:Catholicism/Article Archive/May 2 2007

May 26 2007

Portal:Catholicism/Article Archive/May 26 2007

May 27 2007

Portal:Catholicism/Article Archive/May 27 2007

May 28 2007

Portal:Catholicism/Article Archive/May 28 2007

May 29 2007

Portal:Catholicism/Article Archive/May 29 2007

May 30 2007

Portal:Catholicism/Article Archive/May 30 2007

May 31 2007

Portal:Catholicism/Article Archive/May 31 2007

June 2007

In Roman Catholicism, marriage is one of the seven sacraments. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, paragraph 1623, "the spouses as ministers of Christ's grace mutually confer upon each other the sacrament of Matrimony by expressing their consent before the Church." An argument for the institution of the sacrament of Matrimony by Christ himself, and its occasion, is advanced by Bernard Orchard in his article The Betrothal and Marriage of Mary to Joseph^[1] In the Eastern Catholic Churches (i.e., non-Latin rite churches in full communion with Rome), "Only those marriages are valid that are celebrated with a sacred rite, in the presence of the local hierarch, local pastor, or a priest who has been given the faculty of blessing the marriage by either of them, and at least two witnesses…. The very intervention of a priest who assists and blesses is regarded as a sacred rite for the present purpose."^[2]

Marriage forms the foundation of the family, the fundamental unit of the referring community (ordinarily the parish). The ideal references are found in the Holy Family (Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Saint Joseph, Mary's husband). See related articles of Canon law.^[3]

To Catholics, the primary purpose of marriage is to fulfill a vocation in the nature of man and woman, for the procreation and education of children, and to stand as a symbol of the mystical union between Christ and his Church.^[4] Fecundity (the ability to reproduce) is good, a gift and a goal of marriage.

Read more

References

^ DUCATUM EVANGELII: The Betrothal of Mary to Joseph, Summary page 1
^ can. 828 CCEO 1991
^ http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P3V.HTM Canon Law
^ Catechism Of The Catholic Church

July 2007

Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song of the Roman Catholic Church. Gregorian chant developed mainly in the Frankish lands of western and central Europe during the 9th and 10th centuries, with later additions and redactions. Although popular legend credits Pope Gregory the Great with inventing Gregorian chant, scholars believe that it arose from a later Carolingian synthesis of Roman and Gallican chant.

Gregorian chants are organized into eight scalar modes. Typical melodic features include characteristic incipits and cadences, the use of reciting tones around which the other notes of the melody revolve, and a vocabulary of musical motifs woven together through a process called centonization to create families of related chants. Instead of octave scales, six-note patterns called hexachords came to define the modes. These patterns use elements of the modern diatonic scale as well as what would now be called B flat. Gregorian melodies are transcribed using neumes, an early form of musical notation from which the modern five-line staff developed during the 16th century.^[1] Gregorian chant played a fundamental role in the development of polyphony.

Gregorian chant was traditionally sung by choirs of men and boys in churches, or by women and men of religious orders in their chapels. It is the music of the Roman Rite, performed in the Mass and the monastic Office. Gregorian chant supplanted or marginalized the other indigenous plainchant traditions of the Christian West to become the official music of the Roman Catholic liturgy. Although Gregorian chant is no longer obligatory, the Roman Catholic Church still officially considers it the music most suitable for worship.^[2] During the 20th century, Gregorian chant underwent a musicological and popular resurgence.

Read more

References

^ Development of notation styles is discussed at Dolmetsch online, accessed 4 July 2006
^ The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Second Vatican Council. The Catholic Encyclopedia addresses this point at length: plainchant article. This view is held at the highest levels, including Pope Benedict XVI: Catholic World News 28 June 2006 both accessed 5 July 2006

August 2007

File:Shroud-of-Turin-1898-photo.jpg

The first photo of the Shroud of Turin, taken in 1898, had the surprising feature that the image on the negative was clearer than the positive image.

The Shroud of Turin (or Turin Shroud) is a linen cloth bearing the image of a man who appears to have been physically traumatized in a manner consistent with crucifixion. It is being kept in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, Italy. The shroud is the subject of intense debate among some scientists, believers, historians, and writers regarding where, when, and how the shroud and its images were created. Some believe it is the cloth that covered Jesus of Nazareth when he was placed in his tomb and that his image was recorded on its fibers at or near the time of his proclaimed resurrection. Skeptics contend the shroud is a medieval hoax or forgery — or even a devotional work of artistic verisimilitude. Radiocarbon tests in 1988 by three independent teams of scientists yielded results showing that the shroud was created in the Middle Ages and not the first century A.D.

The shroud is rectangular, measuring approximately 4.4 x 1.1 m (14.3 x 3.7 ft). The cloth is woven in a herringbone twill and is composed of flax fibrils entwined with cotton fibrils. It bears the image of a front and dorsal view of a naked man with his hands folded across his groin. The two views are aligned along the midplane of the body and pointing in opposite directions. The front and back views of the head nearly meet at the middle of the cloth. The views are consistent with an orthographic projection of a human body, but see Analysis of the image as the work of an artist.

The "Man of the Shroud" has a beard, moustache, and shoulder-length hair parted in the middle. He is well-proportioned, muscular, and quite tall (1.75 m (5 ft 9 in)) for a man of the first century (the time of Jesus' death) or for the Middle Ages (the time of the first uncontested report of the shroud's existence, and the proposed time of possible forgery). Dark, red stains, either blood or a substance meant to be perceived as blood, are found on the cloth, showing various wounds:

Read more

September 2007

The First Crusade was launched in 1095 by Pope Urban II with the dual goals of liberating the sacred city of Jerusalem and the Holy Land from Muslims and freeing the Eastern Christians from Muslim rule. What started as an appeal by Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos for western mercenaries to fight the Turks in Anatolia quickly turned into a wholesale Western migration and conquest of territory outside of Europe. Both knights and peasants from many nations of Western Europe, with little central leadership, travelled over land and by sea towards Jerusalem and captured the city in July 1099, establishing the Kingdom of Jerusalem and other Crusader states. Although these gains lasted for less than two hundred years, the First Crusade was a major turning point in the expansion of Western power, as well as the first major step towards reopening international trade in the West since the fall of the Western Roman Empire. It was also the most successful crusade, being the only one to succeed in capturing Jerusalem.

By the early 8th century, the Umayyad Caliphate had rapidly captured North Africa, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Spain from a predominantly Christian Byzantine Empire. During the 9th century, the Reconquista picked up an ideological potency that is considered to be the first example of a "Christian" effort to recapture territory, seen as lost to Muslims, as part of the expansion efforts of the Christian kingdoms along the Bay of Biscay. Spanish kingdoms, knightly orders and mercenaries began to mobilize from across Europe for the fight against the surviving and predominantly Moorish Umayyad caliphate at Cordoba.
Read more

October 2007

Opus Dei, formally known as The Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei, is a personal prelature of the Catholic Church that teaches the Catholic belief that everyone is called to holiness and that ordinary life is a path to sanctity. The Opus Dei prelature is made up of ordinary lay people and secular priests governed by a prelate. Opus Dei is Latin for "Work of God", and the organization is sometimes known simply as "the Work".

Most of its 87,000 members, called supernumeraries, lead traditional family lives and have secular careers. The celibate numeraries and numerary assistants live in special centers, while associates are celibate members living in their private homes.

Opus Dei was founded in Spain in 1928 by a Roman Catholic priest Josemaría Escrivá and given final approval in 1950 by Pope Pius XII. In 1982, it was made into a personal prelature — its bishop's jurisdiction is not linked to one specific geographic area, but instead covers the persons in Opus Dei, wherever they are. Opus Dei is the first and so far the only Catholic organization of this type. Various Popes and Catholic leaders have strongly supported what they see as Opus Dei's innovative teaching on the sanctifying value of work, and in 2002, Pope John Paul II canonized Saint Josemaría Escrivá.

Read more...

November 2007

Portal:Catholicism/Article Archive/November 2007

December 2007

Portal:Catholicism/Article Archive/December 2007

[1] DUCATUM EVANGELII: The Betrothal of Mary to Joseph, Summary page 1

[2] . 828 CCEO 1991

[3] ttp://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P3V.HTM Canon Law

[4] Catechism Of The Catholic Church

[5] Development of notation styles is discussed at Dolmetsch online, accessed 4 July 2006

[Catholic-6] The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Second Vatican Council. The Catholic Encyclopedia addresses this point at length: plainchant article. This view is held at the highest levels, including Pope Benedict XVI: Catholic World News 28 June 2006 both accessed 5 July 2006

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[1]

[2]