Jesus Asleep in the Boat

Dear Parishioners,

If you feel like me at this point in our Catholic Church’s history, you are probably, at a minimum, confused and frustrated. What’s going on here? Our spiritual leadership often appears out of sync with well-established tradition and theological history. Silence and seemingly contradictory actions do not help to clarify matters. Preciseness is woefully lacking on various moral issues and theological teaching. Help!  

To me, this is indeed a diabolical spiritual crisis of the greatest proportions. How do we deal with a spiritual crisis of such magnitude? Let me remind you of today’s Gospel passage:

A violent squall came up and waves were breaking over the boat, so that it was already filling up. Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion. They woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” (Mk. 4: 37-38)

Is Jesus once again sleeping while the ship (the Church) seems to be sinking? Remember how quickly things change at the word of His command:

“Quiet! Be still!” The wind ceased and there was great calm. Then he asked them, “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?” (Mk. 4: 39-40)

In addition, I recall a story from Jesus’ ministry where the disciples could not cure someone and they looked to Jesus for the reason why they could not perform the miracle:

“I brought [my son] to your disciples, but they could not cure him.”  Jesus said in reply, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long will I be with you?  How long will I endure you?  Bring him here to me.”  Jesus rebuked him and the demon came out of him, and from that hour the boy was cured.  Then the disciples approached Jesus in private and said, “Why could we not drive it out?”  He said to them, “Because of your little faith.  Amen, I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move.  Nothing will be impossible for you.”  (Mt. 17: 16-20)

It was the lack of faith that Jesus pointed out as the reason for their inability to act. “But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Lk. 18:8) We seem to be living in a time where supernatural faith is missing-in-action. At a time of spiritual warfare, this is certainly not a good situation. Faith must be nurtured before it is lost entirely.

Our faith tells us that Jesus, the Son of God, continues to remain with the Church He established. “And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” (Mt. 28:20)  He is truly present in the Most Holy Eucharist, in the Sacred Scriptures, in all the Sacraments, and in His Mystical Body, the Church.

Undoubtedly, there will continue to be tribulations now as there was from the very moment when Jesus established His Church on St. Peter, the Rock—who had denied Him three times! Need we also be reminded that eleven of the twelve Apostles were missing from the foot of the cross, and Judas—one of Christ’s hand-picked twelve—turned traitor? Clearly, supernatural problems require supernatural solutions. Prayer and fasting are a must. Praying the Rosary daily has been continually requested by Our Lady:

The Most Holy Virgin in these last times in which we live has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families . . . that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary.  Sister Lucia dos Santos (Seer of Fatima)

The Blessed Mother’s intercession is absolutely essential to the solution:

Some people are so foolish that they think they can go through life without the help of the Blessed Mother. Love the Madonna and pray the rosary, for her Rosary is the weapon against the evils of the world today. All graces given by God pass through the Blessed Mother.  St. Pio of Pietrelcina (Padre Pio)

I believe that the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph in the end.  Getting to that point, however, is definitely not for the faint of heart and for those without a strong faith!

Fr. Ed Namiotka

Pastor

Reparation on Five First Saturdays

 

Immaculate and Sorrowful Heart of Mary

Dear Parishioners,

For some time now I have been prayerfully considering again offering a public morning Mass on the first Saturday of the month. When I was sick and hospitalized more than a year ago, public Saturday morning Masses at our parish ceased allowing me some time to recuperate. With thanksgiving that I am now healthy and more determined than ever to accomplish whatever God desires, I sense some urgency and a necessity to encourage this perhaps unknown, forgotten or ignored devotion. Below is a brief history of the origin of the first Saturday devotion:

In the third of Her six apparitions at Fatima, Portugal in 1917, Our Lady promised to return to make a special request for the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays. Eight years later, on December 10th, 1925, the eldest and only surviving visionary, Lucia dos Santos, was an eighteen-year-old postulant in a Dorothean convent in Pontevedra, Spain. Having returned to her cell that evening after supper, she suddenly saw Our Lady standing close by her, in the presence also of the Child Jesus, Who was standing on a little cloud.

At first Our Lady did not say anything. It was as if She could not speak, being overwhelmed with sorrow. She held Her Immaculate Heart in Her hand for Lucia to see, pierced all around by terrible thorns, and She placed Her other hand on Lucia’s shoulder, as if to communicate a most familiar and loving appeal. It seems almost as if, in anguish, She sought to lean for support on Lucy’s shoulder.

The Child Jesus spoke first, imploring: “Have compassion on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother, covered with thorns, with which ungrateful men pierce It at every moment, and there is no one to make an act of reparation to remove them.”

Then Our Lady added: “Look, My daughter, at My Heart, surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce Me at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. Do you, at least, try to console Me, and announce in My name that I promise to assist at the moment of death, with all the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months shall [1.] confess, [2.] receive Holy Communion, [3.] recite five decades of the Rosary, and [4.] keep Me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to Me.”             (The Fatima Center)

Beginning this month, first Saturday Mass will be offered each subsequent month at 9 AM followed by a recitation of 5 decades of the Holy Rosary. The Sacrament of Penance (Confession), requested as part of the devotion, can be satisfied within 8 days (before or after). I encourage everyone to consider making the five consecutive first Saturday devotion sometime during 2023.

I had mentioned in a previous homily (January 1, 2023), the five first Saturdays correspond to the five kinds of offenses and blasphemies committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary. They are:

a. Blasphemies against the Immaculate Conception

b. Blasphemies against her virginity

c. Blasphemies against her divine maternity, at the same time the refusal to accept her as the Mother of all men

d. Instilling indifference, scorn and even hatred towards this Immaculate Mother in the hearts of children

e. Direct insults against her sacred images          (The Fatima Center)

I believe it is of utmost importance that we all take seriously the urgent pleading of Our Lady over the centuries, and especially at Fatima, that has called us to repentance and to turn back to Her Divine Son.

Remember the words of of Our Lady: “I promise to assist at the moment of death, with all the graces necessary for salvation . . .” all those who fulfill the requirements of this devotion.

Fr. Ed Namiotka

Pastor

A Tale of Two Churches

 

Dear Parishioners,

It has become more and more apparent to me that the Catholic Church is at a very serious crossroads.  I have witnessed changes in the Church taking place for years now—almost my entire lifetime. However, some of the things I am currently witnessing are absolutely unprecedented.

Let me begin with something as simple as orientation of the priest at Mass.  For centuries, the position of the priest was ad orientem (towards “liturgical” East).  The priest faced the direction of the rising sun to lead prayer and remind us all of the rising of the Son of God.  While some claimed that he had his back to the people, rather, it was the intention of this position in the Mass to face God.  After all, we are worshipping Him, not the people. The focus, slowly and subtly, became more oriented to the community rather than to God. While people became accustomed to this new liturgical position with time, simultaneously the emphasis at Mass tended more toward meal rather than sacrifice.  The community meal seemed to take precedent over the eternal sacrifice of Jesus to His Father.  Then Holy Communion went from reception on the tongue while kneeling to reception in the hand while standing.  Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion are now regularly scheduled (not so extraordinary, if you ask me) and are commonly referred to as Eucharistic “Ministers.”  I could go on and on.  These were just some of the many, many liturgical changes that occurred over time.

What the situation in the Church has now morphed into is an attempt to change Church teaching and the very Church itself.  The blessing of gay unions, “sinless” homosexual acts, reception of Holy Communion by divorced-remarried, women priests, a plurality of acceptable, salvific religions and many other questionable/heretical ideas are seemingly on the table.  Popes in the past have warned against the heresy of modernism where truth becomes fluid and relativistic.  Now it appears that modernism is rearing its ugly head right out in the open with seeming consent by various members of the Church hierarchy.

We see various high-ranking Vatican officials and Church leaders (cardinals, archbishops, bishops, a former papal nuncio, a former prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, etc.) openly criticizing what is now happening within the Catholic Church. Wow!

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen warned of an upcoming, counterfeit Church—an ape of the Church.  Sr. Lucia, one of the three Fatima seers, spoke of a “diabolic disorientation” within the Church and that the final battle between God and Satan would be over marriage and the family.  Pope St. Paul VI spoke of the “smoke of Satan” within the Church.  Our Lady of Good Success, a lesser-known but still approved Marian apparition from Quito, Ecuador, predicted and warned humanity about the sins of modern society and a future struggle within the Church itself.  Pope St. John Paul II admonished us concerning the “culture of death” permeating our society.  There are many others who have given us vital warnings for our time.

I trust God will act in some way to protect the Holy Catholic Church.  I also know that our Blessed Mother will have some vital role in this process as she made it known at Fatima that in the end her Immaculate Heart will triumph.  The exact details are certainly unknown to me and up to God Himself.

In the meantime, we all should be continually on our knees praying fervently.

May God have mercy on us.

Fr. Ed Namiotka

Pastor

Homily of the Vigil Mass for the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Fr. Edward Namiotka