Votive Mass of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Round Hill / Camp Angelus
W6946 Round Hill Road
Arkansaw, WI 54721
3 August 2019
Eccli 24, 23-31
Jn 19, 25-27
Troops of Saint George
Sermon
Praised be Jesus Christ, now and for ever. Amen.
It pleases me very much to offer the Prelaticial Mass on the First Saturday of the month for the Troops of Saint George at this most beautiful holy site, Round Hill/Camp Angelus. Through participation in the Holy Mass, Christ invites the Troops of Saint George to continue on the path of the life of the virtues. At the same time, He gives the supreme gift of His Body and Blood, as Heavenly Bread, to strengthen the Troops on their pilgrimage along the path which leads to eternal life. Christ renews sacramentally His Sacrifice on Calvary at every Holy Mass, inviting us to place our hearts into His Most Sacred Heart, inviting us to follow Him ever more faithfully and generously on the path of true and steadfast love with its destination in the eternal life of Heaven. I commend the fathers who, out of love of their sons, dedicate themselves to the apostolate of the Troops of Saint George, so that their sons may grow into strong men, men of deep fatherly virtue, Christ-like men. I am offering the Holy Mass for the intention of all Troops of Saint George.
On the First Saturday of the month, we honor the Blessed Virgin Mary, under the title of her Immaculate Heart, as she requested us to do through her apparitions at Fatima in Portugal in 1917. Our Lady appeared to three shepherd children at Cova da Iria near Fatima to express her maternal concern for the Church which must carry out her divine mission in a culture marked by widespread and poisonous materialism, secularism and practical atheism.
At Fatima, the Blessed Virgin Mary showed herself to be our Mother at a time when the world was torn asunder by the unimaginable destruction and death wrought by the First World War and was fatally menaced by the spread of atheistic communism. The evil of atheistic communism was leading hearts away from the Heart of Jesus, the sole font of salvation. It was leading hearts into a rebellion against God and the order, which He has placed in His creation and has written on the heart of every man.[1] Through her apparitions and the message which she confided to the shepherd children for the whole Church, Our Lady addressed the influence of the atheistic culture upon the Church herself, leading many into apostasy, into the abandonment of the truths of the Catholic faith.
The central message of Our Lady of Fatima was revealed in what is called the Secret of Fatima during the apparition which took place on July 13, 1917. The first part of the Secret has two essential contents. First, there is the terrifying vision of Hell, the destiny of those who rebel against God without repentance. Then, there is the offer of God’s healing peace through the intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, so that souls may be saved from a life of mortal sin and its fruit: eternal death.
Referring to the punishments necessarily connected with the grave sins of the time, the second part of the Secret is the announcement of the peace which God wants to give to souls and to the world. The peace of God will come to the world through the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and the practice of the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturday of the month, as we are doing this morning.[2]
Our Lady indicated the spiritual remedy of the deplorable situation in which the world and Church found themselves. She also foretold the terrible physical chastisements which would result from the failure to consecrate the agent of the spread of atheistic communism to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through her Immaculate Heart and to undertake the regular practice of reparation for so many offenses committed against the immeasurable and unceasing love of God manifested perfectly in the glorious pierced Heart of Jesus.
The third part of the Secret, indicated at the end of the second part, has to deal with the spiritual chastisement brought about by the rebellion of man who, instead of giving his heart to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, corrupts his heart with the worldly materialism and relativism of the age. In her description of the third part of the Secret, Sister Lucia quotes “the Angel with a flaming sword” whom she saw at Our Lady’s left side:
Pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: “Penance, Penance, Penance!”[3]
She then describes the martyrdom of those remaining true to Our Lord, those of one heart, in her Immaculate Heart, with His Most Sacred Heart.[4]
As is clear from Our Lady’s message, only the Faith, which places man in the relationship of unity of heart with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, through the mediation of her Immaculate Heart, can save man from the spiritual chastisements which rebellion against God necessarily brings upon its perpetrators and upon the whole of both society and the Church. The Holy Mass of Reparation today, the first Saturday of the month, is the response of obedient sons and daughters to their heavenly Mother who will not fail to intercede for all of the graces so desperately needed by us and by our world.
By the mystery of the Divine Maternity, the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, assumed into glory, never ceases to beat with love for us, the children whom her Divine Son gave to her, as He was dying upon the Cross. When Our Lord pronounced the words, “Woman, behold thy son… Behold thy mother”[5] to His Mother and to Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist, standing at the foot of the cross, He expressed an essential reality of the salvation He was winning for us: the full cooperation of His Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, in His saving work.
In the Blessed Virgin Mary, we see the “most perfect created manifestation” of the eternal Wisdom of God, the Word at work from the very beginning of creation and ordering all things in accord with the perfection of God, “both because she is the particularly faithful ‘handmaid’ of the Lord and because in her, as Mother of Christ, the divine plan has found its fulfillment.”[6] She is, in the inspired words of the Book of Ecclesiasticus, “the mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope.”[7] We are filled with hope that Our Lord, Divine Wisdom Incarnate, hearing the prayers of the Mother of Divine Grace who is ever in His presence, will also have mercy on our generation.
Striving, each moment of the day, to rest our hearts in the glorious pierced Heart of Jesus, we announce to the world the truth that salvation has come into the world. We, one in heart with the glorious Immaculate Heart of Mary, draw others to Christ, the fullness of the mercy and love of God in our midst, in His holy Church. The goal of the apostolate of the Troops of Saint George is the formation of the hearts of young men to be true soldiers of Christ, to be ready to sacrifice everything, in order to be faithful co-workers of Christ in the world. Fittingly your emblem is the red cross. Through the responsible contact with the beauty of nature, the beauty of the world as it has come forth from the Hand of God, the Troops of Saint George come to respect their own nature, the law of God written upon their hearts, ordering their lives to the safeguarding and promoting of a respect for the nature of man, body and soul, created by God in His own image and likeness.
Finally, the Mass is offered today according to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. Through the promulgation of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict XVI made possible the regular celebration of the Rite of the Mass according to this form used since the time of Pope Saint Gregory the Great. We thank God that, through Summorum Pontificum, the whole Church comes to an ever greater understanding and love of the great gift of the Sacred Liturgy as it has been transmitted to us, in an unbroken line, by Sacred Tradition, by the Apostles and their successors. Through the Sacred Liturgy, our adoration of God “in spirit and truth,”[8] Our Lord is with us in the most perfect way possible on this earth. It is the most excellent expression of our life in Him.
Let us now lift upon our hearts, one with the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to the glorious pierced Heart of Jesus, opened for us in the Eucharistic Sacrifice by which He makes sacramentally present for us His Sacrifice on Calvary. Let us lift up our hearts, filled with so many joys and sorrows, to the unfailing font of Divine Mercy and Love, trusting that in the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus we will be confirmed in peace and strengthened to carry the cross of our sorrows with the trust of the Virgin Mary. So may we, under the constant and merciful maternal gaze of the Blessed Virgin Mary, progress faithfully and wholeheartedly along the way of our earthly pilgrimage toward our lasting home in Heaven. May the Troops of Saint George, faithful to their mission, help all of the men and boys who are members, to set out with wisdom and courage on the path of virtue, and to assist each other to become every day more like Christ.
Heart of Jesus, salvation of those who trust in Thee, have mercy on us!
Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!
Purest Heart of Saint Joseph, pray for us!
Saint George, pray for us.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Raymond Leo Cardinal BURKE
[1] Cf. Rom 2, 15.
[2] “Para a impedir, virei pedir a consagração da Rússia a Meu Imaculado Coração e a Comunhão reparadora nos primeiros sábados. Se atenderem a Meus pedidos, a Rússia se converterá e terão paz; se não, espalhará seus erros pelo mundo, promovendo guerras e perseguições à Igreja. Os bons serão martirizados, o Santo Padre terá muito que sofrir, várias nações serão aniquiladas.
Por fim, o Meu Imaculado Coração triunfará. O Santo Padre consagrar-Me-á a Rússia que se converterá e será concedido ao mundo algum tempo de paz. Em Portugal se conservará sempre o dogma da Fé, etc.” Carmelo de Coimbra, Um caminho sob o olhar de Maria. Biografia da Irmã Maria Lúcia de Jesus e do Coração Imaculado O.C.D. (Marco de Canaveses: Edições Carmelo, 2013), 63-64. [Hereafter, Carmelo de Coimbra]. English translation: Carmel of Coimbra, A Pathway under the Gaze of Mary: Biography of Sister Maria Lucia of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart, tr. James A. Colson (Washington, NJ: World Apostolate of Fatima, USA, 2015), pp. 68-69. [Hereafter, Carmelo de Coimbra Eng].
[3] “O Anjo aponque da mão direita para a terra, com voz forte disse: Penitência, Penitência, Penitência!” Carmelo de Coimbra, p. 64. English translation: Carmelo de Coimbra Eng, p. 69.
[4] “… una grande Cruz de troncos toscos como se fora de sobreiro com a casca … estavam dois Anjos cada um com um regador de cristal em a mão, neles recolhiam o sangue dos Mártires e com ele regavam as almas que se aproximavam de Deus.” Carmelo de Coimbra, p. 64. English translation: Carmelo de Coimbra Eng, p. 69.
[5] Jn 19, 26-27.
[6] “… manifestation la plus parfaite, à la fois parce qu’elle est la «servante» particulièrement fidèle du Seigneur et parce qu’en elle, en tant que Mère du Christ, les desseins divins ont trouvé tout leur accomplissement.” L. Bouyer, Dictionnaire théologique (Tournai: Desclée, 1963), p. 594. English translation: Louis Bouyer, Dictionary of Theology, tr. Charles Underhill Quinn (New York: Desclee Co., Inc., 1965), p. 464.
[7] Eccli 24, 24.
[8] Jn 4, 23.
