Happy Birthday St. John!

FEAST OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST

“The Church observes the birth of John as a hallowed event. We have no such commemoration for any other fathers; but it significant that we celebrate the birthdays of John and of Jesus. This day cannot be passed by. And even if my explanation does not match the dignity of the feast, you may still meditate on it with great depth and profit.

John appears as the boundary between the two testament, the old and the new. That he is a sort of boundary the Lord himself bears witness, when he speaks of “the law and the prophets up until John the Baptist.” Thus he represents times past and is the herald of the new era to come. As a representative of the past, he is born of aged parents; as a herald of the new era, he is declared to be a prophet while still in his mother’s womb. For when yet unborn, he leapt in his mother’s womb at the arrival of blessed Mary. In that womb he had already been designated a prophet, even before he was born; it was revealed that he was to be Christ’s precursor, before they ever saw one another. These are divine happenings, going beyond the limits of our human frailty.

When John was preaching the Lord’s coming he was asked, “Who are you?” And he replied: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.” The voice is John, but the Lord “in the beginning was the Word.” John was a voice that lasted only for a time; Christ, the Word in the beginning, is eternal.”

-From a sermon by St. Augustine on the birth of St. John the Baptist

SJB Festival 2008

QUICK FACTS ABOUT THE BIRTHDAY OF SJB

· SJB has two feast days: June 24 – Birthday & August 29 – Death

· SJB is the only saint other than Jesus and Mary to have the Church celebrate both birthday and death

· SJB is the only saint to have an account of both birth and death in the Gospel

· SJB birth was foretold by Angel Gabriel (like Jesus) to Zachary, a priest in the Temple of Jerusalem, that his wife, Elizabeth would bear a child, even at her old age

· SJB first met Jesus in his mother’s womb at Mary’s visitation

· SJB is often described as the last of the Old Testament prophets and the bright between Judaism and Christianity.

· SJB is the cousin and the forerunner of Our Lord Jesus

COME TO THE FESTIVAL ON JUNE 21-22, 2008
TO CELEBRATE ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST’s BIRTHDAY!

Pope Benedict XVI's Visit to the U.S. Video

Happy Easter!

Felices Pascuas!

Chúc Mừng Phục Sinh!
Prospera Pascha sit!

Buona Pasqua!

Joyeuses Pâques!

Frohe Ostern!

Holy Saturday

Good Friday

The Last Seven Words of Jesus

I.
"Pater, dimitte illis, quia nesciunt, quid faciunt."
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Luke 23:34

II.
"Hodie mecum eris in Paradiso."
"Amen I say to you, this day you shall be with me in Paradise."

Luke 23:43

III.

"Mulier, ecce filius tuus."

"Woman, behold your Son...Behold your mother."

John 19:26-27

IV.

"Deus meus, Deus meus, utquid dereliquisti me?"
"My God! My God, why have you forsaken Me?"
Mark 27:46

V.

"Sitio."

"I thirst."
John 19:28

VI.

"Consummatum est."

"It is finished"
John 19:30

VII.

"In manus tuas, Domine commendo spiritum meum."

"Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit."

Luke 23:46


"The seven last words of Jesus are also our seven last words – the words of terror and loneliness, of fear and horror, of despair and final surrender as we complete our journey and perhaps begin a new one."
--Andrew M. Greeley

Tenebrae

The Three Days of Darkness

On Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, SJB will starts its day with Tenebrae at 8:30 AM.

Here are some great notes about Tenebrae:

“Tenebrae” is the name given to the service of Matins and Lauds belonging to the last three days of Holy Week. It differs, in many things, from the Office of the rest of the year. All is sad and mournful, as though it were a funeral service; nothing could more emphatically express the grief that now weighs down the heart of our holy Mother the Church. Throughout all the Office of Thursday, Friday and Saturday, she forbids herself the use of those formulas of joy and hope wherewith, on all other days, she begins her praise of God. Nothing is left but what is essential to the form of the Divine Office: psalms, lessons and chants expressive of grief. The tone of the whole Office is most noticeably mournful: the lessons taken from the Lamentations of Jeremias, the omission of the Gloria Patri, of the Te Deum, and of blessings etc., so the darkness of these services seems to have been designedly chosen to mark the Church’s desolation. The lessons from Jeremias in the first Nocturn, those from the Commentaries of St. Augustine upon the Psalms in the second, and those from the Epistles of St. Paul in the third remain now as when we first hear of them in the eighth century.

The name “Tenebrae” has been given because this Office is celebrated in the hours of darkness, formerly in the evening or just after midnight, now the early morning hours. There is an impressive ceremony, peculiar to this Office, which tends to perpetuate its name. There is placed in the sanctuary, near the altar, a large triangular candlestick holding fifteen candles. At the end of each psalm or canticle, one of these fifteen candles is extinguished, but the one which is placed at the top of the triangle is left lighted. During the singing of the Benedictus (the Canticle of Zachary at the end of Lauds), six other candles on the altar are also put out. Then the master of ceremonies takes the lighted candle from the triangle and holds it upon the altar while the choir repeats the antiphon after the canticle, after which she hides it behind the altar during the recitation of the Christus antiphon and final prayer. As soon as this prayer is finished, a noise is made with the seats of the stalls in the choir, which continues until the candle is brought from behind the altar, and shows, by its light, that the Office of Tenebrae is over.

Let us now learn the meaning of these ceremonies. The glory of the Son of God was obscured and, so to say, eclipsed, by the ignominies He endured during His Passion. He, the Light of the world, powerful in word and work, Who but a few days ago was proclaimed King by the citizens of Jerusalem, is now robbed of all his honors. He is, says Isaias, the Man of sorrows, a leper (Isaias 53:3,4). He is, says the royal prophet, a worm of the earth, and no man (Psalm 21:7). He is, as He says of himself, an object of shame even to his own disciples, for they are all scandalized in him (Mark 14:27) and abandon Him; yea, even Peter protests that he never knew Him. This desertion on the part of His apostles and disciples is expressed by the candles being extinguished, one after the other, not only on the triangle, but on the altar itself. But Jesus, our Light, though despised and hidden, is not extinguished. This is signified by the candle which is momentarily placed on the altar; it symbolizes our Redeemer suffering and dying on Calvary. In order to express His burial, the candle is hidden behind the altar; its light disappears. A confused noise is heard in the house of God, where all is now darkness. This noise and gloom express the convulsions of nature when Jesus expired on the cross: the earth shook, the rocks were split, the dead came forth from their tombs. But the candle suddenly reappears; its light is as fair as ever. The noise is hushed, and homage is paid to the Conqueror of death.

Excerpted from the revered Liturgical Year by Abbot Gueranger, the Catholic Encyclopedia and other sources
http://www.sistersofcarmel.com/tenebrae.php