Friday 12 December 2014

Saint Lucy

13th December - "The mother of St. Lucy suffered four years from an issue of blood, and the help of man failed. St. Lucy reminded her mother that a woman in the Gospel had been healed of the same disorder. 'St. Agatha,' she said, 'stands ever in the sight of Him for Whom she died. Only touch her sepulchre with faith and you will be healed'.

They spent the night praying by the tomb, till, overcome by weariness, both fell asleep. St. Agatha appeared in a vision to St. Lucy, and calling her sister, foretold her mother's recovery and her own martyrdom. That instant, the cure was affected; and in her gratitude the mother allowed her daughter to distribute her wealth amongst the poor, and to consecrate her virginity to Christ.

A young man to whom she had been promised in marriage accused her as a Christian to the heathen; but Our Lord, by a special miracle, saved from outrage this virgin whom He had chosen for His own. The fire kindled around her did her no hurt. Then the sword was plunged into her heart, and the promise made at the tomb of St. Agatha was fulfilled".

Our Lady of Guadalupe

The Wonder of Guadalupe provides a great understanding of Our Lady's appearances to St. Juan Diego in Mexico City in 1531: her consoling promises, the miraculous image, and the rapid conversion of nine million Aztecs to the Catholic Faith from a bloody religion of human sacrifice.

Also featured in this book are the historical background, important Church events, and scientific developments including the remarkable discovery of photographic reflections in Our Lady's eyes.

In Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Conquest of Darkness, Professor of History Dr. Warren H. Carroll provides a dramatic account of the conversion of Mexico by the combined efforts of the Conquistadores, the Franciscan missionaries, and Our Lady of Guadalupe herself.

Tuesday 9 December 2014

The Church Turned Upside Down & Restoring the Bastions

The Church Turned Upside Down seeks to present to the reader a number of essays that deal with the Catholic Church, both before and after the Second Vatican Council.

The purpose is simple. By an examination of official documents of both periods, the reader will decide if a mere facelift has occurred, or rather, whether a revolution has taken place that has overthrown the traditional teaching of the Church in favour of one more in keeping with ideas long condemned by the Church.

Restoring the Bastions answers the challenge of Von Balthasar and others who promoted the 'New Theology' that demanded that the bastions protecting the Church from the world be thrown down.
The ensuing crisis has led to the emptying out of monasteries and seminaries, the destruction of the Church's liturgical heritage, and widespread dissent to its teachings.

The answer to such a crisis involves restoring the bastions that had been destroyed by the Modernist theologians.

To do this, however, it is necessary to regain some sense of the Church's traditional stand on a number of issues: inspiration of Scripture, the meaning of Tradition, the nature of the Mass, and Christ's relation to society and the family. These questions are discussed in a number of essays briefly treating of matters once universally accepted in the Catholic world.

Monday 8 December 2014

Open Letter to Confused Catholics

On this holy Feast of the Immaculate Conception, 2006, at 3pm, went to Judgement our dear friend Fr. Michael Crowdy, friend, confident and counselor of many souls, both great and small, including Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre for whom he supplied the Preface for what was then "in English Archbishop Lefebvre's recently published book (his only one apart from some collections of addresses)".

"Fr Michael Crowdy was for many years a priest of the London Oratory & in some ways, juridically at least, stayed one all his life. He he kept in touch with a number of the fathers and remained devoted to St Philip. He died on 8th December, 2006, aged 92 after many years of devoted work to further the cause of Tradition in this country," read one of the notices of his death.

The book in question was Open Letter to Confused Catholics, an explanation and appeal as useful and relevant today as ever it was when first published in English nearly thirty years ago.

Friday 5 December 2014

First Saturday

First Friday

Promises of Our Lord in favour of those devoted to His Most Sacred Heart

1.   I will grant them all the graces necessary for their state in life.

2.   I will establish peace and union in their families.

3.   I will console them in all their pains and trials.

4.   I will be their assured refuge in life and more especially in death.

5.   I will bestow the blessings of Heaven on all their undertakings.

6.   Sinners will find in My Heart the fount and infinite sea of Mercy.

7.   Tepid souls will become fervent.

8.   Fervent souls will rise rapidly to greater perfection.

9.   I will bless those homes wherein the image of My Sacred Heart is exposed and honoured. I will imprint My love on the hearts of those who wear this image. I will also destroy in them all disordered movements.

10.   I will give to priests who are animated by a tender devotion to My Divine Heart the gift of moving even the most hardened of hearts.

11.   Those who propagate this devotion will have their names inscribed 
on My Heart, never to be effaced from it.

12.  I promise thee, in the excess of the mercy of My Heart, that My all-powerful love will grant all those who communicate on the first Fridays of nine consecutive months the grace of final repentance: they will not die in My displeasure, nor without having received the Sacraments. My Heart will be their secure refuge in that last hour.

Sacred Heart Nightly Devotion

Thursday 4 December 2014

St. Francis Xavier

3rd December - The Life and Letters of Saint Francis Xavier is the classic life of the great Jesuit who renewed the labours and the miracles of the Apostles in the sixteenth century.

Weaving his text around 124 full-length original letters written by the saint, Father Henry James Coleridge brings him to life and allows us to know him intimately: the arm fatigued by so many baptisms, the gentle voice that converted, the heart that loved and was loved, the eye that penetrated the soul and the future: the miraculous cures, resurrections, deliverance from impending disaster, the bilocations, the gift of tongues, the burning zeal to spread the kingdom of Christ, the tender charity for every misfortune, the daily combat to rescue souls from damnation, the faith that saw the truths of the catechism as clearly as we see material objects, the terrible anathemas thundered against those who obstruct the Church's mission - and finally the death, alone, at Chan, yearning to win China but summoned to glory at just 46 years of age.

Wednesday 3 December 2014

2015 Ordos in Stock

The Ordo Recitandi contains all the necessary directions for those who wish to sing the Office and Mass of any day in the Liturgical Year according to the classical Roman Rite.

It details those changes which arise due to the interaction of the Temporal and Sanctoral cycles. In addition the Ordo contains detailed information concerning the celebration of the various classes of Votive Masses e.g. Masses of External Solemnities, rubrics for the Forty Hours.

The Ordo follows the format of the Roman Ordo that was produced for the Universal Calendar in the late 1930s following the fifth editio post typicam of the Roman Missal that was promulgated by SRC in 1939. The Ordo is written entirely in Latin.

We also have copies in stock of the 2015 edition of the Ordo ou Calendrier Liturgique, produced in the French language, which follows the 1962 Liturgical Calendar.