Traditional Latin Mass for Palm Sunday March 24th at 11:00 A.M. With Procession                                               St. Martha Church 214 Brainard Rd. Enfield Ct

PALM SUNDAY

Hodie si vocem Domini audieritis, nolite obdurare corda vestra.

To-day, if ye shall hear the voice of the Lord, harden not your hearts.

Early in the morning of this day, Jesus sets out for Jerusalem, leaving Mary His Mother, and the two sisters Martha and Mary Magdalene, and Lazarus, at Bethania. The Mother of sorrows trembles at seeing her Son thus expose Himself to danger, for His enemies are bent upon His destruction; but it is not death, it is triumph, that Jesus is to receive to-day in Jerusalem. The Messias, before being nailed to the cross, is to be proclaimed King by the people of the great city; the little children are to make her streets echo with their Hosannas to the Son of David; and this in presence of the soldiers of Rome’s emperor, and of the high priests and Pharisees: the first standing under the banner of their eagles; the second, dumb with rage.
The prophet Zachary had foretold this triumph which the Son of Man was to receive a few days before His Passion, and which had been prepared for Him from all eternity. ‘Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion! Shout for joy, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold thy King will come to thee; the Just and the Saviour. He is poor, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass.’ [Zach. ix. 9]. Jesus, knowing that the hour has come for the fulfilment of this prophecy, singles out two from the rest of His disciples, and bids them lead to Him an ass and her colt, which they would find not far off. He has reached Beth phage, on Mount Olivet. The two disciples lose no time in executing the order given them by their divine Master; and the ass and the colt are soon brought to the place where He stands.
The holy fathers have explained to us the mystery of these two animals. The ass represents the Jewish people, which had been long under the yoke of the Law; the colt, upon which, as the evangelist says, no man yet hath sat [St. Mark xi. 2], is a figure of the Gentile world, which no one had ever yet brought into subjection. The future of these two peoples is to be decided a few days hence: the Jews will be rejected, for having refused to acknowledge Jesus as the Messias; the Gentiles will take their place, to be adopted as God’s people, and become docile and faithful.
From The Liturgical Year Volume 6    Abbot Dom Prosper Gueranger

  Traditional Latin Mass for PASSION SUNDAY March 17th at 11:00 A.M. St Martha Church 214 Brainard Rd. Enfield Ct

                                         

PASSION SUNDAY

Hodie, si vocem Domini audieritis, nolite obdurare corda vestra.

To-day if you shall hear the voice of the Lord, harden not  your hearts.

The holy Church begins her night Office of this Sunday with these impressive words of the royal prophet. Formerly, the faithful considered it their duty to assist at the night Office, at least on Sundays and feasts; they would have grieved to lose the grand teachings given by the liturgy. Such fervour has long since died out; the assiduity at the Offices of the Church, which was the joy of our Catholic forefathers, has now become a thing of the past; and even in countries which have not apostatized from the faith, the clergy have ceased to celebrate publicly Offices at which no one assisted. Excepting in cathedral churches and in monasteries, the grand harmonious system of the divine praise has been abandoned, and the marvellous power of the liturgy has no longer its full influence upon the faithful.
This is our reason for drawing the attention of our readers to certain beauties of the Divine Office, which would otherwise be totally ignored. Thus, what can be more impressive than this solemn Invitatory of to-day’s Matins, which the Church takes from one of the psalms, and which she repeats on every feria between this and Maundy Thursday? She says; To-day, if ye will hear the voice of the Lord, harden not your hearts! The sweet voice of your suffering Jesus now speaks to you, poor sinners! be not your own enemies by indifference and hardness of heart. The Son of God is about to give you the last and greatest proof of the love that brought Him down from heaven; His death is nigh at hand: men are preparing the wood for the immolation of the new Isaac: enter into yourselves, and let not your hearts, after being touched with grace, return to their former obduracy; for nothing could be more dangerous. The great anniversaries we are to celebrate have a renovating power for those souls that faithfully correspond with the grace which is offered them; but they increase insensibility in those who let them pass without working their conversion. To-day, therefore, if you hear the voice of the Lord, harden not your hearts!
From The Liturgical Year Volume 6    Abbot Dom Prosper Gueranger

 Traditional Latin Mass in Enfield Ct

                              Wednesday at 7:00 P.M. Low Mass March 6th
        St. Martha Catholic Church 214 Brainard Rd. Enfield Enfield Ct
                                                             

THE PRIESTLY ROBE

Touch it lightly, or not at all.

Let it not fall !

Let not a fabric so august

Trail in the dust!

`Tis a costly thing,

Woven by love in suffering.

`Twas Jesus` parting gift to men.

When the Lord rose to Heaven again,

His latest breathing fell on it.

A mystery hides within its folds.

Quickened by sacramental breath,

It holds

The power of life and death.

Would you sully it ? Would you rend it?

Is there a Christian would not defend it-

A robe so costly and so rare,

So wonderfully fair ?

Woe to the hand profane

Woe to the heart ungracious,

Woe to the tongue unheeding,

Would dare to cast a stain

On a vestment made so precious

By such costly bleeding!

II

I know this robe and its history,

And what strange virtue goeth forth

From its hem to bless the earth;

And I adore the mystery

That gives it grace,

In Jesus` name, to soothe and heal.

With more than human tenderness

I prize the priestly order;

And, while the reverent knee I kneel,

I do not see beneath the border

Frail feet of clay,

But seek to find, if so I may,

By feeling,

Some gracious thread which will convey

To my sore spirit healing.

Vicars of Christ ! deem me not rude,

If nearer than is wont I press me;

But turn and bless me

Amid the kneeling multitude.

The priestly robe  Rev. Clarence Walworth  anno 1888

 

 Traditional Latin Mass 3rd Sunday in Lent March 3rd at 11:00 A.M. (High Mass) St. Martha Church 214 Brainard Rd. Enfield Ct. Followed by Blessing of Sacramentals.

Communion

The sparrow hath found herself a house, and the turtle a nest, where she may lay her young ones: Thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King, and my God: blessed are they that dwell in Thy house, they shall praise Thee for ever and ever.

Postcommunion

In Thy mercy, we beseech Thee, O Lord, do Thou from all guilt and peril absolve us, whom Thou grantest to be sharers in so great a mystery. Through our Lord.