Our Lady of Hope Blog

My Dear Friends,

After two weeks of an exclusive Jesus, we return to a more inclusive Jesus in today’s gospel. He teaches that when you hold a banquet you should invite the poor, the lame, the crippled and the blind. The Holy Mass is such a banquet. Jesus invites the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind to come to the wedding feast of the Lamb. In other words, Jesus is inviting those who are sinners to the wedding banquet. No one is ever excluded from the celebration of Mass.

My Dear Friends,

Today’s gospel talks about salvation. How many will be saved? Jesus’ response says that only a few will enter through the narrow gate. What is the narrow gate? It is the sacrificial love that comes from the heart in following Jesus and his commandments. Wide is the path of destruction, for it comes when we live selfishly and seek a life of pleasure. The most damning aspect of the gospel is that Jesus closes the door and says to those outside that he does not know us.

My Dear Friends,

August has two of the most beautiful feast days in honor of our Blessed Mother; the Assumption and the Queenship of Mary. Besides these two important feast days, the Catholic Church calendar in August also celebrates the Dedication of the Basilica of Mary Major on August 5th. We also have memorials of seven saints that have a strong devotion to the Blessed Mother, beginning with St. Alphonsus Liguori (August 1st), St. Peter Julian Eymard (August 2nd), St. John Mary Vianney (August 4th), St. Dominic (August 8th), St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe (August 14th), St. John Eudes (August 19th), and St. Bernard (August 20th).

My Dear Friends,

A ciborium is the vessel that holds the Hosts that will be consecrated at Mass as well as holding them in the tabernacle when there are extra Hosts. When I first arrived at Our Lady of Hope in January 2022, Father Ruminski had shared with me that he had some parishioners donate to have two of the ciboria (plural) at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church refurbished. The ciboria look beautiful and worthy of holding the Precious Hosts for Holy Communion.

My Dear Friends,

Tomorrow we celebrate the feast day of St. John Vianney, the Cure of Ars. St. John Vianney is the patron saint of parish priests. When his neighboring priests of the diocese became jealous of him, they passed around a petition accusing St. John Vianney of many things and asked people to sign it so that they could send it to the bishop and have St. John Vianney removed from the parish in Ars. Somehow the petition arrived at Ars, and when St. John Vianney saw it, he immediately signed the letter.