Our Lady of Hope Blog

My Dear Friends,

It is hard to believe that this week we celebrate Halloween on Friday. It is the beginning of an important Triduum beginning with Halloween, followed by All Saints and then on next Sunday, All Souls. Halloween, as you know, is a Catholic holiday that was hijacked by the secular world, along with St. Valentine and St. Patrick. When you pray the Our Father, you begin, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name. Hallowed means holy. The second part of Halloween is an abbreviation of evening.

My Dear Friends,

This Wednesday, October 22nd, we will be celebrating the feast day of Pope St. John Paul II. There really is not much I can say about him that most of you are not familiar with already. He was pope from October 1978 to April 2005. And he was the first non-Italian pope since the early 1500's when he was elected. There is a belief that he was planning on taking the name of Stanislaus if he had been elected in the conclave weeks earlier. But after the election and then death of Blessed Pope John Paul I, john Paul II decided to honor him by taking his name.

My Dear Friends,

During this month of Respect Life, Our Lady of Hope, with the advice from our Pro-Life committee, is offering some events for us to unite with the 40 Days for Life campaign that the Catholic Church in the United States participates in every year. On this Wednesday, October 15th, we will prayerfully witnessing to Life on the grounds of Immaculate Heart of Mary, from 7 am to 6 pm, followed by a Mass for Life at 7 pm. The Mass will be celebrated in Latin.

My Dear Friends,

October is the month of the Rosary (the feast day of Our Lady of the Rosary is Oct. 7th), and it also respect life month. The rosary of our Blessed Mother is arguably the second greatest weapon we have, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass being the first. Pope St. Pius V in the 1570’s was the pope that asked all of Europe to pray the rosary in order to defeat the Muslims at the Battle of Lepanto, a battle in which the European Christians were outmatched in numbers. Pope Pius attributed the victory to Our Lady and inaugurated the feast day of Our Lady of Victory.