Historical Note:

April 25th (the Feast of St. Mark), and the three days (Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday) before the traditional celebration of Ascension Thursday, observed to appease God’s wrath, ask protection, and invoke a blessing on the harvest. They were known in England as Gang Days and Cross Week. The Litany of the Saints is chanted in the procession, and the Rogation Mass follows. The older procession of April 25th, called therefore the Major Litany, Christianized a pagan procession in honor of the god Robigus. The institution of the others, adopted in Rome under Pope Leo III as the Minor Litanies, is ascribed to Saint Mamertus of Vienne who, c. 475, ordered processions with special prayers because of calamities which were afflicting the country. Rogation days were dropped from the Church‘s calendar in the reform of 1970, but since 1988 have been revived, especially in farming communities.

St. Mary Catholic Church – Salem, S. Dakota

Weekly Schedule of Masses & Confession Times;

Schedule of Public Devotions

[Updated as of April 16, 2013]

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass:

Sunday - The Lord’s Day: 10:00 am and 12 Noon (Extraordinary Form/Trad. Latin Mass)

Saturday in anticipation of Sunday: 5:00 pm

Tuesday through Friday: 8:20 am

[Usually no public Masses on Mondays, unless otherwise noted in the Parish Bulletin]

Thursday: Additional Mass at 1:30pm at Golden Living Nursing Home in Salem

Saturday morning: 9:00 am (Extraordinary Form/Trad. Latin Low Mass), usually at the Holy Family Side Altar

Vigils of Holydays of Obligation: 7:00 pm

Holydays of Obligation: 8:15 am and 7:00 pm (Extraordinary Form/Trad. Latin Mass)

The Sacrament of Penance & Reconciliation (Confession):

Saturday afternoons: 3:45 – 4:45 pm

Anytime by appointment: Call 605-425-2600

Devotions:

First Sunday of the Month following the 12 Noon Mass:  Devotions in Honor of the Holy Face of Jesus in Reparation for blasphemies and profanation of Sunday and Holydays of Obligation, with Exposition and Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament;

25^th of the Month, January through November, following 8:20am Holy Mass:  Devotions in Honor of the Child Jesus (also known as “Little Christmas” Devotions);

Eucharistic Adoration:  As announced for certain feasts and days of prayer, and during the Annual Forty Hours Devotion.

Father Lawrence’s email address is: rpmartinus@gmail.com.

In the event of an emergency, please call Fr. Lawrence on his cellular phone: 605-421-8557.  Thank you.

My gratitude to the wonderful Catholic editors of the weblog, Rorate Caeli (http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com) for the lengthy quote from the homily given by Pope Benedict at the Holy Mass he celebrated on the occasion of his 85th Birthday last year:

On the same day I was born, thanks to my parent’s concern, I was also reborn through water and the Holy Spirit … . First, there is the gift of life that my parents gave me in very difficult times, and for which I thank them. But it cannot be taken for granted that human life in itself is a gift. Can it really be a beautiful gift? Do we know what will befall man in the dark days ahead — or in the brighter days that could come? Can we foresee to what troubles, what terrible events he might be exposed? Is it right to simply give life like this? Is it responsible or too uncertain? It is a problematic gift, if it is left to itself. Biological life is in itself a gift, but it is surrounded by a great question. It becomes a true gift only if, along with it, we are given a promise that is stronger than any evil that could threaten us, if it is immersed in a power that ensures that it is good to be human, that there will be good for this person no matter what the future brings. Thus, with birth is associated rebirth, the certitude that, truly, it is good to be alive, because the promise is stronger than evil. This is the meaning of rebirth by water and the Holy Spirit: to be immersed in the promise that only God can make — it is good that you exist, and you can be certain of that whatever comes. With this assurance I was able to live, reborn by water and the Holy Spirit. Nicodemus asks the Lord: “How can an old man possibly be reborn?”. Now, rebirth is given to us in Baptism, but we must continually grow in it, we must always let ourselves be immersed by God in his promise, in order to be truly reborn in the great, new family of God which is stronger than every weakness and than any negative power that threatens us. Therefore, this is a day of great thanksgiving.

The day I was baptized, as I said, was Holy Saturday. Then it was still customary to anticipate the Easter Vigil in the morning, which would still be followed by the darkness of Holy Saturday, without the Alleluia. It seems to me that this singular paradox, this singular anticipation of light in a day of darkness, could almost be an image of the history of our times. On the one hand, there is still the silence of God and his absence, but in the Resurrection of Christ there is already the anticipation of the “yes” of God, and on the basis of this anticipation we live and, through the silence of God, we hear him speak, and through the darkness of his absence we glimpse his light. The anticipation of the Resurrection in the middle of an evolving history is the power that points out the way to us and helps us to go forward.

Let us thank the good Lord for he has given us this light and let us pray to him so that it might endure forever. And on this day I have special cause to thank him and all those who have ever anew made me perceive the presence of the Lord, who have accompanied me so that I might never lose the light.

I am now facing the last chapter of my life and I do not know what awaits me. I know, however, that the light of God exists, that he is Risen, that his light is stronger than any darkness, that the goodness of God is stronger than any evil in this world. And this helps me to go forward with certainty. May this help us to go forward, and at this moment I wholeheartedly thank all those who have continually helped me to perceive the “yes” of God through their faith.

-Pope Benedict XVI

Mass on the occasion of the 85th birthday

April 16, 2012

RIGHT IS RIGHT  -  AD ORIENTEM

From Archbishop Thomas E. Gullickson’s blog, Deo Volente Ex Animo (http://deovolenteexanimo.blogspot.com): reprinted with the Archbishop’s permission

THANK YOU, YOUR EXCELLENCY!

Archbishop Gullickson is Apostolic Nuncio to Ukraine, and a native of Sioux Falls, SD

Date: Wednesday, April 10, 2013

At the end of Holy Mass this morning, I experienced a powerful sense of gratitude because of two things: that I find myself living here in Ukraine and that I could arrange my chapel for celebrating the Eucharist ad Orientem. Some might rather suspect a case of spring fever aggravated by the fact that there is bright sunlight now at Mass time in the morning again after a very long and dark winter. But I give you no hearing and no choice; I will simply insist that my elation can only be explained by accepting my two reasons.

When it comes to established Churches and their houses of worship, Ukraine is by and large Byzantine and hence oriented. Even if walking about town here in Kyiv my inner compass tries to convince me I am walking north, I can be confident that if a church building is Byzantine, whether Catholic or Orthodox, then the apse of that building is to the east. Everyone at Divine Liturgy, Catholic or Orthodox, prays facing east. Even though our house isn’t exactly oriented and the chapel conforms to the house plan, my liturgical east is not far from due east as the bird flies. In my chapel we pray the Eucharistic Prayer facing together the Dawn from on High, Who came to save us and will come again on the clouds of heaven, to judge the living and the dead. He will come from the east.

Maybe you have to live in Ukraine to get excited positively about such. That’s why I guess I say for ad Orientem and for my greater context in a Byzantine world, Deo gratias! Maybe this particular elation simply comes from “having my bearings”. If that is the case, then I wish it to you all: that you might find your bearings and find yourself inserted in something greater than just the cosmic flow which it is, greater than turning to Mecca or Jerusalem. Turning to the East, Who is our Risen Lord! Alleluia!

I guess I could feel this year’s disjuncture over a disparity of 5 weeks in our date for Easter, but at least for this morning common orientation in worship has the upper hand.

______________________________________________

About Archbishop Gullickson:

Archbishop Thomas E. Gullickson was born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota on the Vigil of the Assumption of Our Lady, August 14, 1950 and ordained to the priesthood on June 27, 1976. He was ordained to the Episcopate at St. Joseph Cathedral in his hometown of Sioux Falls on November 11, 2004, the Feast of St. Martin of Tours. He is titular Archbishop of Bomarzo.

He entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See on 1st May 1985 and has been appointed successively to the Diplomatic Missions in Rwanda, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Jerusalem, Israel and Germany.

He has a degree in Canon Law and he speaks English, Italian, French and German.

His first posting as Apostolic Nuncio was to Trinidad & Tobago, Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, Commonwealth of the Bahamas, Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the Republic of Suriname, twelve independent States in the region.

His first posting as Apostolic Delegate was to the Antilles Episcopal Conference region, comprising the English, French, with the exception of Haiti, and Dutch territories in the Caribbean, a total of twenty-two with their own governments. There are eighteen Dioceses and two Missio sui iuris, ecclesiastical entities, in the Antilles. Archbishop Gullickson is the fifth Apostolic Nuncio in this region.

On 21 May 2011, the Holy Father named him Apostolic Nuncio to Ukraine.

Not from barren Rock divinely poured,

But the Fount of Life that is for ever

From the Sepulchre of CHRIST the LORD.

All the world hath bright illumination,—

Heav’n and Earth and things beneath the earth:

’Tis the Festival of all Creation:

CHRIST hath ris’n, Who gave Creation birth:

Yesterday with Thee in burial lying,

Now today with Thee aris’n I rise;

Yesterday the partner of Thy dying,

With Thyself upraise me to the skies.

 - St. John of Damascus (780)

-From a hymn by St. Joseph of the Studium  (the Hymnographer), of the Eastern Church

A few photos from the 3:00 pm Solemn Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion and Death and from the 7:00 pm Stations of the Cross and Devotions in Honor of Our Lord in the Sepulchre and Our Mother of Sorrows:

- From the writings of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI