Its wonderful to see the return of Forty Hours devotion to several churches in the area. At St. Patrick’s Church, Bridgeport, CT, the Cathedral Parish, Forty Hours devotion began on Thursday evening with a Solemn Mass. Below are pictures from the Mass of reposition, a Missa Cantata, today at 9 am. Forty Hours ended with a Eucharistic procession and benediction. Father Michael Novajosky, rector, was the celebrant.
Published in Masses | no comment
BIG news from the Cathedral Parish in Bridgeport, CT. The parish is having a 40 Hours Devotion starting tomorrow!
There will be three Solemn High Masses, all at St. Patrick Church in Bridgeport. Times:
Thursday, October 22nd at 7:00 PM: Votive Mass of the Holy Eucharist. Following this Mass the Blessed Sacrament will be exposed on the high altar.-
Friday, October 23rd at 7:00 PM: Traditional Missa Pro Pace (Mass of Peace)-
Saturday, October 24th at 9:00 AM: Another votive Mass of the Eucharist, followed by reposition of the Blessed Sacrament.
From the first Mass to the third one, Our Lord will be exposed on the altar, without interpretation. Come and pray at any time!
There will be the scheduledl Low Mass on Friday morning at 7:00 AM but it will take place on one of the side altars.
**Due to this event, there is no Low Mass at St. Pius X in Fairfield, Thursday at 7PM
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On October 8, I read this in Catholic New York:
Sister Mary John Burke, S.R.C.M., who was the last surviving member of the Sisters of Reparation of the Congregation of Mary, died Sept. 14. She was 90. Sister Mary John spent many of her early years serving in the convent at St. Zita’s Home for Friendless Women on 14th Street in Manhattan, where she assisted poor and homeless women.
Up till about ten years ago, you could make out the faded words: “St Zita’s Convent” above the entrance to a nondescript, dilapidated structure on West 14th Street. The sisters had long abandoned the convent – the building had been sold to the Mormons in 2002. Yet, this had once been the home to one of New York’s rare home-grown religious congregations. Ellen O’Keefe founded St. Zita’s Home for Friendless Women in 1890. Later she founded the Sisters of Reparation of the Congregation of Mary to administer it.
Miss O’Keefe had always treasured the thought of forming a regular community for the perpetuation of her work and to make reparation to Our Savior in the Blessed Sacrament. Archbishop (Cardinal) Farley approved her institute in September 1903, under the title of the “Sisters of Reparation of the Congregation of Mary”. Miss O’Keefe was named superioress of the congregation under the title of Mother Zita, Katherine Dunne (Sister Mary Magdalen) taking the habit on her deathbed.
A sister always sleeps near the door, since it is a rule of the community that no one is to be refused admission at any hour, day or night; the observance of this rule frequently renders it necessary for the sisters to give up their own beds to their humble guests. The women are kept as long as they desire to stay; if able-bodied they must help in the laundry or at sewing, the sole support of the home; if ill, they are cared for or sent to the hospital. Catholic inmates are required to attend Mass on Sundays and holydays of obligation, but this is the sole distinction between the inmates of the different religions. The sisters also visit the poor in the hospitals and supply free meals to men out of employment. The number of women accommodated each night is from 100 to 125; the meals supplied to men out of work averages daily 65. (The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XV at 762 (The Encyclopedia Press, Inc., New York 1912)
In other words, these sisters were already doing things undertaken decades later by the Catholic Worker people – without the latter’s flair for publicity and political agitation. By the time the sisters set up shop on West 14th Street in 1903, this corner of Manhattan was fast becoming a dingy, decidedly low-rent part of town.
Yet, as in the case of so many other religious congregations, vocations to the Sisters of Reparation must have dried up in the post-Vatican II world. After selling the 14th Street convent ( “St. Zita’s Home for Friendless Women” had been closed several years earlier), the sisters moved to their last apostolate, appropriately enough, a retirement home for ladies, in Monsey, New York . There, Sister Maureen Francis O’Shea, the last mother superior and director of the adult care facility, died on March 18. She was 85. ( Brum, Robert, Monsey:Future of St. Zita’s Villa appears unertain following director’s death, Rockland Westchester Journal News, lohud, 7/17/2020.See also Pollak, Michael, F.Y.I.: A Place for the Friendless, The New York Times 9/4/2005)
And now, no sisters of this order are left at all. The death of the last sisters calls into question the future of the Monsey facility – today, its real estate value might well be considerable. But let’s reflect on the sisters of this small defunct order and the decades of unselfish work they gave. We are sure that they have their reward!
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Published in The Churches of New York | no comment
The Church of the Holy Innocents in New York will start its annual Forty Hours Devotion THIS COMING Friday, October 23rd, 2020.
First Day: The opening Mass will be on Friday, October 23rd at 6PM, and it will be a Votive Mass of the Most Blessed Sacrament.
At the end of the opening Mass, the Blessed Sacrament will be solemnly exposed: there will be a Eucharistic procession inside the church, and the Pange lingua, the Litany of the Saints, and some other special psalms, versicles, and prayers will be chanted.
–The church doors will be closed and locked at 9PM and only those who have signed up for the night adoration will remain in the church keeping vigil before Our Lord until 6AM.
Second Day: On the second day, Saturday, October 24th at 1PM, we will have the traditional Votive Mass Pro Pace.
–The church doors will be closed and locked at 9PM and only those who have signed up for the night adoration will remain in the church keeping vigil before Our Lord until 6AM.
Third Day: The closing Mass will be on Sunday, October 25th at 10:30AM, which will also be the 1st class Feast of Christ the King. This closing Mass will be celebrated coram Sanctissimo (in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament exposed).
At the end of the closing Mass, the Litany of the Saints and other special psalms and prayers will be chanted and we will have another Procession of the Blessed Sacrament inside the church.
The Forty Hours Devotion is surrounded with 3 special dimensions:
1) The protection from evil and temptation;
2) Reparation for our own sins and for the poor souls in purgatory; and
3) Deliverance from political, material and spiritual calamities.
This beautiful devotion was permanently established by Pope Clement VIII “in order that day and night the faithful might appease their Lord by prayer before the Blessed Sacrament solemnly exposed, imploring there His divine mercy.“
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