SCCR Parish Blog

  Several months back, the music director at the seminary, Dr. Mary Catherine Levir, wrote an excellent article in The Catholic Telegraph  regarding why beauty is necessary for the Catholic faith.  I want to highlight that piece, because it is so essential for us as Catholics to find beauty, especially in the holy Mass and the sacred liturgy.

  Archbishop Schnurr has a very brief video  introduction to the Beacons of Light initiative to realign our parishes. Members of St. Mary and St. Peter parishes are invited to the first of our information sessions on this initiative on Tuesday, September 7th, at St. Mary Parish at 7:10 p.m.  This will include a presentation by Fr. Reutter followed by questions and answers. For more information, or to sign up for monthly updates on the initiative, please visit catholicaoc.org/beacons  

  As the Covid-19 virus continues to be a threat to the health of many, there is increasing controversy over the question of whether various entities (governments, businesses, etc.) can mandate vaccination, and if so, if people should be allowed to seek exemption from such a requirement on medical grounds, general conscience objections, or on religious grounds. Even within the Church, there is some confusion, as some bishops are insisting on religious conscience protections and others are insisting that there are no religious grounds for that.  The Church's highest office on doctrine (official teaching according to the tradition of the Church) indicates that legitimate exemptions in conscience must always be available but Pope Francis has seemed to contradict that in some (non-official) statements. One of the trickiest areas in this controversy is the question of the difference between something being morally acceptable  vs. morally obligatory .  That is, an action m...

  St. Maximilian Kolbe I have not written much about the saints of August.  They include ancient and modern martyrs, including two who died in the terrible World War of the 20th century because of their ethnicity and their religious vocation ( Edith Stein/St. Teresa Benedicta and Maximilian Kolbe ).  I'll try to write a little bit about the great saints of August in the parish bulletin at the end of the month.  St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

  In a tale of three baptized Catholics, it is instructive to remember that those who are baptized often turn radically against their own Church and the teachings of Christ. We are seeing that happen under the presidential administration of Joseph Biden (a baptized Catholic) who has appointed Xavier Becerra, a virulently pro-abortion  and anti-conscience-protection director of the federal Department of Health and Human Services, who is also a baptized Catholic.  Roger Severino is a baptized Catholic who holds fast to the Church's teaching on the sacredness of life.  He was the director of the federal Office of Civil Rights under the previous presidential administration.   He recently wrote an instructive piece in a national journal regarding the case of a nurse who worked for the University of Vermont Medical Center.  Their doctors and staff tricked her into assisting in the abortion of a child, which crime against God she was adamantly opposed to....

  Yesterday (August 6th) we celebrated the Feast of the Transfiguration.  This event is so important in the life of Christ that Pope St. John Paul II declared it to be one of the new mysteries of the Rosary (the fourth luminous mystery). Here is an ancient homily, from the Church's breviary (divine office) reflecting on that mystery. From a sermon on the transfiguration of the Lord by Anastasius of Sinai, bishop It is good for us to be here Upon Mount Tabor, Jesus revealed to his disciples a heavenly mystery. While living among them he had spoken of the kingdom and of his second coming in glory, but to banish from their hearts any possible doubt concerning the kingdom and to confirm their faith in what lay in the future by its prefiguration in the present, he gave them on Mount Tabor a wonderful vision of his glory, a foreshadowing of the kingdom of heaven. It was as if he said to them: “As time goes by you may be in danger of losing your faith. To save you from this I tell yo...