All are invited to join us for the celebration the passing of St. Francis of Assisi from this world into Heaven at 7pm on Monday, October 3, 2022 at Holy Rosary Shrine. This traditional ceremony is not a Mass but a recalling of the life and death of our founder with drama, readings and songs.…
From the Friars: Woe to the Complacent So says the prophet Amos in the first reading today, and this is the gist of the message of Jesus in his parable about the rich man and Lazarus. One definition of complacent is “showing smug or uncritical satisfaction with oneself or one’s achievements.” The rich man is…
From the Friars: The One Mediator Our Protestant brothers and sisters often accuse Catholics of disobeying the Bible by praying to Our Blessed Mother or to the Saints. They will especially quote St. Paul from today’s second reading where he says, “There is one mediator between God and Men, the man Christ Jesus,” (1Tm2:5) This…
From the Friars: Patriotism Is a Virtue It is the filial piety one holds in one’s heart toward one’s country, as a loyal son or daughter. The Latin word for “father” is pater, and the Latin word for “country” is patria, or the “fatherland.” The United States observes Patriot Day today (September 11th), in remembrance…
From the Friars: Calculating the Cost Before I was a friar I worked in construction and sometimes I had to do cost estimating. It is a challenge to consider all the factors necessary to complete a project. This very week there are several contractors who are working on bids for the new friary/office building for…
One Saturday night years ago I went out to a bar for a good time in Belmar, NJ. It was a place not unlike the one that sometimes keeps me up at night these days. This is God’s sense of humor. But this particular night I finally hit bottom after many years of living a…
From the Friars: The Lowest Place Francesco Bernadone was a very ambitious man. He was rich, popular, and longed for greatness in the eyes of the world. His goal was to earn knighthood by heroism in battle, which was the only way to become a knight in those days if you were not of the…
In less than two weeks Labor Day weekend will be upon us, with the many activities of the Shrine Fair and the Feast of the Three Saints. We are very grateful to all of you who have been working so hard to prepare for these events. They tell me that there is a record number…
From the Friars: Go out to all the World and Tell the Good News Okay, Let’s face it. The world has lots of problems. Is there any way that we can work to try to solve some of them? Well, to fix the world’s problems, we need to fix the world. So, here are Fr.…
From the Friars: Testing Positive By now most of us have probably used a COVID home test at least once or twice. After the fun of using the swab to get a sample, we wait to see if it causes a reaction in the solution and a second line to appear. Following the test reaction…