Singing is a Service

Members of the St. Michael's Boys' Choir sing.

Always remember that your singing is a service. It is a service to God, offering him the praise that is due. It is a service to other worshippers, helping them raise their hearts and minds in prayer. And it is a service to the whole Church, a foretaste of the heavenly liturgy in which the choirs of angels and saints unite in one unending song of love and praise. 

       -    Pope Benedict XVI

      (Address to the Pueri Cantores Federation, 2010)

  

Mass for the Unborn

photo from internet

 5:30pm Dec. 28, 2010 because...

…each according to his or her possibilities, profession, and responsibilities, should feel in themselves an obligation to love and serve life, from its beginning to its natural end.   

- Pope Benedict XVI 

Holy Innocents Pray for Us

At Midnight Mass

The chalice and paten of the late G. Emmett Cardinal Carter. 

photo credit

Your eyes at the midnight Mass will gaze upon the elevated Host and your lips will utter, “My Lord and my God.” A few minutes more and the little Infant will have come to you. His Immaculate Mother did not hold him more truly in her arms that first Christmas midnight than you will have him, heart to heart. Then all the love of that Infant Redeemer will be poured out upon you. It is a thirst of the heart of every creature that desires to be loved, and the love which can alone satisfy that craving is the Divine Love.

          – St. Katherine Drexel

Favorite Plainsongs Are Like Bellybuttons

The advent wreath with two candles lit in St. Michael's Cathedral.

Roráte caéli désuper,

et núbes plúant jústum...

... Consolámini, consolámini, pópule méus:


cito véniet sálus túa:


quare mæróre consúmeris,


quia innovávit te dólor?


Salvábo te, nóli timére,


égo enim sum Dóminus Déus túus,


Sánctus Israël, Redémptor túus.

Life: The First Human Right

photo credit

In union with the Holy Father’s solemn vigil for all nascent life (at St. Peter’s Basilica), the Archbishop of Toronto will preside over a Holy Hour for life at St. Michael’s Cathedral.

Saturday, November 27^th, 7pm.  See you there.   Oh, and just to be clear: 

Catholics are pro-life.  Period.

St. Martin of Tours: Patron of Soldiers

Two souls kneel in prayer next to the Remembrance Day flowers in St. Michael's Cathedral.

Lord, if your people still have need of my services, I will not avoid the toil. Your will be done. I have fought the good fight long enough. Yet if you bid me continue to hold the battle line in defense of your camp, I will never beg to be excused from failing strength. I will do the work you entrust to me. While you command, I will fight beneath your banner. Amen.

                     - St. Martin of Tours

                      

Red Mass

The Red Mass is held today in St. Michael's Cathedral.

I die the King’s faithful servant, but God’s first. – St. Thomas More's last words before his execution.

St. Thomas More, you heavenly patron of statesmen and lawyers, pray for us.

Students

A poster in the narthex of St. Michael's Cathedral reminds Catholic Ryerson students about the upcoming Annual Mass and BBQ at St. John's Chapel.

Do you wish to study to your advantage?
Let devotion accompany all your studies.
Consult God more than your books.
Ask Him to make you understand what you read.
Never begin or end your study except by prayer.
Science is a gift of God.
Do not consider it merely the work of your own mind and effort. 

                          – St. Vincent Ferrer, OP

Fathers and Sons

Fathers stand to receive a special blessing for Fathers' Day in St. Michael's Cathedral.

Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament. There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves on earth…by…which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationships (love, faithfulness, joy) be maintained, and take on that complexion of reality of eternal endurance, which every man’s heart desires.  

  – J.R.R. Tolkien to his son Christopher

St. Michael's Choir School Concert

On Friday, June 4th at 7pm in St. Michael's Cathedral the Junior and Elementary Choirs, together with the acclaimed Phoenix Boys' Choir, will perform a concert.  Tickets are $10.00.  See here.

Laudate pueri Dominum, laudate nomen Domini...

Ordinations to the Permanent Diaconate

This morning at 10 am with the consent and support of their wives 16 men were ordained to the permanent diaconate by His Excellency, Auxiliary Bishop Nguyen at St. Michael's Cathedral.  Below some of them receive the congratulations of their families and the lay faithful.

Five Ordained to the Priesthood

Yesterday, five men were ordained to the diocesan priesthood at St. Michael's Cathedral.

The priest is not a priest for himself; he does not give himself absolution, he does not administer the Sacraments to himself.  He is not for himself, he is for you.  After God, the priest is everything…If I were to meet a priest and an angel, I should salute the priest before I saluted the angel. The latter is the friend of God; but the priest holds His place.  

                           – St. Jean Marie Vianney

The National March For Life

The bus will leave from in front of St. Michael's Cathedral for the National March for Life (in Ottawa) tomorrow at 7am. Plan to be there marching behind Fr. McGovern. If you can't be there, plan to pray for those who are.

For God, the Lord of life, has conferred on men the surpassing ministry of safeguarding life in a manner which is worthy of man. Therefore from the moment of its conception life must be guarded with the greatest care while abortion and infanticide are unspeakable crimes.  

                               – Gaudium et spes, 51

Tenebrae

Altar server lights 15-candle hearse in preparation for Tenebrae Service at St. Michael's Cathedral.

Sung by current and former choristers of St. Michael’s Choir School and overseen by His Grace, Archbishop Thomas Collins, the Tenebrae service begins with these 15 candles lit.  One by one they are extinguished until a lone candle remains, the light of Christ in the world.  Even this is momentarily hidden, leaving the church in total darkness for the crashing strepitus which recalls the earthquake at Christ’s death.  The candle is re-placed, a sign of His resurrection, and after a few more prayers the congregation slips away into the night.

Mass of the Chrism

His Grace, Archbishop Thomas Collins consecrates Sacred Chrism at the annual Mass of the Chrism at St. Michael's Cathedral. Among other things, the Sacred Chrism is used to anoint priests and bishops at their ordination.

Ordination is not employment; it is consecration. We are consecrated, anointed with the Oil of Chrism. The priesthood is not what we do, it is who we are…

 - His Grace, Archbishop Thomas Collins (Chrism Mass Homily)

Is the diocesan priesthood your vocation?

Palm Sunday

A blessed palm after Palm Sunday mass at St. Michael's Cathedral

So let us spread before His feet, not garments or soulless olive branches, which delight the eye for a few hours and then wither, but ourselves…let us present the Conqueror of death, not with mere branches of palms but with the real rewards of His victory. Let our souls take the place of the welcoming branches…

                        - St. Andrew of Crete

40 Days for Life

A 40 day peaceful vigil of prayer and fasting outside abortion clinics for an end to abortion.

Just to be clear: Catholics are pro-life. The Church has affirmed this continuously from the first century. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable.

Do you want to live in a world where more than 90% of babies with Down's Syndrome are eliminated? Or is it just possible that the Church is offering a better way to understand who these babies are and who they might become?

Éirinn Go Brách

 Irish pride after the St. Patrick's Day mass at St. Michael's Cathedral

Remember Catholic Ireland in your prayers today by praying: 
The Breastplate of St. Patrick.

Also, young men, FYI: This is how gentlemen dress for mass.

Noah's Pudding

Local Muslims were at the Cathedral today after mass to offer a cup of Noah's Pudding, a tasty symbol of our common Abrahamic heritage and of the duty to share with others.  As Catholics, we can justly admire many of our Muslim neighbours for their diligence in prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

Since there are certainly parts of the world where Muslim - Christian relations are bad, very dangerously bad, it is so pleasant to be reminded of what is possible.  Let us give thanks for religious freedom and pray for progress in true ecumenism.

              Our Lady of Fatima, Pray for Us.