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THE SOLEMNITY OF THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS

The nine-day novena masses in preparation for the Feast of the Sacred Heart will be held from June 10 to 18, 2009. The Solemnity is June 19. The details are shown in the schedule below:

SCHEDULE OF NOVENA MASSES

June 10 - 18, 2009 • 6:30  P.M. Masses

GENERAL THEME:

THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS AND THE GIFT OF PRAYERS

BACKGROUND

Homage paid to the Heart of Jesus is mentioned by spiritual writers as early as the twelfth century but was practiced to a very limited extent. A humble and holy French nun, the saintly Margaret Mary Alacoque, instituted the devotion which bids to last forever. She became the apostle of the now universal worship to the loving Heart of Savior.

St. Margaret was born in the village of Lhautecour, France, in 1647 and lived until 1690. While she was with the community of the Visitation nuns at Paray-le-Monial from 1671, our Savior appeared to her on several occasions; and in one of these visions He showed her His Heart, pierced with a wound, encircled with a crown of thorns, surrounded by flames and surmounted by a cross - as we see it in pictures and statues. He commanded her to practice and to teach others the devotion to His Sacred Heart because of His ardent desire to be loved by men and His wish to give all mankind the treasure of His love and mercy.

The 12 Promises of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque:

1. I will give them all the graces necessary in their state of life.
2. I will give them peace in their families and will unite families that are divided.
3. I will console them in all their troubles.
4. I will be their refuge during life and above all in death.
5. I will bestow the blessings of Heaven on all their enterprises.
6. Sinners shall find in My Heart the source and infinite ocean of mercy.
7. Tepid souls shall become fervent.
8. Fervent souls shall rise quickly to great perfection.
9. I will bless those places wherein the image of My Heart shall be exposed and honored and will imprint My Love on the hearts of those who would wear this image on their person. I will also destroy in them all disordered movements.
10. I will give to priests who are animated by a tender devotion to My Divine Heart the gift of touching the most hardened hearts.
11. Those who promote this devotion shall have their names written in My Heart, never to be effaced.

I promise You in the excessive mercy of My Heart that My all powerful love will grant to all those who receive communion on the First Friday in nine consecutive months, the grace of final penitence; they will not die in my disgrace, nor without receiving their Sacraments. My Divine Heart shall be their safe refuge in this last moment.

First Friday Devotion at ROLP

In ROLP, the monthly First Friday devotion is held every month.
The day begins with celebration of Holy Mass at 6:15 a.m., followed by anointing of the faithful with holy oil. Then comes the Holy Hour which starts with exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and ends with Benediction.

In the evening, the ROLP Family Prayer Night starts with the 6:30 p.m. mass, followed by the Exposition and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, Novena to the Sacred Heart Novena, and culminating with Benediction.

Vatican Proclaims ‘Year For Priests'

• Period Covers June 19, 2009, to June 19, 2010

• Jubilee Marks 150 Years Since Death of Curé de Ars

• Plenary Indulgence Offered for All the Faithful

The period from June 19, 2009, up to June 19, 2010, has been declared "Year for Priests" by Pope Benedict XVI to mark the 150th anniversary of the death of St. John Marie Vianney, also known as the Curé de Ars, patron saint of confessors and priests.

During this period, the Vatican is offering a plenary indulgence for all the faithful subject to certain conditions.

The Year for Priests follows the Jubilee Year of St. Paul, proclaimed on June 29, 2008, and ending this coming June 29, 2009.

According to a Vatican announcement, Pope Benedict XVI will preside at the opening liturgy for the Year for Priests at the Vatican on June 19, the solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, "a day of priestly sanctification." He will celebrate vespers before the relics of the saint, brought to Rome for the occasion by the bishop of the French Diocese of Belley-Ars.

The Year will end in St. Peter's Square, in the presence of priests from all over the world "who will renew their faithfulness to Christ and their bonds of fraternity."

The Holy Father called on priests to be "men of intense prayer who cultivate a communion of love and life with the Lord."

"Without this solid spiritual base, how would it be possible to continue our ministry? Those who work in the Lord's vineyard in this way know that what is achieved with dedication, with sacrifice and for love, is never lost," he said.

The Pontiff spoke about the Year for Priests, which will begin June 19, as a "valuable occasion to renew and strengthen your generous response to the Lord's call, in order to intensify your relationship with him."

"Use this opportunity to the utmost," he said, "so as to be priests in accordance with the dictates of Christ's heart, like St. Jean Marie Vianney, Cure of Ars," whose 150th anniversary of death we are preparing to celebrate.

For priests, the plenary indulgence can be gained by praying lauds or vespers before the Blessed Sacrament exposed to public adoration or in the tabernacle. They must also "offer themselves with a ready and generous heart for the celebration of the sacraments, especially the sacrament of penance."

The plenary indulgence, which under current norms must be accompanied by sacramental confession, the Eucharist and praying for the intentions of the Pope, can also be applied to deceased priests.

Priests are granted a partial indulgence, also applicable to deceased priests, every time they "devotedly recite the prayers duly approved to lead a saintly life and to carry out the duties entrusted to them."

For the faithful, a plenary indulgence can be obtained on the opening and closing days of the Year for Priests, on the 150th anniversary of the death of St. Jean-Marie Vianney, on the first Thursday of the month, or on any other day established by the ordinaries of particular places for the good of the faithful.

To obtain the indulgence the faithful must attend Mass in an oratory or Church and offer prayers to "Jesus Christ, supreme and eternal Priest, for the priests of the Church, or perform any good work to sanctify and mould them to his heart."

The conditions for the faithful for earning a plenary indulgence are to have gone to confession and prayed for the intentions of the Pope.

The elderly, the sick, and all those who for any legitimate reason are unable to leave their homes may obtain the plenary indulgence if, with the intention of observing the usual three conditions as soon as they can, "on the days concerned, they pray for the sanctification of priests and offer their sickness and suffering to God through Mary, Queen of the Apostles."

A partial indulgence is offered to the faithful when they repeat five times the Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be, or any other duly approved prayer "in honor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to ask that priests maintain purity and sanctity of life."

St. John Marie Vianney

St. John Baptiste Marie Vianney was born on May 8, 1786, at Dardilly, Lyons, France. It took him several years to study for the priesthood for he was not a good student and his Latin was terrible. He was ordained in 1815, and two years later was assigned to the parish of Ars-sur-Formans, France, a tiny village near Lyons, where he remained for the next 40 years.

Ars suffered from very lax attendance, so the new pastor immediately began his pastoral work by visiting his parishioners, especially the sick and poor, spending days in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, doing penance for his parishioners, and leading his people by example.

He soon started manifesting the gifts of discernment of spirits, prophecy, hidden knowledge, and of working miracles. Crowds came to hear him preach, and to make their reconciliation because of his reputation with penitents. By 1855 there were 20,000 pilgrims a year to Ars.

John Vianney died on August 4,1859, in Ars, of natural causes and was canonized on May 31, 1925, by Pope Pius XI.

Register Now, PPCRV
Urges All Eligible Voters

If you don't want to forfeit your right to vote in the May 2010 elections, register now.

This is the call of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) to all eligible youth, first-time voters and Filipinos who have not registered and voted in previous elections.

According to the Commission on Elections, Filipinos who are at least 18 years of age, those who will turn 18 come Election Day, and previous voters in the 2007 Sangguniang Kabataan elections should start applying for voter's registration this summer "to avoid long queues when the deadline draws near."

If a person failed to vote in at least two previous regular elections, he should also apply for reactivation of records, the Comelec said. The Comelec regularly "cleanses the voters' list" by removing names of persons who failed to vote in two regular elections and making the files deactivated.

You can check your election precinct no. online by accessing
http://www.comelec.gov.ph/findprecinct/findprecinct.aspx

Deadline of registration for local voters is on October 31 while absentee voters' registration is until August 31.

Registration is scheduled Mondays to Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at all local Comelec offices nationwide to "accommodate persons with busy schedule and who find it difficult to apply for registration," according to the Comelec.

"Registration is the first step to exercise your suffrage. Now that registration is extended to include Saturdays and working holidays, we invite everyone to take this opportunity to register," said the Comelec.

At least 40 million Filipinos are expected to vote in the May 2010 elections.

Pentecost Sunday, the Church's
Birthday, Marked on May 31

Last Sunday, May 31, the whole of Christendom celebrated Pentecost Sunday, one of the greatest feasts in the Christian liturgical calendar.

Coming 50 days after Easter and ten days after the Ascension of Our Lord, Pentecost marks the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles.

For that reason, it is often called the "the birthday of the Church." On this day, with the descent of the Holy Spirit, Christ's mission is completed, and the New Covenant is inaugurated.

Pentecost Sunday is one of the most ancient feasts of the Church, celebrated early enough to be mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (20:16) and St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians (16:8). It supplants the Jewish feast of Pentecost, which took place 50 days after the Passover and which celebrated the sealing of the Old Covenant on Mount Sinai.

From the time of Our Lord's Ascension until that first Pentecost Sunday, the Apostles and the Blessed Virgin Mary spent nine days in prayer, waiting for the fulfillment of Christ's promise to send His Spirit. This was the origin of the novena, or nine-day prayer, that has become one of the most popular forms of Christian intercessory prayer (prayer asking God for something).

The Acts of the Apostles recounts the story of the original Pentecost. Jews from all over were gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate the Jewish feast. On that Sunday, ten days after our Lord's Ascension, the Apostles and the Blessed Virgin Mary were gathered in the Upper Room, where they had seen Christ after His Resurrection.

"And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a mighty wind coming, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them parted tongues as it were of fire, and it sat upon every one of them: And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they began to speak with divers tongues, according as the Holy Ghost gave them to speak." [Acts 2:2-4]

Christ had promised His Apostles that He would send them His Holy Spirit; on Pentecost, they were granted the gifts of the Spirit. The Apostles began to preach the Gospel in all of the languages that the Jews who were gathered there spoke, and about 3,000 people were converted and baptized that day.

For Christians, Pentecost is the 50th day after Easter (counting both Easter and Pentecost). That means that it is a moveable feast--a feast whose date changes every year, based on the date of Easter in that year. The earliest possible date for Pentecost Sunday is May 10; the latest is June 13.

This year, Pentecost Sunday fell on May 31. Ascension Thursday came 10 days earlier, on May 21, but in the Philippines the celebration has been moved to the following Sunday, May 24.

Pentecost Sunday brought to a close the Easter season and ushered in Ordinary Time in the liturgical calendar.

Within the weeks immediately following Pentecost, the Church celebrates three solemnities:

• Trinity Sunday - June 7
• Corpus Christi Sunday, or the Body and Blood of Christ - June 14, and
• Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus - third Friday after Pentecost and which this year falls on June 21

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Psalms 139:13-16 "You created every part of me; You put me together in my mother's womb. You know me inside out, You know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something. You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in Your Books."

• Your birth was no mistake or mishap, and your life is no fluke of nature. Your parents may not have planned you, but God did. He was not at all surprised by your birth. In fact, he expected it.

• Because God made you for a reason, he also decided when you would be born, where you would be born and how long you would live. Your race and nationality are no accident. God left no detail to chance. He planned it all for His PURPOSE.

• Why did God do all this? Why did he bother to go to all the trouble of creating us and a universe for us? Because God is LOVE.

• If there were no God, we would all be "accidents." Life would have no purpose or meaning. There would be no right or wrong, and no hope beyond the brief years here on earth.