ISRAEL CLOSES TEMPLE MOUNT AFTER ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT, ABBAS CRIES WAR!

ABBAS: CLOSURE OF AL-AQSA HOLY SITE A ‘DECLARATION OF WAR’

Israeli border police near the entrance to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on October 30, 2104. (photo credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

“So shall ye know that I am the LORD your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain: then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more.” Joel 3:17

Israel’s closure of Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, following an assassination attempt Wednesday, is tantamount to a “declaration of war,” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Thursday morning.

Abbas’s remarks came after a suspect in the shooting of a prominent right-wing Jewish activist was killed in a gunfight with the police in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu Tor. Police closed the compound early Thursday out of fear of clashes in the wake of the shooting of Yehuda Glick, who campaigned for Jewish rights on the site, and as Israeli right-wing groups vowed to march on the site.

“This dangerous Israeli escalation is a declaration of war on the Palestinian people and its sacred places and on the Arab and Islamic nation,” his spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina quoted him as saying.

The director of the Al-Aqsa Mosque called the site’s closure unacceptable.

“It is unacceptable that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is paying a toll for the events in Jerusalem,” he said.

“The mosque is a place for prayer and worship and all Muslims have the right to access it,” the director told the Ma’an news agency.

Israeli authorities turned back right-wing Likud MK Moshe Feiglin, who tried to make his way onto the Temple Mount Thursday morning in response to the shooting of Glick, a leader of the Temple Mount Faithful activist group.

http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/blog/?p=27836

Cardinal Burke: ‘I’m Praying Very Fervently That This Coming Year This Confusion Will Stop’ (Video)

Cardinal Burke: “A very serious responsibility to try to correct as quickly and as effectively as possible the scandal caused by the midterm report” that was published during the synod of bishops discussing the family that met in Rome earlier this month.

(CNSNews.com) – Cardinal Raymond Burke, the Prefect of the Sacred Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the highest court of the Catholic Church, said in an interview with CNSNews.com recorded Friday that he sees “a very serious responsibility to try to correct as quickly and as effectively as possible the scandal caused by the midterm report” that was published during the synod of bishops discussing the family that met in Rome earlier this month.

In the interview, Burke discussed Catholic teaching on marriage, homosexuality and the rights of children.

“We have to recognize that if we don’t get it right about marriage–in other words, if we’re not faithful to the word of Christ, to the truth which Christ announced to us about marriage–in the church, I don’t know how people can trust us with regard to teaching the truth of the faith in any other matter,” Burke said.

“We’re talking here about the very foundation of the life of the church, the first cell of our life, in the marital union and the formation of the family,” he said, “and if we don’t uphold the sanctity of the marital bond we have really not only abandoned the Catholic faith but really abandoned the Christian faith in the sense that we are abandoning the natural law itself.”

At the end of the interview, Cardinal Burke said that the church needs to once again clearly proclaim its teachings on marriage and sexuality and noted that it has already produced many texts explaining these teachings.

“The church must now in this period hold up the beauty, the splendor, of this teaching for the sake of her own members that they not be confused about the truth but also for the sake of our world and the church’s call to serve the world by proclaiming the truth and by giving witness to it,” he said.

“And, so, I’m praying very fervently that this coming year that this confusion will stop and instead that there will begin to be a strong emphasis on the beauty of the truth of the church’s teaching on marriage and on human life and human sexuality,” he said.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/cardinal-burke-i-m-praying-very-fervently-coming-year-confusion-will

A Catholic church schism under Pope Francis isn’t out of the question

The conservative backlash against the liberal pope’s authority has been fierce, and is gathering momentum

Until this weekend, I had largely believed in the liberal narrative which holds that Pope Francis’s reforms of the Catholic church are unstoppable. But the conservative backlash has been so fierce and so far-reaching that for the first time a split looks a real, if distant, possibility.

One leading conservative, the Australian Cardinal George Pell, published over the weekend a homily he had prepared for the traditional Latin mass at which he started ruminating on papal authority. Pope Francis, he said, was the 266th pope, “and history has seen 37 false or antipopes”.

Why mention them, except to raise the possibility that Francis might turn out to be the 38th false pope, rather than the 266th real one?

This is a fascinating nudge in the direction of an established strain of conservative fringe belief: that liberalising popes are not in fact real popes, butimposters, sent by the devil. The explanation has an attractively deranged logic: if the pope is always right, as traditionalists would like to believe, and if this particular pope is clearly wrong, as traditionalists also believe, then obviously this pope is not the real pope. Splinter groups have held this view ever since the liberalising papacy of Pope John XXIII at the start of the 1960s. I don’t think that’s what Pell meant, but it was odd and threatening to bring the subject up at all.

The other warning of schism, though veiled in regret, came from the conservative American journalist Ross Douthat, who wrote on Sunday that “[Conservative Catholics] might want to consider the possibility that they have a role to play, and that this pope may be preserved from error only if the church itself resists him.”

There is quite a lot that is false or comical in the conservatives’ claims, as you’d expect of any propaganda. Douthat makes the historically absurd claim that “The Catholic church was willing to lose the kingdom of England, and by extension the entire English-speaking world, over the principle that when a first marriage is valid a second is adulterous,” which is wrong on two counts – the first is that the Popes cannot have thought themselves in danger of losing the kingdom of England when the struggle started; the second is that King Henry VIII entirely agreed with them about marriage. What he wanted was not a divorce, but an annulment – the right to declare that his own first marriage had all along been invalid. In fact, though he put two wives away, executed two more, and lost one to illness, he never once got divorced. In this, as in other ways, he was not a liberal.

Then there is the outrage that Francis is “stacking the synod’s ranks with supporters of a sweeping change” – as if stacking the ranks of bishops were not what all Popes try to do, and what his predecessors had certainly enforced. That Francis has very publicly demoted the senior American traditionalist, Cardinal Raymond Burke, has upset Burke and frightened other traditionalists. But we’re just emerging from 30 years of liberals outraged by sackings and demotions of their leaders. The papal slipper may be on the other foot this time, but it has always booted bishops out.

Underlying this, though, is an absolutely solid point. Jesus himself condemned divorce quite unequivocally and the Catholic church has always followed that line in principle. In practice, things are rather different, but an open, obvious change would be, as Pell charged, “a doctrinal backflip” – and Pell, along with many other conservatives, defines the Catholic church as one incapable of changing in that way. So if it does appear to change, it’s not the Catholic church any more. And that is the logic of schism.

We have no idea whether things will actually get that far. Pell and Douthat represent a small minority of the laity, and a minority even of bishops, as the voting figures from the synod show, but it is substantial, determined and potentially very well-funded. American right-wingers are already outraged by Pope Francis’s teaching on poverty and his hostility to capitalism. If they can pose instead as defenders of sexual virtue this will exacerbate the already bitter splits within the US Catholic church. Any pope would see it as essential to avert that possibility and if that happens, all liberal bets are off.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/30/catholic-church-schism-pope-francis-liberal-conservative

Not just for communists: Pope reminds Catholics evolution is true / Big Bang Fizzles (Video)

Pope reminds Catholics: evolution, Big Bang are true

God is not a “magician!”

Pope “His eyes seem to follow me wherever I go.” Vatican

Francis took a stroll yesterday from the Vatican guest house apartment where he lives over to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences to unveil a bust of his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI. The bust itself is rather Teutonically foreboding, but the most interesting bit of the unveiling came when Francis made a short speech to assembled members of the Academy. Though only a few paragraphs long (and currently available only in Italian; the translation below is unofficial), Francis’s remarks focused largely on evolution—still a controversial doctrine in parts of the worldwide Christian church.

“When we read in Genesis the account of Creation, we are in danger of imagining that God was a magician, complete with a magic wand capable of doing anything,” Francis said. “But he was not. He created beings and let them develop in accordance with the internal laws that He has given to each one.”

He went on:

Thus, this work of creation has been going on for centuries and centuries, millennia and millennia until it has become what we know today, because God is not a demiurge or wizard but the Creator who gives being to all entities. The beginning of the world was not a work of chaos that has some other origin, but it derived directly from a supreme principle which creates by love. The Big Bang, which currently appears to explain the origin of the world, does not contradict the intervention of a divine creator but demands it. The evolution of nature is not inconsistent with the notion of Creation because evolution presupposes the creation of beings that evolve…

The scientist must be moved by the confidence that nature conceals, in its evolutionary mechanisms, potential that our intelligence and freedom can discover and implement in order to develop the design of the Creator. So, no matter how limited, the action of man partakes of the power of God and is able to build a world fit for his dual life, bodily and spiritual, to build a humane world for all human beings and not for a group or class of privileged people.

A 2013 Pew Research survey found that 33 percent of all American adults believe that “humans existed in present form since [the] beginning.” Among Catholics, the percentages are slightly lower; 31 percent of Hispanic Catholics deny evolution, as do 26 percent of white Catholics. (Among white evangelical protestants, the number is a whopping 64 percent.)

 The Pontifical Academy of Sciences in Vatican CIty.

Not just for Communists

The Catholic church has long been open to evolution, though always stressing its belief that God is the ultimate power behind the universe and its unfolding story.

In 1950, Pope Pius XII wrote about evolution in Humani Generis, saying that “Communists gladly subscribe to this opinion so that, when the souls of men have been deprived of every idea of a personal God, they may the more efficaciously defend and propagate their dialectical materialism.”

Nevertheless, he did not forbid that “research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter.”

For Pius XII, however, evolution was only a possibility that was yet unproven, and so he went on to rail against those who “act as if the origin of the human body from pre-existing and living matter were already completely certain and proved by the facts which have been discovered up to now and by reasoning on those facts, and as if there were nothing in the sources of divine revelation which demands the greatest moderation and caution in this question.”

But by 1996, with far more evidence available, even a theological conservative like Pope John Paul II had no problem affirming that “new knowledge leads to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge.”

And his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, though sometimes described by critics as a reactionary, likewise endorsed the statement of a scientific gathering convened at the Vatican under his tenure. It concluded:

Since it has been demonstrated that all living organisms on earth are genetically related, it is virtually certain that all living organisms have descended from this first organism. Converging evidence from many studies in the physical and biological sciences furnishes mounting support for some theory of evolution to account for the development and diversification of life on earth, while controversy continues over the pace and mechanisms of evolution.

While the story of human origins is complex and subject to revision, physical anthropology and molecular biology combine to make a convincing case for the origin of the human species in Africa about 150,000 years ago in a humanoid population of common genetic lineage.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/10/pope-reminds-catholics-evolution-big-bang-are-true/

Big Bang Fizzles – Part one

Evolution, a False Religion World View Masqueraded as Science – Part two

Pope to late Tony Palmer’s Protestant group: We sin against Christ’s will when we focus on our differences!!

Pope to Ark Community: we must focus on unity not divisions!

In a private meeting with leaders of the inter-denominational Ark Community, Pope Francis said Christians should not wait for theologians to reach agreement, but should walk, pray and work together now. His words came during an October 10th encounter at the Casa Santa Marta with members of the community founded by Evangelical leader Tony Palmer who was killed in a road accident last July. Palmer became friends with Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio when he worked in Buenos Aires as international ecumenical officer of the Communion of Episcopal Evangelical Churches, a growing movement of charismatic and evangelical Christians seeking reconciliation between their divided communities.

In an i-phone recording of the meeting, published on the Ark Community website, Pope Francis thanks Palmer’s widow and the new leader of the community, Archbishop Robert Wise, for carrying forward the dream of walking together in communion. “We are sinning against Christ’s will” the Pope says, “because we continue to focus on our differences,” but “our shared baptism is more important than our differences.”

While the devil, the “father of lies” divides us, the Pope continues, we are called to preach the Gospel in every corner of the earth, with the certainty that He is with us. “We each have in our Churches excellent theologians,” the Pope says, “but we shouldn’t wait for them to reach agreement.”

The Pope goes on to talk about spiritual ecumenism where Christians are being persecuted and killed in the Middle East, Africa or elsewhere, not because they are Pentecostal, Lutheran, Anglican, Catholic or Orthodox but “because they believe in Jesus Christ.” He mentions also a Catholic priest and a Lutheran pastor who were killed on the same day by the Nazis for teaching the Catechism to children.

The Pope concludes his off-the-cuff remarks by recalling the vision of Tony Palmer to achieve his desire of walking together “so we can eat together at the banquet of the Lord.”

(from Vatican Radio)

MUSLIM MAN ATTACKS NYC POLICE WITH HATCHET IN THIRD N. AMERICAN TERROR ATTACK!

One day after Canadian terror attacks, Muslim man attacks NYC police with hatchet

NYC AX-WIELDING JIHADI: “IF THE ZIONISTS AND THE CRUSADERS HAD NEVER INVADED AND COLONIZED THE ISLAMIC LANDS AFTER WW1, THEN THERE WOULD BE NO NEED FOR JIHAD!”

One day after an attack in Canada, a man suspected of terror ties attacked two New York City police with a hatchet. New surveillance video shows the suspect about to launch the hatchet attack in Jamaica, Queens. A freelance photographer had just asked four police officers to pose for a photo when a man pulled a hatchet from his bag, hitting one officer in the arm and another in the head.

Police then opened fire, killing the man and wounding a woman nearby with errant gunfire. The NYPD has not released the suspect’s name because his family has not yet been notified. Fox News has learned that the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force is on the scene. Police also tell Fox News that the suspect’s Facebook page has concerning content.

The NYPD has issued a patrol bulletin alerting cops to be in a state of heightened awareness. There are also reports that police are conducting a large-scale operation near the site of the attack.

Buck Sexton weighed in tonight. “Tonight, we are a city on the edge here,” he said.

He also said, “Which is better, to sit around and do nothing, or to Jihad fisabeelallah!” Jihad fisabeelallah is jihad for the sake of Allah, violent jihad. And Zale Thompson didn’t sit around and do nothing, he took his ax and went jihad on four police officers. – See more at:http://pamelageller.com/2014/10/nyc-ax-wielding-jihadi-if-the-zionists-and-the-crusaders-had-never-invaded-and-colonized-the-islamic-lands-after-ww1-then-there-would-be-no-need-for-jihad.html/#sthash.U6Fx1fkO.dpuf

http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/blog/?p=27739

Pope Benedict Blasts Lethal Dialogue

 Retired Pope Benedict XVI   CNS photo/Paul Haring

Retired pope says interreligious dialogue no substitute for mission

VATICAN CITY – Retired Pope Benedict XVI said dialogue with other religions is no substitute for spreading the Gospel to non-Christian cultures, and warned against relativistic ideas of religious truth as “lethal to faith.” He also said the true motivation for missionary work is not to increase the church’s size but to share the joy of knowing Christ.

The retired pope’s words appeared in written remarks to faculty members and students at Rome’s Pontifical Urbanian University, which belongs to the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. Archbishop Georg Ganswein, prefect of the papal household and personal secretary to retired Pope Benedict, read the 1,800-word message aloud Oct. 21, at a ceremony dedicating the university’s renovated main lecture hall to the retired pope.

The speech is one of a handful of public statements, including an interview and a published letter to a journalist, that Pope Benedict has made since he retired in February 2013.

“The risen Lord instructed his apostles, and through them his disciples in all ages, to take his word to the ends of the earth and to make disciples of all people,” retired Pope Benedict wrote. “‘But does that still apply?’ many inside and outside the church ask themselves today. ‘Is mission still something for today? Would it not be more appropriate to meet in dialogue among religions and serve together the cause of world peace?’ The counter-question is: ‘Can dialogue substitute for mission?’

“In fact, many today think religions should respect each other and, in their dialogue, become a common force for peace. According to this way of thinking, it is usually taken for granted that different religions are variants of one and the same reality,” the retired pope wrote. “The question of truth, that which originally motivated Christians more than any other, is here put inside parentheses. It is assumed that the authentic truth about God is in the last analysis unreachable and that at best one can represent the ineffable with a variety of symbols. This renunciation of truth seems realistic and useful for peace among religions in the world.

“It is nevertheless lethal to faith. In fact, faith loses its binding character and its seriousness, everything is reduced to interchangeable symbols, capable of referring only distantly to the inaccessible mystery of the divine,” he wrote.

Pope Benedict wrote that some religions, particularly “tribal religions,” are “waiting for the encounter with Jesus Christ,” but that this “encounter is always reciprocal. Christ is waiting for their history, their wisdom, their vision of the things.” This encounter can also give new life to Christianity, which has grown tired in its historical heartlands, he wrote.

“We proclaim Jesus Christ not to procure as many members as possible for our community, and still less in order to gain power,” the retired pope wrote. “We speak of him because we feel the duty to transmit that joy which has been given to us.”

http://www.catholicregister.org/faith/faith-news/item/19040-retired-pope-says-interreligious-dialogue-no-substitute-for-mission?

Sister Cristina : This is why I am singing “Like a virgin!”

​It has not been easy for many  to get used to the idea that a nun has won the TV talent show “The Voice”. For others, on the other hand, she has been a breath of fresh air. For everybody she is a complete novelty. Something to discuss, even at great length. Imagine what will happen when, from tomorrow, the public hears sister Cristina Scuccia on the radio singing her version of the controversial popstar Madonna’s hit “Like a Virgin”.

And, as this wasn’t enough, the song has been chosen to be the track to be released as a kind of calling card from her debut album, out in November all over the world. It will include versions of well known numbers, a couple of songs from the Christian music scene, two unreleased songs and the piece by Madonna.

Inevitably one finds oneself asking questions, such as: where did the idea come from? What is she trying to do? Does she realize that she may cause a storm? Not to talk about endless jokes and disapproval on social networks.About all this Sister Cristina has decided to talk exclusively to Avvenire, turning down requests for interviews from media all over the world in what is her first real interview. You can read it, in its entirety, in the edition out in newsagents today.

Who prompted her to sing “Like a Virgin” by Madonna? “I chose it. With no intention to provoke or scandalize. Reading the text, without being influenced by previous interpretations, you discover that it is a song about the power of love to renew people. To rescue them from their past. And this is the way that I wanted to interpret it. For this reason we have transformed this song from the pop-dance piece which it was, into a romantic ballad, a bit like the ones by Amos Lee. Something more similar to a lay prayer, than to a pop piece”.

Sister Cristina talks to Avvenire about her world debut (“I still don’t fully realize what is happening … I am 26. I am young. But I know I have a big responsibility. I have to give witness and I am happy to do it. Because I am excited to have met Christ and I would like everybody else to do the same”), about how her success at The Voice has upset her life so much that she has sometimes regretted participating in the talent show (“I feel the almost morbid curiosity of the media as a weight on my back”) and also about her insecurity (“If I listened to a part of me, I would hide myself”).

The interview gives a new, unprecedented insight into Sister Cristina and adds depth to the image she projects on television. Some will be surprised that she has not earned anything from the victory at The Voice, and she will not become rich even if she were to sell millions of copies of her album (“I made a vow of poverty: we will use all the money earned in the congregation’s projects”).

She says of Pope Francis “He is the best answer to whoever thinks that I shouldn’t sing on television”. And, talking about this, she unveils a dream (which you will find in the complete interview).

http://www.avvenire.it/Spettacoli/Pagine/Interview-with-sister-Cristina–This-is-why-I-am-singing-Like-a-virgin.aspx

Priests In Dance-Off Become Web Sensation

The seminarians dazzle the crowd with a fleet-footed duel – one with Irish dance, the other in tap – at an elite college in Rome.

A video of a pair of dancing American priests in Rome has gone viral.

The Rev David Rider, 29, and the Rev John Gibson, 28, were filmed during a fundraiser at an elite US seminary near the Vatican.

Father Rider, of Hyde Park, New York, first dazzled the crowd with a tap-dance routine, only to be upstaged by the fleet-footed Irish dance of Father Gibson, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The pair then begin battling it out to impress the crowd in the clip, shot at the North American College in April.

Journalist Joan Lewis recorded the event and posted it on YouTube, where it has had some 260,000 views.

Most of the comments were overwhelmingly positive, though one or two felt it was disrespectful to dance under a crucifix and a portrait of Pope Francis.

The men in cloth with moves have drawn comparisons with a nun who won an Italian television talent show in June.

Sister Cristina Scuccia signed a record contract after her triumphant performances in full habit on The Voice.

http://news.sky.com/story/1358993/priests-in-dance-off-become-web-sensation

The Diocese of Atlanta supports and promotes the “Gay Pride Parade!!”

After the case of the Franciscan Friars of Boston, photographed smiling at “Gay Pride” citizen with a banner “Who am I to judge,” also from the United States, comes another story, equally disturbing, with the center of the Diocese of Atlanta and its Archbishop Wilton Daniel Gregory, 2001-2004 president of the American Episcopal Conference (USCCB).

The Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, which boasts of being the first Catholic church built in Atlanta, has, in fact, supported and promoted among their parishioners the “Gay Pride Parade” in the capital of the State of Georgia, also appearing in the list of Participants in the parade on the website of ‘”Atlanta Pride Parade.”

The Sanctuary has, at first, publicized the event of the “Pride Parade” on his bulletin , urging parishioners to participate in the march, and, later, in the same parish bulletin, thanked all those who took part in publishing the images of homosexual parade.The parish, as reported on its website, is very active to promote ” a connection within the LGBT community of the Sanctuary, (…) providing a place to socialize with other couples LGBT “and each year is represented by its own stand the LGBT festival.

In a statement issued to the American website ” LifeSiteNews , “the archdiocese was justified in declaring that the church group did not need the approval of the archbishop to march in the parade. Patricia M. Chivers, Director of Communications and Advocacy for the archdiocese, in fact, pointed out that: ” The members of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception participate in the event for many years before he became Archbishop Gregory Archbishop of Atlanta. (…). Accordingly, the Chivers concludes, ” It was necessary that the parish had the approval of the Archbishop to participate in because it is a local event . “

This story on the one hand, demonstrates the catastrophic consequences that can have ambiguous messages and languages, on the other hand, expresses, once again, the moral confusion that reigns, alas, within the same Catholic church, where in the name of a misguided mercy is ignored and trampled the ecclesiastical magisterium ever. (LG)

http://www.corrispondenzaromana.it/notizie-brevi/la-diocesi-di-atlanta-sostiene-e-promuove-la-gay-pride-parade/

FEAST OF ST. RAPHAEL THE ARCHANGEL – MASS PROPERS

 

ST RAPHAEL  – October 24

“It is God who heals”, “God Heals”, “God, Please Heal,” performs all manners of healing.

The name of the angel Raphael appears only in the Biblical Book of Tobit. Raphael first appears disguised in human form as the travelling companion of Tobit’s son, Tobiah calling himself “Azarias the son of the great Ananias”. During the course of the journey the archangel’s protective influence is shown in many ways including the binding of a demon in the desert of upper Egypt. After returning and healing the blind Tobit, Azarias makes himself known as “the angel Raphael, one of the seven, who stand before the Lord” Tobit 12:15. He is venerated as Saint Raphael the Archangel.

Regarding the healing powers attributed to Raphael, we have his declaration to Tobit (Tobit, 12) that he was sent by the Lord to heal him of his blindness and to deliver Sarah, his future daughter-in-law, from the demon Asmodeus, who kills every man she marries on their wedding night before the marriage can be consummated.

Due to his actions in the Book of Tobit and the Gospel of John, St. Raphael is accounted patron of travelers, the blind, happy meetings, nurses, physicians, medical workers, matchmakers, Christian marriage, and Catholic studies. As a particular enemy of the devil, he was revered in Catholic Europe as a special protector of Catholic sailors: on a corner of Venice’s famous Doge’s Palace, there is a relief depicting Raphael holding a scroll on which is written: Efficia fretum quietum (“Keep the Gulf quiet”). On July 8, 1497, when Vasco Da Gama set forth from Lisbon with his four ship fleet to sail to India, the flagship was named—at the King of Portugal’s insistence—the St. Raphael. When the flotilla reached the Cape of Good Hope on October 22, the sailors disembarked and erected a column in the archangel’s honor. The little statue of St. Raphael that accompanied Da Gama on the voyage is now in the Naval Museum in Lisbon.

Raphael is said to guard pilgrims on their journeys, and is often depicted holding a staff. He is also often depicted holding or standing on a fish, which alludes to his healing of Tobit with the fish’s gall.

The Archangel Raphael is said to have appeared in Cordova, Spain, during the 16th century; in response to the city’s appeal, Pope Innocent X allowed the local celebration of a feast in the Archangel’s honor on May 7, the date of the principal apparition. St. John of God, founder of the Hospital order that bears his name, is also said to have received visitations from St. Raphael, who encouraged and instructed him. In tribute to this, many of the Brothers Hospitallers of St. John of God’s facilities are called “Raphael Centers” to this day. The 18th century Neapolitan nun, St. Maria Francesca of the Five Wounds is also said to have seen apparitions of Raphael.

Raphael by interpretation is: The Medicine of God.  Consider therefore the three remedies bestowed upon us by Raphael which are, as it were, medicines to heal our sickness.  First of all Raphael the physician would deliver us from infirmity of soul by inducing within us the bitterness of contrition.

Greater Double / White Vestments

Missa “Benedícite Dóminum”

INTROIT Psalm 102: 20

Benedícite Dóminum, omnes Angeli ejus: poténtes virtúte, qui fácitis verbum ejus, ad audiéndam vocem sermónem ejus.

Ps.102: 1

Bénedic, ánima mea, Dómino: et ómnia, quæ intra me sunt, nómini sancto ejus. v. Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancti sicut erat in principio et nunc, et semper, et saecula saeculorum. Amen.

Benedicite Dominum…

Bless the Lord, all ye His angels: you that are mighty in strength, and execute His word, harkening to the voice of His orders.

Ps. 102: Bless the Lord, O my soul: and let all that is within me bless His holy name. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Bless the Lord… 

COLLECT

O God, Who didst give blessed Raphael, the Archangel, as a companion, to thy servant Tobias when on his journey:  grant us, Thy servants, that we may ever be protected by his guardianship and strengthened by his assistance. Through our Lord.

EPISTLE Tobias 12: 7-15

In those days, the Angel Raphael said to Tobias: It is good to hide the secret of a king: but honorable to reveal and confess the works of God. Prayer is good with fasting and alms, more than to lay up treasures of gold: for alms delivereth from death, and the same is that which purgeth away sins, and maketh to find mercy and life everlasting. But they that commit sin and iniquity are enemies to their own soul. I discover then the truth unto you, and I will not hide the secret from you. When thou didst pray with tears, and didst bury the dead, and didst leave thy dinner, and hide the dead by day in thy house, and bury them by night, I offered thy prayer to the Lord. And because thou wert acceptable to God, it was necessary that temptation should prove thee. And now the Lord hath sent me to heal thee, and to deliver Sara thy son’s wife from the devil. For I am the angel Raphael, one of the seven who stand before the Lord.

GRADUAL: Tobias 8: 3

Raphael, the angel of the Lord, took, and bound the devil. Great is Our Lord, and great is His power.

ALLELUIA Psalm 137: 2

Alleluia, alleluia. I will sing praise to Thee in the sight of the Angels, I will worship towards Thy holy temple, and I will give glory to Thy name, O Lord. Alleluia.

GOSPEL John 5: 1-4

At that time, there was a festival day of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is at Jerusalem a pond, called Probatica, which in Hebrew is named Bethsaida, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick, of blind, of lame, of withered, waiting for the moving of the water. And an Angel of the Lord descended at certain times into the pond: and the water was moved. And he that went down first into the pond after the motion of the water, was made whole of whatsoever infirmity he lay under.

OFFERTORY Tobias 8: 3; Ps. 146: 5

An Angel stood near the altar of the temple, having a golden censer in his hand: and there was given to him much incense: and the smoke of the perfumes ascended before God, alleluia.

SECRET

We offer Thee sacrifices of praise, O Lord, humbly praying that Thou be pleased to receive them, through the angelic intercession in our behalf, and grant that they may avail for our salvation. Through our Lord.

COMMON PREFACE

It is truly meet and just, right and for our salvation that we should at all times and in all places, give thanks unto Thee, O Holy Lord, Father almighty, eternal God: through Christ our Lord. Through Whom the Angels praise Thy Majesty, Dominations worship, Powers stand in awe. The Heavens and the Heavenly hosts together with the blessed Seraphim in triumphant chorus unite to celebrate it. Together with them we entreat Thee, that Thou mayest bid our voices also to be admitted, while we say in lowly praise:

Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dóminus Deus Sábaoth. Pleni sunt cæli et terra glória tua. Hosánna in excélsis. Benedíctus qui venit in nómine Dómini. Hosánna in excélsis.

COMMUNION Daniel 3:58

All ye angels of the Lord, bless the Lord: sing a hymn, and exalt Him above all forever, alleluia.

POSTCOMMUNION

Vouchsafe, O Lord, to make the holy Archangel Raphael our helper, and let him whom we believe to be continually standing before Thy majesty, present our poor prayers to be blessed by Thee. Through our Lord.