Ordination of Rev Fr Jean Marie, F.SS.R.

This Saturday past, we were overjoyed to witness our Br Jean-Marie, F.SS.R. raised to the dignity of the Sacred Priesthood!  His Lordship bishop Basil Meeking, D.D. conferred the sacrament of Holy Orders in St Mary's Pro-Cathedral, Christchurch New Zealand.

The ceremony and preparation involved the invaluable help of so many people and we would like to thank each one of them for all their efforts to make it a success.

The first Extraordinary Form priestly ordination in the South Island of New Zealand for decades begins.

 

His Lordship bishop Basil Meeking processing to the Altar to commence the Mass of Ordination.

Very Rev Fr Michael Mary, F.SS.R. was priest-assistant and Fr Magdala Maria, F.SS.R. was Deacon.

After the Deacon removes the bishop's mitre, he passes it to the Mitre-Bearer.

Fr Clément, C.S.J. was Sub-deacon and here is chanting the Epistle.

Very Rev Fr Michael Mary, F.SS.R. calls Br Jean-Marie, F.SS.R. to present himself before the bishop.

Brother prostrates himself before the altar while the Litany of the Saints is chanted.

The Matter of the Sacrament of Holy Orders:  The ordaining bishop lays his hands upon the head of the candidate for ordination.

All the other priests present at the ordination are then invited to lay hands also.

Extending his hands over Br Jean-Marie, the bishop pronounces the words which constitute the Form of the Sacrament, thus conferring the Priesthood upon FR JEAN-MARIE, F.SS.R.

The stole is changed from the position across the shoulder (denoting a deacon) to around the neck (denoting a priest).

The priestly chasuble is placed over his head.

Bishop Meeking anoints the hands which will now grasp the Lord of Heaven and Earth in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Father's annointed hands are bound together with linen.

In a beautiful tradition, this linen band will be kept until the death of the new priest's mother, when it will be used to bind her hands when she is buried.

The tradition of the instruments: the chalice, paten and host are placed between Father's fingers.

The Deacon chants the Gospel.

The Ordination of a priest is the only time that a priest concelebrates in the Extraordinary Form.  Here Fr Jean-Marie concelebrates the Holy Sacrifice with Bishop Meeking, while assisted by Very Rev Fr Anthony Mary, F.SS.R.

Fr Jean-Marie's ordination provided a great opportunity for many of the Latin Mass Chaplaincy's young men to serve on the altar.

It is on occasions such as this that priestly vocations are born!

The bishop consumes the Sacred Body of Jesus Christ.

Fr Jean-Marie receives Holy Communion from the hands of Bishop Meeking.

Leaving the ceremony a changed man.

Now, whenever he wishes, Fr Jean-Marie may call God, and God will obey him, coming down from heaven into his consecrated hands.

Fr Jean-Marie give his First Blessing to Bishop Meeking.

Fr Jean-Marie's mother kneels at the feet of her son to receive his First Blessing.

Father's Auntie receiving his blessing.

A son, and his proud Mother.

Fr Jean-Marie and his Auntie.

Te Deum Laudamus!

We thank God for this great grace of a new priest for our Congregation and for His Church!

Laetare. Mid-Lent Announcement.

Rev. Br Jean Marie, F.SS.R.

Official announcement 

of 

the Priestly Ordination

of

 Brother Jean Marie, F.SS.R.

The Congregation of the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer

announces with great joy the ordination of

Reverend Brother Jean Marie, F.SS.R.

to the Sacred Priesthood

and share this joy and this announcement

with Brother’s parents

Mr. and Mrs. Darryl Lewis and his sister Roanna.

We cordially invite you to attend this historic ceremony,

which will be celebrated according to the more ancient use by

the Most Reverend Basil Meeking, D.D.,

Bishop Emeritus of Christchurch,

on

Saturday, 11th April 2015 at 7.00 p.m.

in

St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral

Manchester Street, Christchurch, New Zealand.

You are also invited to be present the following morning,

the Octave Day of Easter,

called Quasimodo and the Feast of Divine Mercy,

when the newly ordained priest,

Reverend Father Jean Marie, F.SS.R.,

will celebrate his First Holy Mass on

Sunday, 12th April 2015, at 10.00 a.m. in

The Oratory,

Our Mother of Perpetual Succour Monastery,

141 Rutland Street, St Albans, 8052, Christchurch.

R.S.V.P.

7th April, 2015

papay[dot]christchurch [at] the-sons.org

Mid-Lent and Feast of St Gregory the Great

12 March, 2105

New Life

Saint Augustine tells us that all new life is a miracle. Even though it may be such a common thing for us to see flowers and plants spring up from seeds, and calves born of cows, still, God demonstrates as great a miracle in giving these creatures life, as He did in the feeding of the 5000. 

Yesterday, two calves were born and the miracle of life continued. They are both doing well, and it is wonderful to remark that within hours of being born they are able to stand up and seek milk from their mother. These first few days are the most critical as their life is so fragile.

This young male calf is barely one day old. He is healthy and well.

It is very difficult not to be moved by a newly born animal!

This mother cow is the biggest of all the animals we have.

Here we have the second calf not yet a day old.
He is still a little frail but is doing very well all the same.

Mobile calving pens with locking yokes allow safe access to the calf or mother.
There is a gate which swings around totally surrounding the cow allowing this access.

This the Simmental Bull, Sire to all the calves. 

A feeding passage down the middle of the barn which houses cows on the one side . . .

. . . and last year's calves on the other side.

The Queen's Christmas Message

On measures taken to keep us listing slightly to starboard.

Today, 21st November, the feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin in the Temple, is the day chosen by us to grapple with the demands both of monastic observance and communication with the outside world. Since both are necessary.

Leave the world and give yourself to Me.

In monastic life we follow St. Alphonsus who as a young man was directly told by a voice from heaven: "Leave the world and give yourself to me." This led him eventually to Ciorani where he and his early companions were described as "the solitaries of Ciorani."

From young manhood until his death when over 90, 

whether as solitary, missionary or bishop

Alphonsus, our father, left the world 

and gave himself to Jesus.

The spiritual men who knew St Alphonsus and his companions, including his first biographer the Servant of God, Fr Antonio Tannoia, C.SS.R., considered those first Redemptorists to have lived their monastic life as did the early Desert Fathers in Nubia and the Thebaid. Fr Tannoia’s high praise for St Alphonsus is echoed without exception by other writers.
Repeatedly expressions are used such as:
• “a hermitage, a lonely, solitary spot” (the Monastery at Ciorani) where “Nubia and the Thebaid never saw coenobites more given to contemplation than our hermits”
• “the blessed hermitage” where the saint’s life “might be compared to that of the anchorites of the desert.”
Scala which was the cradle of the institute is variously described as:
• “the desert”
• “the hermitage so well adapted for recollection and prayer”
• “difficult of access”
• “remote”
• “this desert", where a "truly eremitical life began for all of them”
• “the solitude of the anchorites of Egypt” where “we live in calm and silence far from the tumult of the world, hearing nothing of what is passing there”
• “the new Thebaid”
• “the solitude” where they lived “on the hill alone, like Jesus in the desert.”
The monastery of Iliceto: "the hermitage”
The monastery of Caposele:  “the hermitage”
The monastery at Villa degli Schiavi: "the hemitage."

The cells of Papa Stronsay.
The early life of St Alphonsus and his companions is our beautiful heritage. 

In the monastery-island of Papa Stronsay we cherish this ideal.

In a far inferior degree we strive to pursue it.

All this is true. It is also true that our holy vocation calls us to the apostolate and the salvation of souls. St. Alphonsus was as on fire in his search for souls, as he was, at other times, in search of solitude.

Venerable double vocation! 

Yes! To continual prayer in solitude, 

cut off from the world, as a hermit. 

Yes too! 

To untiring mission to souls,

 in the midst of the world, as an Apostle. 

These two directions, like identical twins, wrestle with each other. They always did. They still do. St Alphonsus, in the early Constitutions of 1764, brought the two vocations to an almost perfect balance.

"Thar she blows!"

The Good Ship "St Alphonsus," making for port 

but slightly listing to starboard.

She is in search of big fish. Indeed she's ... a whaler! 

-but rightly ballasted to her starboard side.

St Alphonsus, as it were, constructed his sons a fishing boat to go in search of souls, but he ballasted the ship in such a way that it always slightly listed to starboard, the side of solitude; under the gaze of the Star of the Sea, the Morning Star, the Stella Matutina.

Our Lady! Our Sweetness! Who fixes us in our love of solitude, 

search for God and flight from the world!

She is called Porta Caeli, Gate of Heaven, 

obtaining grace for the salvation for souls

 through missionary efforts on the fishing boat's port side. 

As a measure to protect our vocation to solitude and, in the good sense, our call to flight from the world, we have decided, as an experiment, that from today we will greatly limit our use of the Internet, keeping its use to Thursdays. We will post on the Internet (Blog or Facebook) only on Thursdays. We will receive or reply to email only on Thursdays.

Our little boat Stella Maris 

has set her course for the solitude of the sea. 

We keep you in our prayers, 

and ask for yours, for us.

Thursdays will see us back into port, 

fresh, buoyed up, and surely still listing slightly to starboard.