Displaying items by tag: Calendar of Feasts and Memorials
Memorial of Bl. Jacques Retouret, Priest and Martyr
August 26
Like the majority of his fellow clergy, Jacques refused to accept the civil law, unilaterally introduced by the state, which decreed, among other things, the election of bishops and parish priests by the people, only afterwards to be approved by the hierarchy and the pope. In addition to this refusal, Jacques was accused of siding with a group of political emigres who had invaded the country against the revolutionaries. He was arrested and condemned, together with many other priests and religious, and sentenced to exile in French Guinea in South America. Taken to Rochefort, he was held there in a prison ship.
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St. Mary of Jesus Crucified, OCD, Virgin
Optional Memorial - August 25
Mariam Baouardy was born at Abellin in Galilee on January 5, 1846 to very poor parents who were good living and devoted Greek-rite Catholics. She was left an orphan after the death of her parents at only three years of age. On June 14, 1867, she entered the Carmel in Pau.
On August 21, 1870, while still a novice, she left for India to join a new Carmel to be founded at Mangalore. On 21st November 1871, she made her religious profession there. One year later, she was recalled to Pau, from where she left as part of a new foundation, the first Carmel in Palestine.
She died on 26th August 1878 at Bethlehem from a cancer which she had contracted after a fracture caused by a fall.
Memorial of Blessed Angelus Mazzinghi
On 17 August the Carmelite Order celebrates the memorial of Bl. Angelus Augustine Mazzinghi, priest.
The birth of Angelus is not known but probably around 1386. The necrology of the Carmel in Florence calls him the first son of the nascent "observance of the Selve"-- the Carmelite reform begun in the house of the same name. This later grew into the Mantuan Congregation.
Blessed Mazzinghi's name appears in Epilogatio brevis, a collection of names of members of the Order who died with the odor of sanctity assembled by John Bale. He was known as Angelo of Florence.
The necrology in Florence speaks of him as most virtuous, of solid doctrine, a master in counseling, well-known and holy, a very famous preacher. A friend who lived with him for some time heard from "reliable" witnesses that when Mazzinghi preached in Florence, roses and flowers issued from his mouth. The flowers were gathered together by two angels and woven into a crown on his head. This is the iconography with which Mazzinghi is represented.
The Bollandists, in their Acts of the Saints of August in 1737 did not believe that the holiness and the cult of the blessed was sufficiently proved. They were willing to take up his cause again when additional proof became available. Dominic Mary Manni published a Life in 1739.
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Memorial of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross
9 August Memorial (Feast in the provinces of Europe: Patron of Europe)
Sister Teresa Benedict of the Cross died in the gas chamber the same day that she arrived at the camp at Auschwitz, Sunday 9th August 1942, and her body was burned in one of the crematoria there. She was beatified on 1 May 1987 and canonized on 11 October 1998 by Pope John Paul II. On 2 October 1999 the same Pope proclaimed her co-patron of Europe.
Feast of St. Albert of Trapani, Priest
7 August Feast
He was the first saint who received devotion in the Carmelite Order, and was even considered it patron and protector (or “father”), a title he shared with another saint of his time, Angelo of Sicily.
Memorial of St. Titus Brandsma, Priest and Martyr
27 July Memorial
Born in the Frisian city of Bolsward, Holland, in 1881, St. Titus Brandsma joined the Carmelites in 1898 at the age of 17. He made his first profession in 1899 and then he was ordained to the priesthood in 1905. On July 26, 1942, he was killed by lethal injection in the Dachau concentration camp by the Nazis. He was beatified as a martyr by Pope John Paul II on 3rd November 1985 and was canonized by Pope Francis on May 15, 2022, in St Peter’s Square.
A brief Biography
International Hymn for the Canonization
Mass with the Carmelite Family - St. Paul Outside the Walls
May 14, 2022
Celebrant: Míċeál O’Neill, O. Carm. - Prior General of the Carmelite Order
Watch here
Mass of Canonization - St. Peter’s Square
May 15, 2022
Celebrant: Pope Francis
Papal Homily on May 15 (in various languages):
[Arabic - English - French - German - Italian - Polish - Portuguese - Spanish]
Mass of Thanksgiving - Altar of the Chair (St. Peter’s Basilica)
May 16, 2022
Celebrant: Willem Jacobus Cardinal Eijk, Archbishop of Utrecht
Watch here
The Highlights of the Canonization of St. Titus Brandsma
with Fr. Roderick Stories
Memorial of St. Joachim and St. Anne, Protectors
The feast of the Protectors of the Order is celebrated with special solemnity that is the feast of Saints Joseph, Joachim and Anne. The names of the parents of Mary are known from the apocryphal “Proto-Gospel of James” (II century).
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Solemnity of Elijah, Prophet
Elijah's memory was kept alive especially on Mount Carmel where he challenged the people to stop hobbling first on one foot and then on the other but to choose who is God in Israel - Yahweh or Baal.
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∗ The Prophet Elijah– This statue was created by Louis Laumen (https://www.louislaumen.com/) for the Golden Anniversary of Whitefriars College in Melbourne, Australia in 2010. The statue stands at the entrance to the school chapel while the nearby Reflective Garden contains a sculpture of Mary and the adolescent Jesus, capturing the two major inspirations of Carmelite spirituality.
Memorial of Bl. Jane Scopelli, Virgin
From the Ashes, New Flames
By the second half of the 18th century, religious life had been hollowed out by the continual interference of Catholic monarchs in the Order’s internal affairs. Joachim Smet, in his monumental history of the Order, writes “the frontal attack of the French Revolution, Napoleon, and the liberal governments left only ruins.”
He continues “The enemies of the Church failed to realize that they were robbing religious not only of their material possessions but also that pearl of great price for which they had sole their all: a life of intimacy with God in prayer in the goodly company of brothers. The destruction of their life of prayer in community was the severest deprivation religious suffered. Also, by being unjustly deprived of their right to exist as corporate bodies, religious could no longer live the life of evangelical poverty to which they were committed in conscience by the most solemn promises.”
The secretary of the Congregation of the State of Religious Orders, in a preliminary report to Pope Pius IX (1847) painted a dark picture of the state to which religious life had been reduced. Yet for the Carmelite Order, now on the point of extinction, this period saw an increasing number of its members being recognized by the Church as “blesseds.” In addition to Jane Scopelli, the 15th century Carmelite nun, in 1771, the Church honored Angelus Augustine Mazzinghi (1761), Aloysius Rabata (1841), Avertanus and Romaeus (1842), Louis Morbioli (1843), Jacobinus (1845), Frances d’Amboise (1863), Archangela Girlani (1864), John Soreth (1866), and Baptist of Mantua (1885).
Read more about Blessed Jane Scopelli here
Memorial of Bl. Hilary Januszewski, Martyr
On his return to Poland he was appointed professor of Dogmatic Theology and Church History at the institute of the Polish Province in Cracow. On 1 November 1939, Fr. Eliseus Sánchez-Paredes, Provincial, appointed him prior of the community. At that time, Poland had already been occupied by the Germans a few weeks earlier. One year later, the invaders decreed the arrest of many religious and priests. On 18 September 1940 the gestapo deported four friars from the Carmel in Cracow. In December, when other friars were arrested, Fr. Hilary decided to present himself in exchange for an older and sick friar. From that day his Calvary began. He was sent to the prison of Montelupi (Cracow), then to the concentration camp of Sachsenchausen and in April 1941 to the concentration camp of Dachau. There he was a model of prayer life, encouraging others and giving hope for a better tomorrow. Together with the other Carmelites, among whom was Blessed Titus Brandsma, they often joined in prayer.
Meanwhile in barrack 25 of the concentration camp, typhus was spreading. To help the sick, 32 priests presented themselves to the authorities. A couple of days later, Fr. Hilary Januszewski spontaneously joined the group. His apostolate lasted 21 days because, infected by typhus, he died on 25 March 1945, a few days before the liberation of the concentration camp. His body was cremated in the crematorium of Dachau.
Fr. Hilary Januszewski was beatified by John Paul II on 13 June 1999, during his apostolic visit to Warsaw (Poland). On this occasion the Pope beatified 108 Polish martyrs of the Second World War, victims of Nazi persecution.
A multi-lingual book on Bl. Hilary Januszewski is available from Edizioni Carmelitane. The book, giving the reader insight into this Carmelite's life and ultimate gift of his own life for other prisoners, is written in Polish, English, Italian and Spanish and can be purchased at a special price for his feast day for only 12 EUR (shipping expenses not included).
To place your order please contact Edizioni Carmelitane:
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