Palm Sunday 2009

Here is a cool little guide on how to make Palm Crosses from www.fisheaters.com.  I would encourage all our readers to truly enter into the Holy Week by reflecting on the Gospel readings for Palm Sunday and to take a palm branch as a reminder of our Lord's victory over the world (Psalm 91:13).

How to make palm Crosses to tuck behind picture frames and hang on your wall

	Take a palm that is about 2 feet long and 1/2" wide (if it tapers at the top, this is good!). Hold the palm upright, so the tapered end points toward the ceiling.
	Then bend the top end down and toward you so that the bend is about 5 or 6 inches from the bottom of the palm.
	About a third of the way from the bend you just made, twist the section you've pulled down to the right, forming a right angle.
	About an inch and a half away from the "stem" of the cross, bend this arm of the palm back behind the palm so that it is now facing to your left. Make the bend at a good length to form the right arm of the Cross.
	Folding that same section at a point that equals the length on the right side, bend it on the left side and bring the end forward over what is now the front of the cross.
	From the very center of the Cross, fold that arm up and to the upper right (in a "northeast" direction) so that it can wrap around where the upright post of the Cross and the right arm intersect.
	Fold this down and to the left behind the Cross...
	...and then fold it toward the right so that it is parallel and under the transverse arms of the Cross.
	Bring it up behind the Cross again, this time folding it up toward the "northwest" direction.
	Tuck the tapered end into the transverse section you made in step 7...
	...and pull through.
	Turn the Cross over; this side will be the front. Trim the tapered end if necessary, remembering that the palm is a sacramental and any part you trim away should be kept and respected as a sacramental! Use that piece for burning during storms.

The Saint Vincent Shield

From: http://www.bonifacewimmer.org/

Here is an informative video concerning the St. Vincent Archabbey shield.

4 St. Vincent Monks Installed Lectors!!!

Taking part in the installation to ministry of reader, held March 16 at Saint Vincent Seminary, Latrobe, were, from left, Rev. David Brzoska, Seminary Vice Rector; Nathanael Polinski, O.S.B., and Gabriel Myriam Kurzawski, O.S.B., Saint Vincent Archabbey, who were installed; Most Rev. Joseph V. Adamec, Bishop of Altoona-Johnstown, installing prelate; Francis Ehnat, O.S.B., and Elijah Cirigliano, O.S.B., Saint Vincent Archabbey, who were installed; and Very Rev. Justin Matro, O.S.B., Seminary Rector.

 

The Bishop processing into the Basilica (Fr. Brian Boosel, OSB - in surplice and stole serves as Master of Ceremonies)

 

Bishop Adamec delivers the homily

Stations of the Cross

Click here for a link to St. Alphonsus Liguori's Stations of the Cross (beautiful words to reflect upon as we enter Holy Week)

British Museum uncovers relics of St Benedict

By Anna Arco and Olivia Sayer

From: The Catholic Herald

An altar containing the relics of nearly 40 saints was opened for the first time in years before going on display in a new medieval gallery in the British Museum this week.

Opened for the first time in the Eighties for scientific study, the 12th-century altar contained 39 relics, carefully folded into a piece of linen. Each individual relic is wrapped in fabric and bears a 13th-century vellum label with the respective saint's name on it. Among the saints represented by relics are St John, St James and St Mary Magdalene, but the treasure of the collection is what is believed to be a relic of St Benedict of Nursia. The presence of the relics was not made public until this week.

The news was met with excitement. Mgr Keith Barltrop, who has been organising the visit of St Thérèse of Lisieux's relics to Britain this year, said: "I think it's rather exciting. Relics are as relevant today as they always have been. They serve as a reminder of our incarnational faith, that it inhabits the physical world, that there are bodies. I think that the bodies of holy people help us draw closer to God and the communion of saints."

Mgr Barltrop said: "What is exciting is that the relic they seem most definite about is that of St Benedict. I think that it is important to venerate St Benedict, who after all is a saint for Europe. Even if Europe has forgotten its Christian roots, it was the monasteries that helped rebuild Europe. St Benedict played a pivotal role in this with his monastic rule."

St Benedict is one of the patron saints of Europe. The sixth-century saint was the founder of western monasticism, which helped spread Christianity and stabilise Europe.

Dom Antony Sutch, the former headmaster of Downside, a school run by Benedictines, said: "I think there's no doubt in the fact that having a relic contributes a great deal. It has real devotional value. To know that somebody really existed, to come into contact with that, makes that person more real and the example they set more tangible."

James Robinson , the curator of the British Museum's new medieval gallery, said they had opened the portable altar from Hildesheim in Germany while they were conserving the piece to display it in the gallery which opened to the public on Wednesday.

Mr Robinson said: "It's difficult to say for certain whether these are the relics of the actual saints. All we could really ascertain was the age of the textiles, which could themselves be relics." The fabric encasing the relic of St Benedict is ninth to 10th-century Byzantine silk, and Mr Robinson said it would have been highly prized by a high-placed ecclesiastic.

A dedicatory inscription to Abbot Theoderic III on the back of the portable altar dates it to somewhere between 1180 and 1200. The altar has a wooden core, with a central cavity for the relics covered by a Purbeck stone slab. from Dorset. The front is typical of the area of modern day Saxony, with gilt and copper panels showing the evangelists and saints, as well as two crafted from walrus ivory and two manuscript illuminations.

He said: "The altar would have been used to celebrate Mass in a space that had not been consecrated yet. I believe it was the Council of Nicea which pronounced on the criteria for celebrating Mass.

A relic of a saint needed to be in the altar and the stone itself is the right size for the footprint of a chalice." Hildesheim is still an active place of pilgrimage dedicated to St Gotthard, who is featured with three other bishop-saints including St Bernard on the altar.

The British Museum acquired the altar in 1902 and will keep it on display in Bloomsbury. There are other relics on display in the new gallery.