Novena to Saint Joseph

The Catholic Church keeps the 19 March as the Solemnity of St. Joseph, the Husband of Mary and Foster Father of Jesus Christ each year. The scriptures refers to St Joseph being upright and honourable. Certainly his sensitivity towards Mary and his care for both Mary and Jesus shows him as a person of action and care.

The Carmelite Order has had a particular devotion to St. Joseph for many centuries, venerating him with the title "Principal Protector of the Carmelite Order". Since Joseph cared for Mary and Christ in a particular way, we believe that he also cares for the Carmelite Order which is devoted to Mary and Christ. St Teresa of Avila had great devotion to St Joseph and saw him as a protector of her new foundations. 

Our novena to Saint Joseph is below and can be prayed over the next nine days from 11 March 2016. You can pray the novena in private, with your friends or family, or in a group:

God our Father,
creator and ruler of the universe,
in every age you call humanity
to develop and use our gifts
for the good of others.

With Saint Joseph as our example and guide,
help us to do the work you have asked
and come to the life you have promised.

We ask this through
our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

Our Fathers' Mass takes place at the Shrine on Friday 18 March 2016 at 11.30am. All welcome. See our special page for more information.

Thoughts from the Chaplain - the Prodigal Son

Last Saturday, the second week of Lent we heard as our Gospel reading the parable from Luke which is popularly known as the Prodigal Son. This parable is in my opinion one of the Lenten readings par excellence.  It is about some major topics which are part of our Lenten journey: prayer, repentance, forgiveness and charity (or lack of it) as reflected in the characters of the parable; a father and his two sons.

Firstly there is the younger son, obviously at an age where the spirit of rebellion against parental constraints is coming to the surface; he asks for and is given his share of the inheritance and goes off to enjoy life.  This he does until two things coincide; firstly there is a famine in the land where he has been living and secondly his money runs out; what is they say about a fool and his money being easily separated.  Meanwhile the father and the elder son are living life as always with the son working away, doing as he is told and taken an active part in the business which will one day be his.  Unfortunately things are not going so well for his brother; he is hungry, has no money and no social network to turn to.  In despair he accepts work looking after a herd of pigs. Imagine it:  a good Jewish boy looking after pigs one of the animals forbidden by Jewish dietary laws - they are unclean; and he has to tend to them. After reflecting on this he realises that he has made a big mistake and he repents of his actions:  “I have sinned against my father and against heaven”.  The young man makes a decision to return to his father and to beg for his forgiveness even if he has to work as a hired labourer.

Meanwhile the elder son is working in the fields and the father is pining for the return of his youngest boy.  The parable tells how he is looking constantly for the first sign of his son returning home.  At last he sees a little cloud of dust in the distance and then there he is; his son. He hurries to meet him and orders that he is to be given what he needs:  he embraces the boy a sign forgiveness and of his returning to the family, to the community; he is given sandals for his feet the symbol of his not being a slave; he is given a robe as befits a man of rank and a ring is placed upon his finger, the emblem of his being a son who is an equal of his father and his brother.  And lastly the father celebrates, he throws a party for everyone using the calf they have been saving. 

As they start their celebration the elder son comes in from the fields and demands to know what is going on and when a servant tells him of the return of his younger brother, and how forgiving the father has been, he storms off and refuses to take part in the festivities.  Missing his elder son the father comes out and tries to persuade him.  Angry the son accuses his father of favouring the younger boy and ignoring all the work that he has been doing while his brother is off squandering his inheritance; you have never given me a lamb or anything to celebrate with my friends.  He then explains to him that this older son is as dear to him as the younger and that everything that is the father’s is his. He doesn’t rebuke the man but is kind to him and as forgiving as he was to his younger son.

And so we have this wonderful Lenten parable our Lenten journey:

Prayer as the young son reflects on his actions and includes heaven as he says he has offended both father and heaven.

Repentance as he makes his way back to the father to ask his forgiveness whatever the consequences.

Forgiveness as the father embraces him and welcomes him back into the bosom of the family and re-instating him in his earlier position.

Charity as the father talks to his older son and explains the important place he has in the father’s heart.

And what happens to the older son? I like to think that he did follow his father back into the house and that slowly he realised the bonds of love which joined both him and his father together but also the bonds to his younger brother.

I am celebrating a very special Fathers' Mass next month. Take a look at the details and maybe add your father? 

Fr Michael Manning, O.Carm

Chaplain, National Shrine of Saint Jude

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus!

Happy Feast Day of Saint David to all our Welsh friends.

Photo of the Month - Mount Carmel

Thank you to Guild members, Hugh and Margaret Parry who sent us this beautiful photo of Mount Carmel.

The National Shrine of Saint Jude is served by the Order of Carmelites.

The Carmelite Family is one of the ancient religious communities of the Roman Catholic Church. Known officially as the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, the Carmelite Order developed from a group of hermits in thirteenth-century Palestine; priests and lay people living a contemplative community life of prayer and service modelled on the prophet Elijah and the Virgin Mary.

Read more about the Carmelites on the British Province website.

Details on the Guild of Saint Jude can be found here. 

Fathers' Mass

For the first time, a shared Mass will be celebrated at the National Shrine of Saint Jude in honour of Saint Joseph and all fathers and grandfathers.

Simply add the name(s) of a father, or grandfather and a donation. Those listed can be your father, someone else’s father, a grandfather, someone who is soon to be a father, someone who is hoping for a child, or a paternal figure in your life. 

You can add a name(s) via our special page, here. Or, you can send your names and donation to: Fathers' Mass, Carmelite Friars, P.O. Box 140, Kent, ME20 7SJ

Saint Joseph, pray for us!

Thoughts from the Chaplain - Lent

I last wrote about what is called Ordinary Time and now that we have just started Lent, so I thought it appropriate that I write something about Lent.

In the Oxford Dictionary the definition of Lent is: the period preceding Easter, which is devoted to fasting, abstinence, and penitence and runs from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday. 

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church it denotes the liturgical season of forty days which begins with Ash Wednesday and ends with the celebration of the Paschal Mystery (Easter Triduum). Lent is the primary penitential season in the Church's liturgical year, reflecting the forty days Jesus spent in the desert in fasting and prayer.

So what do we do during Lent?  The first thing is Prayer.  Of course all of us pray as part of our Christian lives but the idea of prayer in Lent is to take a serious look at our prayer life. Like an engine our prayer life needs to be serviced every so often; it needs tinkering with to improve its ‘performance’.  Maybe we need to look at a different form of prayer to the one we have been using for the last few years and see if something new may give vigour our prayer. Or maybe we need to try some periods of just silently being with God.  I am not saying that the way that we all pray needs to be thrown out and replaced but just that sometimes an added dimension or facet to our prayer life may open us to a something fresh.  Saint Augustine says: Do you wish your prayer to fly toward God? Give it two wings: fasting and almsgiving; this brings us to the second aspect of Lenten practise:  Fasting.

Fasting is the practice refraining from eating between meals and to limit our eating to one full meal and two lighter meals.  This applies to then entire Lenten Season although Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are days of fasting and also abstinence. Abstinence means that we do not eat meat on those days.  Of course these practices do not mean that we give up the tradition of not eating meat on a Friday.  It is not only the Christian Churches that use fasting. Most of the major religions see the benefits of a fast period as a cleansing and a preparation for a religious feast. A number of doctors also recognise the health benefits of fasting and there is now the five day fasting diet.  These advantages of fasting can of course be applied to Christian and especially Lenten fasting but the main purpose of fasting is as a preparation for the celebration of the Easter Triduum and reflects the forty days in the wilderness of Jesus as he prepared for his public ministry. 

The third dimension of our Lenten preparation is also mentioned by Saint Augustine and that is Almsgiving. If we go back to the earliest days of the Church, we see almsgiving at the heart of Christian community. In the Acts of the Apostles, we read, “There was no needy person among them, for those who owned property or houses would sell them, bring the proceeds of the sale, and put them at the feet of the apostles, and they were distributed to each according to need” (4:34-35). Almsgiving was woven into everyday life, a given, a Christian attitude that has since lost some of its edge. Almsgiving is not only for the rich or people who have some extra spending money, but also for those who are poor or are struggling; remember the widow putting her last small coin into the temple collection. All of us are called upon to go outside of our own personal needs and help others during this time, especially during this time, because we are always called to do this as Christians. Those who are unequal in their capacity to give can be equal in their love with their hearts. So if we cannot give of our treasure, then we can give of our time or talent. 

Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving the three pillars of Lent. Pope Francis says of almsgiving:  "In almsgiving one gives something to someone from whom one does not expect to receive anything in return. Gratuitousness should be one of the characteristics of the Christian, who aware of having received everything from God gratuitously, that is, without any merit of his own, learns to give to others freely” (Homily in Basilica of Santa Sabina, Wednesday, 5 March 2014).

Fr Michael Manning, O.Carm, Chaplain at the National Shrine of Saint Jude

Spring 2016 newsletter - now available

Dear Friends of Saint Jude,

We are pleased to announce that the latest issue of Carmelite News is now available to all our on-line subscribers – a whole week before it arrives in the post for the rest of our supporters.

Carmelite News is available to view via a system called Page Tiger. You do not need special software for the on-line magazine and you will be able to print all, or part of it if you wish to do so. Page Tiger will allow you to turn the pages and read the newsletter as if was printed. 

Click on image below to read..