Blogposts

Saints of August

08-19-2020From the desk of Fr. Villa

The greatest of the saints is the Blessed Virgin.  The original feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is celebrated on August 22 and is kept in the traditional liturgy.  In the ordinary form of the Mass clergy can offer a votive Mass to the Immaculate Heart of Mary since the month of August is dedicated to her Immaculate Heart. 

The Church prays in the liturgy REMEMBER, O Virgin Mother of God, when thou shalt stand in the sight of the Lord, speak good things for us and that He turn away His indignation from us.

St. John Eudes feast day is August 19. He taught about the mystical unity of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary and wrote: You must never separate what God has so perfectly united. So closely are Jesus and Mary bound up with each other that whoever beholds Jesus sees Mary; whoever loves Jesus, loves Mary; whoever has devotion to Jesus, has devotion to Mary. The most striking characteristic of Eudes' teaching on Devotion to the Sacred Heart — as indeed of his whole teaching on the spiritual life — is that Christ is its centre at all times. Pope Benedict XVI in 2009, in the Year of the Priest, wrote:

The path of holiness, which he (St. John Eudes) took to himself and proposed to his followers, was founded on steadfast trust in the love that God had revealed to humanity in the priestly Heart of Christ and in the maternal Heart of Mary. In those times of cruelty, of the loss of interiority, he turned to the heart to speak to the heart, a saying of the Psalms very well interpreted by St Augustine. He wanted to recall people, men and women and especially future priests, to the heart by showing them the priestly Heart of Christ and the motherly Heart of Mary. Every priest must be a witness and an apostle of this love for Christ's Heart and Mary's Heart. And here we come to our own time.

St. Joachim, father of the Virgin Mary:   The original feast of St. Joachim is on August 16.  In the reform of 1969, St. Anne’s feast and St. Joachim’s feast were combined  and celebrated on July 26.  However the traditional Catholic liturgy keeps the original dates.  The Church prays that we feel St. Joachim’s perpetual patronage.

St. Roch’s feast day is also August 16 and he is also a very popular saint and is usually depicted with sores and dogs. He is a patron saint of dogs, invalids, of falsely accused people, bachelors

BACK TO LIST