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The Great Feasts of October

10-12-2020From the desk of Fr. Villa

The theme for October is honoring our Lady and her Rosary; hence in October we have the great feast day of Our Lady of the Rosary originally Our Lady of Victory established to celebrate our Lady’s intervention in the victory at Lepanto over the Ottoman Empire, seeking to overrun Europe and supplant Christianity.  Prior to that there are the feast days of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus and St. Francis of Assisi two very beloved saints.  Not as well-known and popular is St. Bruno the founder of the Carthusian monks on October 6.  He has the famous saying: The Cross stands while the world changes. 

October 11 is the original feast day of the Motherhood of our Lady, as Mother of God, theotokos, to celebrate the famous defense of her maternity at the Council of Ephesus in 431. This date is maintained in the traditional liturgy while in the ordinary liturgy Pope Paul VI transferred it to Jan 1. October 15 is the feast day of the great St. Teresa of Avila a doctor of the Church.  She was a crucial person in the reform of the Carmelite order and an influential spiritual guide to countless Christians through her prayers in heaven and her writings. 

The famous philosopher Edith Stein came to the Catholic Faith after reading her writings and became a Carmelite nun like St. Teresa and was killed by the Nazis.  She too was canonized and is known as St. Teresa Benedicta. St. Luke the Evangelist is celebrated in October on the 18 and the Apostles Saints Simon and Jude on the 28. In the traditional liturgy on October 24 is celebrated St. Raphael the Archangel and on the last Sunday of October in the traditional liturgy is celebrated the original date for the solemnity of Christ the King, which in the ordinary liturgy, was transferred by Pope Paul VI, to the last Sunday of the Church-year.

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