Pastor's Column for November 10, 2024
Dear Parishioners,
Last Saturday, November 2nd, I celebrated the funeral Mass for Roman Semproch, and so we extend our sympathies to his wife Geraldine of 67 years and to their 3 children, Debbie, Karen, & Raymond. Roman actually didn’t care for his given name and so went by Ray. What was very interesting to learn was that Ray and Geraldine’s 3 children all shared the same birthday, but were all born in different years! I had to figure that out so I discovered that the probability is 1 in 48,627,125! But the other coincidence for Ray was that his funeral Mass was celebrated on November 2nd, the feast of All Souls, or the feast of All the Faithful Departed, a day when we remember and pray in a special way for our loved ones who have died as God prepares and purifies them for life in the Kingdom of Heaven. Ray and Geraldine were also blessed with 7 grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren (and these were all girls…with a 5th girl on the way!). Ray had 8 siblings and was the last of them to pass away at the honorable age of 93, so he had many blessings in his life. Ray was a professional baseball player (a pitcher) for the Phillies and was a member of the military police in the Marines. He attended Mass regularly until COVID, prayed the rosary, and enjoyed his family greatly. May he be reunited now with his siblings and share with them in the joys of heaven.
This weekend, we are celebrating (non-liturgically) the feast of our patron, St. Leo the Great, which is celebrated every year on November 10th, which is the date of his death in the year 461. He was born in the year 400. Sunday always takes precedence over the feast of a saint, so while the readings and prayers of our Mass will not be the ones we would normally hear on St. Leo’s feast day, we can still remember him during our weekend Masses. In the great basilica of St. Peter’s in Rome (inside Vatican City), there is an altar to his memory. He was pope from 440-461 and was the first pope to be buried in this basilica (there are many popes buried there, including Pope Benedict and Pope St. John Paul II). You can see a picture of this altar in this bulletin. Above and behind the altar is a great carved high-relief marble portrait by Alessandro Algardi in the 17th century, which shows the meeting of Pope Leo the Great with Attila, King of the Huns. Pope Leo succeeded in halting Attila from sacking Rome in 452 (I have a picture of this in my office, which was painted by another artist with the original also being at the Vatican). Attila told his troops that when the Pope spoke, he saw the threatening figures of Peter & Paul with drawn swords before him, and this can be seen on the top of this marble relief. We have many sermons and writings of Pope Leo I, and they are read by priests and others who pray the breviary or “Divine Office,” a set of prayers prayed daily. Pope Leo is called “Magnum” or Great because of his great influence in the life of the Church due to his courage and his writings, and was the first pope to be called “the Great”. He is also a Doctor of the Church as he was the source of great wisdom to the Church.
As you know, we have a wonderful statue of St. Leo the Great in a shrine in the back of the church where the old confessionals used to be. There is also a relic of St. Leo there (a small piece of his bone), and I have a relic of him as well. So let us thank God for his example and his wisdom, which continues to guide us today, and ask for him to intercede on our behalf as we live the Catholic Faith today with courage and wisdom.
I will be away for the next couple of weeks on vacation, so there will be no weekday Mass during that time. I hope to return refreshed and ready to celebrate Thanksgiving!
Fr. James Schmitz
