St. Ambrose Office of Faith Formation

St. Ambrose Office of Faith Formation St. Ambrose Church, Albion, Rhode Island

The Quiet Corner by Fr. John A. Kiley 7 June 2026 For many decades the former St. Charles Borromeo...
06/06/2026

The Quiet Corner by Fr. John A. Kiley 7 June 2026
For many decades the former St. Charles Borromeo parish in Woonsocket offered a Novena to Our Lady of Fatima every Tuesday evening at 7pm. The service offered exposition and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, the Rosary, and several prayers to our Lady asking for world peace and personal grace. My mother told that during the Second World War there was not an empty seat in that church that easily held 600 worshipers. My parochial memories are a bit later but nonetheless crowds are still part of the recollection. The annual May Procession took place on a Sunday afternoon. Each class from the parish school had a select Divine mystery or patron saint that was celebrated through a special hymn or prayer or activity once the lengthy procession was seated. In the third grade I read an Act of Consecration by St. Aloysius Gonzega, much to my parents’ delight, I’m sure.
The Nine First Fridays devotion was popular both with adults and with school children who were allowed to bring a bagged breakfast to eat in the classroom after fasting for Holy Communion. And of course Saturday afternoons confession at 4pm was quite handy for children walking home from a double feature at the Stadium or the Park theaters. Men and women separately were offered annual parish missions usually conducted by Redemptorist or Passionist priests who did not mince their words about sobriety, chastity and blasphemy. It certainly goes without saying that Sunday morning Masses on the hour were regularly and largely attended. And of course, all this parish life was supported by three priests in the rectory and ten Mercy sisters in the convent. In the light of all this, one might well repeat the question that Bishop McVinney posed to America magazine when asked what he expected from the Second Vatican Council: “Why break up a winning team?” Why indeed!
The Catholic laity had indeed deeply benefited from the priestly work of Jesus Christ through the offices of his Church. The fathers at the Second Vatican Council however discerned that the laity themselves should participate more directly in the priestly work of Jesus Christ. The moment was especially long overdue for worshipers in the pews to exercise this privilege through an active participation in the Church’s liturgical celebrations. Participants were always welcomed as contributors through their prayers and their donations. Now lay persons could assume extended rolls which revealed more personally their baptismal share in the priesthood of Jesus Christ. The renewal of the office of deacon welcomed a broader segment of men into a vital New Testament ministry. Lay men and women at Mass could now pray and sing with their own familiar words, announce the Sacred Scriptures, offer the gifts to be consecrated, affirm their unity through a peaceful gesture, receive both Eucharistic elements and happily take the Sacrament to the ill and disabled. Catholic social ministries, notably on the parish level, were similarly broadened through lay participation.
There are however some grim and happily some promising statistics about this post Vatican II Church that can be easily googled. Since 1965 the number of American priests has fallen by 40% while the number of lay Catholics has grown by 50%. The number of permanent deacons has grown rapidly since their introduction in 1975 and the 2025 figure of 18,425 now means that there is approximately 1 deacon for every 2 priests. The number of religious brothers has declined from 12,096 to 3,290 (73%). The corresponding figures for religious sisters are 178,740 and 33,135 (80%). Estimates give a figure of self-identified Catholics in the USA as 73.7 million with about 20% of these being foreign born. In 2025, 4.3 million persons were adult converts to the Catholic faith - an increase of nearly 50% from previous statistics.
Indeed American Catholics worship and live in a changed church. The vital need for an active and informed laity – both liturgically and apostolically -- should be apparent and should prove a blessing. St. Paul reminded his Corinthian Church centuries ago of the need for all believers to accept an active role in church life: “Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf (1Cor10:17).” The solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ affirms the perennial need for personal intimacy with the Eucharistic Christ. But the communal responsibility to express the faith through active worship and share the faith through apostolic effort is equally compelling. COMPLETE

Congratulations and prayerful best wishes Fr. John A. Kiley on the occasion of your 60th Anniversary of Ordination to th...
06/04/2026

Congratulations and prayerful best wishes Fr. John A. Kiley on the occasion of your 60th Anniversary of Ordination to the Priesthood.

We are most grateful for your dedicated priestly ministry and pastoral zeal in our parishes for these many years. May God continue to bless you abundantly with good health and spiritual joy. We are blessed to have you!

Ad multos gloriosque annos!

The Quiet Corner by Fr. John A. Kiley 31 May 2026 Since the believing world wil...
05/30/2026

The Quiet Corner by Fr. John A. Kiley 31 May 2026

Since the believing world will commemorate the 800th anniversary of the death of St. Francis of Assisi on October 3 this year, Pope Leo XIV has expressed his hope that St. Francis’s message will find “a profound echo in the Church and society of today.” His Holiness has proclaimed 2026AD a Jubilee Year to mark this significant event. Fr. Robert LaCombe, newly appointed to St. James and St. Ambrose parishes in Lincoln, accordingly raised an ample statue of St. Francis embracing the crucified Christ from a hidden corner of the Manville church’s cellar to a place of prominence in the church’s spacious sanctuary. The humble saint’s imaginative presence will daily remind worshippers of both the intensive prayer and the extensive charity of this saint whom Pope Pius XI called “the most Christlike of all the saints” when the friar’s 700th anniversary of birth was celebrated in 1926.

The life of the Assisi poor man, from both a spiritual perspective and a practical viewpoint, is worthy of consideration on this Sunday’s Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. St. Francis indeed loved God as Father, as Son and as Spirit. His rejection of a life of earthly comfort was amply signified by his tossing off of his fine clothes in front of Assisi’s cathedral. His public disrobement was a dramatic sign that he sought fulfillment beyond this world’s satisfactions. His later embrace of the crucified Christ and his accepting into his own body the wounds of Christ are an even more intense reminder that true satisfaction is only heavenly bestowed. As the universal Church honors the Trinity, every believer’s thoughts should indeed turn heavenward, affirming, as Francis did, that true human realization, true human achievement, is found only from the next world in union with the Divine Persons, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The intense love that the Poor Man of Assisi had for the Divine Persons was apparent not only through the saint’s passionate prayer life but equally through the saint’s respect for his earthly environment, in which he certainly saw God’s hand, but even more so in his reverence for his fellow human beings, especially those on the edge of civil society. St. Francis’ embrace of the l***r whose illness he found personally repugnant is a vivid testimony to the personal Trinitarian love that animated the saint’s heart. His dangerous venture into the Islamic world to greet the Sultan in Egypt certainly bears witness to broad Trinitarian love that guided the saint’s public life Francis rebuilt dilapidated churches enabling the worship of Father, Son and Spirit to continue even under humble circumstances. Francis encouraged the young cloistered nun Claire in her earnest search for closeness to God as Father, Son and Spirit.

St. Paul in his Second Letter to the church at Corinth similarly blends practical service like that found in the life of St. Francis with an act of faith in God as a Holy Trinity which was also mirrored in the piety of St. Francis. Paul’s words here and in this Sunday’s liturgy might be the oldest explicit reference to the Trinity in the New Testament. The Apostle wrote, “Brothers and sisters, rejoice. Mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the holy ones greet you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you (2 Cor13:11-13).”

St. Paul’s appeal here for the presence of Christ’s grace, God the Father’s love, and the Holy Spirit’s fellowship bears early and powerful witness to the Divine power that created and sustained the early Church in Corinth, invigorated the Medieval Church of St. Francis’ era, and continues to renew and the universal church today. St. Peter, in a later letter, would also recall the three Divine Persons as the source of great grace: “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the chosen sojourners of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, in the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification by the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling with the blood of Jesus Christ: may grace and peace be yours in abundance (1:1).”

St. Matthew also mentions the Triune God twice in his writings: “After Jesus was baptized, he came up from the water and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove coming upon him. And a voice came from the heavens, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased (28:19).” And then again, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (3:17).” The Holy Trinity, first fully revealed in the ancient Church and treasured in later centuries, is still the source and end of every truly religious life.
COMPLETE

Come, O Holy Spirit, Come Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit,that my thoughts may all be holy.Act in me, O Holy Spirit,that my...
05/24/2026

Come, O Holy Spirit, Come

Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit,
that my thoughts may all be holy.
Act in me, O Holy Spirit,
that my work, too, may be holy.
Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit,
that I love but what is holy.
Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit,
to defend all that is holy.
Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit,
that I always may be holy.
Amen.

- St. Augustine

The Quiet Corner by Fr. John A. Kiley 24 May 2026 The Jewish feast of Pentecost wa...
05/23/2026

The Quiet Corner by Fr. John A. Kiley 24 May 2026

The Jewish feast of Pentecost was originally one of three great agricultural celebrations marking gratitude to Almighty God for successful harvests. These three farming festivals later evolved into religious pilgrimage celebrations beckoning the Jewish people to the Temple in Jerusalem for solemn festivities. The first feast, Pasch or Passover, was originally an early spring celebration giving thanks to God for the barley harvest, a crop most often used as nourishment for the many farm animals. Under later religious guidance, the Pasch or Passover focused intently on the night of the Israelites’ hasty Exodus from slavery in Egypt.

Exactly fifty days after Passover, Shavout or Pentecost originally celebrated the important gathering of the wheat harvest, a staple crop vital for human consumption and community well-being. Guided by later rabbinic direction, Jews celebrated the giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses at Sinai on this day. The revered Mosaic Law was hence annually and fittingly commemorated. The third pilgrimage feast, Sokkot, also known as Tabernacles or Booths, is celebrated usually in September, marking the conclusion of the fruit harvest and the agricultural year. The joyous mood of this feast eventually recalled the forty years spent on Sinai’s desert sands between the Jew’s release from Egypt and their arrival at the Jordan. Sometimes a makeshift hut is built in one’s yard and lived in for seven days recalling the primitive desert life.

Christians may readily see a parallel between the three ancient agricultural Jewish feasts -- Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles -- and the Christian calendar feasts of Easter, Pentecost and the Ascension. The Christian Easter, recalling the death and resurrection of Christ, indeed began the release of all believers from the original sin of Adam and Eve as well as from the effects of personal sins bearing on every life. While the Jews recalled their release from Egyptian slavery at Passover; Christians recall our release from sin’s bo***ge through the new Paschal events of Holy Week and Easter.

The Christian Pentecost next celebrates not the giving of the Old Law on tablets at Sinai but happily the bestowal of the New Commandment of love on all believing hearts signaled by the powerful arrival of the Holy Spirit at Jerusalem. And certainly the Ascension of Christ into the heavens might well bring images, not of the completion of an earthly harvest, but rather the completion of the whole Christian life into the next world when all will rise to a final, heavenly harvest with and through the Risen Christ.

The Jewish Pentecost festival recalled Moses’ initial reception of the Law from God at Sinai. The Christian Pentecost now happily and deliberately stresses the continuity between the giving of the old Mosaic Law on the mountain with the arrival of the Holy Spirit’s New Commandment of loving service that burst upon the Apostolic church in the upper room and later was spread throughout the whole believing world. The traditional Jewish faith which was grounded in the Torah; this Mosaic Law was a preparation for the New Law of fraternal charity grounded in Christ and his Spirit.

It was no accident that the ancient Shavuot or Pentecost, as one of these three Jewish pilgrimage festivals laid out in the Torah for observant Jews, drew a huge gathering of Jewish believers into Jerusalem on that festival day. Yes, thousands of Jews were in Jerusalem to celebrate Shavuot. They heard Peter and the disciples speaking in their own many languages, touching all hearts, and then, by a miracle of grace, three thousand souls were formed into the first Christian community that very day! A truly universal festival day! Now as a Christian feast, Pentecost rightly recalls that same birth of the universal Church community and rightly renews the believing Church’s commitment to extend the fullness of faith to men and women everywhere.

The happy effect of the new Pentecost and the arrival of the Spirit was a marvelous demonstration of the universality of salvation. The many diverse tongues of the Jewish pilgrims were no obstacle to the unity that the Presence of the Holy Spirit intensely announced and actually commenced on this festive day. St. Paul would later observe: “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit (1Cor12:13).” The new Christian community -- today the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church -- signifies the fulfillment of all that the ancient Jewish writings and celebrations had so long anticipated. COMPLETE

The Quiet Corner by Fr. John A. Kiley 17 May 2026 Marie Antoinette, once Queen o...
05/21/2026

The Quiet Corner by Fr. John A. Kiley 17 May 2026
Marie Antoinette, once Queen of France, was executed by guillotine on October 16, 1793, at today’s Place de Concorde in Paris at age 37, convicted of high treason by her former subjects who, when they examined the royal purse, discovered a prayer to the Immaculate Conception. A generation later, St. Catherine LaBoure, a Daughter of Charity, was a 24-year-old novice when she experienced three apparitions of Mary at the Rue du Bac convent, again in downtown Paris. The most significant occurred on November 27, 1830 when Mary appeared on a globe with rays of light streaming from her hands and tasked Catherine with having a medal struck with the inscription: "O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee".
A quarter of a century later, in 1854, Blessed Pope Pius IX in the papal bull Ineffabilis Deus solemnly decreed the Virgin Mary to be free of original sin from the moment of her conception, confirming the traditional belief of the Church that Mary was always free from personal sin. Less than four years later, in 1858, St. Bernadette Soubirous, a miller's daughter from Lourdes in the Pyrénées mountains of France, experienced over a dozen apparitions of a "young lady" who asked for a chapel to be built at a nearby grotto. During a vision on March 25, which went on for over an hour, Bernadette asked the lady’s name but the lady just smiled back, until Bernadette insisted and finally heard the lady say, in the local dialect, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” St. Bernadette, later a religious sister, never varied in her recollections.
The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the womb of her mother St. Ann can only be explained as the direct intervention of God in history. From Eden’s sad moments through Biblical antiquity to the present day, no human person has been spared the blight of original sin from the moment of conception save the Blessed Virgin Mary. God interrupted history to bestow this unique grace upon Mary displaying effectively his personal Fatherly concern for her and for mankind.
Another direct intervention of God in history is found, as Vatican II teaches, among the Jewish patriarchs, prophets and people. Catholic believers cannot forget that the Church received the revelation of the Old Testament through the Jewish people with whom God uniquely, in His inexpressible mercy, concluded the Ancient Covenant. The Church keeps ever in mind the words of the Apostle about God’s unique intervention toward his kinsmen: "Theirs is the sonship and the glory and the covenants and the law and the worship and the promises; theirs are the fathers and from them is the Christ according to the flesh" (Rom. 9:4-5). And God continues to hold today’s Jews most dear for the sake of their Fathers; He does not repent of the gifts He makes.” Again, God exceptionally entered and guided history.
And of course never to be forgotten – God forbid – is the intervention of God in history whereby the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity took on human flesh, lived in an earthly community, died a miserable death and returned uniquely from the grave. Jesus is indeed God’s supreme intervention in human history. “And the Word became flesh*and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth (Jn1:14).”
Prayer, both communal and personal, is the practical response of God’s believing people that God as Father continues to intervene in human history. The random miracles that confirm the sanctity of the calendar’s many saints as well as the happy results or strengthened resolves that accrue from personal prayers are all testimonies to the ever active Fatherhood of God. As authentic Christian believers, Catholics must continue to embrace the personal love of God for his people, a God who invites prayer and a God who responds to prayer, a God who guides history and a God who interrupts history.
Jesus himself, as well as his Father, insists that he too is solicitous for the benefit of mankind throughout history, as this Sunday’s Gospel acclamation warmly teaches, “I will not leave you orphans, says the Lord. I will come back to you, and your hearts will rejoice (Jn14:18).” So God, as Father, Son and Spirit, is intimately interested in human history. He will continue to intervene, sometimes gloriously, sometimes quietly, in mankind’s destiny. COMPLETE See less

Ascension of the LordVigil MassWednesday, May 13, 20266:00pm Mass at St. Ambrose Ascension ThursdayMay 14, 20267:30am Ma...
05/13/2026

Ascension of the Lord

Vigil Mass
Wednesday, May 13, 2026
6:00pm Mass at St. Ambrose

Ascension Thursday
May 14, 2026
7:30am Mass at St. Ambrose
8:30am Mass at St. James
5:00pm Mass at St. Ambrose
6:30pm Mass at St. James

Happy and blessed Mother’s Day 💐Loving God,As a mother gives life and nourishment to her children,so you watch over your...
05/10/2026

Happy and blessed Mother’s Day 💐

Loving God,
As a mother gives life and nourishment to her children,
so you watch over your Church.
Bless our mother.
Let the example of her faith and love shine forth.
Great that we, her family,
may honor her always
with a spirit of profound respect.
Grant this through Christ our Lord.

-from the Catholic Household Blessings and Prayers, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

The Quiet Corner by Fr. John A. Kiley 10 May 2026 The monks of La Trappe Abbey in ...
05/09/2026

The Quiet Corner by Fr. John A. Kiley 10 May 2026
The monks of La Trappe Abbey in Normandy, France may leave their monastery in 2028, the abbey announced — a move that could bring to an end 900 years of Cistercian monastic presence at "La Grande Trappe." The Trappist community admitted that "following a long discernment" and "given the scarcity of vocations and the heavier burden of land heritage," the brothers "are considering a departure in 2028." Irish Cistercian monks also projected the closure of Co. Waterford’s Mount Melleray Abbey after almost 200 years. On the other hand, cloistered Carmelite monks near Cheyenne, Wyoming are constructing a massive Neo-Gothic stone monastery using modern Computer-Aided Design and Computer-Aided Manufacturing technology, which will include hermitages for individual prayer.
The Catholic Church, indeed Western Civilization, owes a tremendous debt of gratitude to the various monastic orders of men and women who preserved, deepened, and propagated the Christian faith as well as much secular learning throughout the centuries. Their schools and libraries, their farms and vineyards, along with their liturgies and prayers, certainly rival Greece and Rome for their contribution to the finer aspects of today’s civilization.
While their liturgy, their scholarship and their agriculture have indeed been commendable, at the root of monastic success was their dedication to the contemplative life, a life of daily appreciation of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the believing soul. The word “contemplation” at its root means to occupy the same space as something else. The contemplative soul daily senses the Divine Presence within that person’s very being. The contemplative develops an insight, an instinct, an intuition that God is always and everywhere present to the believer. While meditation largely involves the mind, contemplation absorbs the whole being, going to the heart of the matter, deeply enjoying the Divine Presence made available through God’s sanctifying grace.
This coming Sunday’s Gospel from Jesus’ Last Supper discourse in St. John’s Gospel account speaks repeatedly of the core gift of contemplation offered to every believing soul. Jesus speaks of an “advocate,” a “spirit of truth,” who will “be with you always” – yes, an indwelling Divine Presence waiting to be sensed by the sincere believer. Again Jesus insists that the believer will “know him, because he remains with you, and will be in you.” Again an interior Divine Presence is promised to the devout. And Jesus himself, along with the Spirit, will be present within the believer: “...I will come to you...you will see me, because I live and you will live.” Jesus further insists on his nearness, “...you are in me and I in you.” And most happily Jesus asserts that appreciating the Divine Presence will not fall entirely on the believing soul. Jesus himself will gladly guide the believer’s deepening spiritual life, “I will love him and reveal myself to him.”
These words from Jesus’ last meal with his disciples are literally the Gospel Truth and are meant to be taken seriously and effectively. Each believer in the state of grace has this Divine pulsation within his or her being. God is Divinely present and Divinely active within every redeemed soul. Quite handily, prayer, both privately uttered and publically voiced, is the first as well as the enduring response toward a greater and deeper appreciation of the Divine life within. Masses well attended, the Bible well studied, rosaries well repeated, the Divine Office well considered, private devotions well pondered, the Divine Presence well appreciated: a Catholic prayer life in all its forms is certainly the groundwork for the same contemplative life that prospered the great monasteries of Europe and that today supports contemplative orders nearer to home, like the monks at Spencer and the nuns at Wrentham.
Pope Leo XIV recently recommended as his favorite spiritual book, The Practice of the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, a 17th century Carmelite who wrote of his own humble development of an awareness of the presence of God within his own soul and within the world around him. Brother Lawrence appreciated contemplation quite simply as a conversation with God. “We would be quite surprised if we knew what the soul sometimes says to God,” Brother Lawrence wrote interestingly. So all can take courage. God is indeed present to the believer; now the believer must acknowledge that presence in thought, prayer and service. COMPLETE

Today we celebrated First Communion at St. Ambrose. Six children from the parishes of St. Ambrose and St. James receive...
05/04/2026

Today we celebrated First Communion at
St. Ambrose. Six children from the parishes of St. Ambrose and St. James received our Lord Jesus Christ in the Eucharist for the very first time. We also celebrated the Crowning of our Lady.

Blessings on our First Communion children and their families. And a special thank you and blessings on all who participated in the Mass.

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