SSCMS Priestly Vocations, Orchard Lake, MI (2026)

09/08/2026

Let us celebrate with joy the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, for from her arose the sun of justice, Christ our God!

The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, September 8
This is one of the most ancient Marian feasts. It is thought that this feast originated in connection with the Feast of the dedication of a church dedicated to Mary, now the Church of St Ann, in Jerusalem in the 6th century. Tradition holds that this is where the house of Mary’s parents, Joachim and Ann, stood and where she would have been born. The Feast began to be celebrated in Rome in the 8th century with Pope Sergius I ( + 8 September 701). It is the third such feast of a “nativity” on the Roman Calendar: the Nativity of Jesus, the Son of God (Christmas); the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist (24 June); and the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (8 September). Nothing can be found in the Gospels to confirm this feast. They do not even give the names of her parents, which are based on a tradition that stems from the 2nd century Protoevangelium (apocryphal) Gospel of James. The primary event in Mary’s life always remains the Annunciation. The Church looks on her as the Mother of God, but even more so as the disciple who can best offer us an example and model of the Christian life. In her faith, in her obedience to her Son, in the way she made herself a neighbor toward her cousin Elizabeth and to the couple in Cana on their wedding day, Mary is the woman to imitate especially in the trust shown during the darkest moments in the life of Jesus, her Son. Here, and in many other moments, she explains why the people of God know they can find their refuge and comfort, help and protection in her. In Milan, evidence of the celebration of this feast dates back to the 10th century. A cathedral to the “newborn Mary” was consecrated on 20 October 1572 by Saint Charles Borromeo. It was there, on Santa Sofia Street, that a shrine was built that housed a statue of Baby Mary, entrusted to the Sisters of Charity of Saints Bartolomea and Vincenza. Expressing her own personal devotion, a Franciscan nun from Todi, Sister Chiara Isabella Fornari, made several wax statues of the newborn Mary wrapped in swaddling clothes from 1720 to 1730. One of these images was donated in 1739 to the Capuchin Sisters of Blessed Mary of the Angels in Milan. These sisters spread her devotion, which in the Ambrogian tradition found particularly fertile terrain. This institute, along with many other institutions of women religious, was suppressed from 1782 to 1842 due to a decree first promulgated by Emperor Joseph II and then by Napoleon. The statue of Mary was taken by some of the Capuchin sisters to an Augustinian convent, then to the Lateran Canonesses. It was later entrusted to the parish priest, Father Luigi Bosisio, so he could give it to a religious institute that would keep the devotion alive. Finally, the statue ended up in the General House of the Sisters of Charity of Lovere, a religious congregation founded in 1832 by Bartolomea Capitanio. The statue of Baby Mary become so popular there that, even till this day, the sisters of this congregation are popularly known as the Sisters of “Baby Mary”. One story written in a chronicle in 1884 goes like this: “it was 7:00 am on 9 September 1884…. The mother went to the infirmary to visit the sick and, took the holy image from bed to bed to each of the sick sisters so they could kiss it. She reached the postulant, Giulia Macario, who had been gravely ill for a few days. She made an effort to draw near to the Heavenly Baby, and with tender words, asked to be healed. She immediately felt a mysterious tremor throughout her body. ‘I am healed!’ she exclaimed. She got up and began to walk”. Since then, every year on 9 September, the feast of “the day of the miracle” is celebrated. This popular devotion continued to spread due to numerous graces obtained. (Source: Vatican News)

09/04/2026

Matthew 18:15-20 Community Life, Admonition, forgiveness, prayer

A short biblical reflection on Matthew 18:15–20 "Community Life: Ad...

09/03/2026

St. Gregory the Great, pray for us!

St. Gregory the Great, September 3
From prefect to monk
Gregory was born around 540 A.D. into worldly prestige – his family belonged to the Roman nobility and his father was prefect, or mayor, of the city. He was also heir to a Christianity profoundly lived, for his mother and aunt are saints. The city into which he was born, however, was suffering. In 542, the plague wiped out a third of the Italian population. Barbarian invasions followed. The tumult notwithstanding, Gregory received an excellent education. So talented an administrator was he that by thirty, he had become prefect, governing the vast city.
Yet the highest civil office in Rome proved not enough for this son and nephew of saints. “Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor,” the Lord had said, and Gregory heard that voice penetrating his own heart. The prefect of Rome turned his family’s villa on the Caelian hill into a monastery, left the office of prefect and became a monk renowned for his love of poverty. As he put it, he kept watch in the “silence of the heart.”
A pope for a dire time
Gregory had too many talents for others to forget, however. In 579, Pope Pelagius II asked him to become the papal ambassador to the Emperor in Constantinople. Reluctantly, Gregory agreed. When he returned home six years later, he found Rome in a dire state. In 589, a flood destroyed the city’s granaries. Refugees were pouring in from invasions to the north. People were starving, and with hunger came plague, which struck even the Pope. Pelagius died, and the desperate people elected their former prefect Pope by popular acclaim.
Gregory again showed his talent for administration, coupled with a heart for the suffering and deep faith. The plague had to be dealt with first: the new Pope organized pilgrimages through the city to implore the help of the Mother of God. It is said that as he accompanied the people on foot near Hadrian’s mausoleum (now Castel Sant’Angelo), he looked up and saw a vision of St. Michael the Archangel sheathing his sword. God had seen his people’s affliction; the plague would end.
Then Gregory had to deal with famine. He was convinced that everything the Church possessed belonged to the poor: “I hold the office of steward to the property of the poor.” He organized priests who would go through the city to care for the poor, and ensured that all the produce from the Church’s agricultural lands was distributed for free. Gregory had grown up wealthy and knew that some noble families were going hungry, but were too ashamed to beg. To these he sent food from his own table, not as “alms” but as a “gift” from the pope.
A missionary heart
The Pope who had a heart for the suffering had a heart wide open to those who did not yet know God. Before he was Pope, Gregory had once passed through the marketplace and seen some fair-skinned, fair-haired young slaves. Struck by their appearance, he asked where they were from. “They are Angles,” he was told, from Britain. “Not Angles but angels!” he exclaimed, who should sing the praises of God. He did not forget them. Convinced that their people had its place in the multitude that stands before God’s throne, Gregory sent forty monks from his own monastery, led by a monk named Augustine (St Augustine of Canterbury, also known as St Austin) to bring the light of the Gospel to that far-away land.
Servant of the servants of God
Gregory’s heart for the suffering did not disappear with the end of the famine. The Pope was known to invite the poor regularly to his own table, sharing his meals with them. The Church’s lands at the time generated considerable revenue, and Gregory kept meticulous track of it – so that he could give it all away.
For the spiritually poor, he preached, going from church to church in the city (the “station churches” still observed during Lent). He revised the Order of Mass and encouraged sacred music. Tirelessly, he admonished priests and bishops to give their very selves to their people. The bishop, like the priest, was in his eyes a servant, and he was a servant humbler still. The “servant of the servants of God,” he called himself – a title and a measure that remained for every Pope after him.
When he died in the year 604, the people made known what they thought of their “servant”: this Pope was not Gregory, but “Gregory the Great,” proclaimed a saint by popular acclaim. (Source: Vatican News)

08/29/2026

Jesus told his disciples, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me

A short biblical reflection on Matthew 16:20–27 "Prediction of Jesu...

08/29/2026

“He must increase; I must decrease” (John 3:30)

Martyrdom of Saint John the Baptist, August 29
The drunken oath of a king with a shallow sense of honor, a seductive dance and the hateful heart of a queen combined to bring about the martyrdom of John the Baptist. The greatest of prophets suffered the fate of so many Old Testament prophets before him: rejection and martyrdom. The “voice crying in the desert” did not hesitate to accuse the guilty, did not hesitate to speak the truth. But why? What possesses a man that he would give up his very life?

This great religious reformer was sent by God to prepare the people for the Messiah. His vocation was one of selfless giving. The only power that he claimed was the Spirit of Yahweh. “I am baptizing you with water, for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is mightier than I. I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matthew 3:11).
Scripture tells us that many people followed Saint John the Baptist looking to him for hope, perhaps in anticipation of some great messianic power. John never allowed himself the false honor of receiving these people for his own glory. He knew his calling was one of preparation. When the time came, he led his disciples to Jesus: “The next day John was there again with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God.’ The two disciples heard what he said and followed Jesus” (John 1:35-37).
It is John the Baptist who has pointed the way to Christ. John’s life and death were a giving over of self for God and other people. His simple style of life was one of complete detachment from earthly possessions. His heart was centered on God and the call that he heard from the Spirit of God speaking to his heart. Confident of God’s grace, he had the courage to speak words of condemnation, repentance, and salvation. (Source: Franciscan Media)

08/28/2026

“Faith is to believe what you do not see;
the reward of this faith is to see what you believe”

Saint Augustine of Hippo, August 28
Augustine’s mother, St. Monica, reared him in the Catholic faith, but he did not follow her example. A lively, witty and exuberant teenager, Augustine undertook the study of rhetoric, giving brilliant performance and showing enormous promise. He loved life and its pleasures, displayed a profound gift for friendship, experienced passionate love, adored the theater, sought fun and entertainment. In Carthage, where he went to study, he fell in love with a girl. Since she was of a lower social class, he took her as his concubine, but did not marry. They had a son, Adeodatus (whose name means “God-given”). Augustine, a father at 19, remained faithful to his common-law wife and took responsibility for the “family” ménage. On reading Cicero's Hortensius, Augustine’s whole way of seeing the world experienced a change. Happiness, Cicero taught him, consists of things that do not perish: wisdom, truth, virtue. Augustine decided to dedicate his whole life to their pursuit.
The Search for Truth
Having been reared in a Christian house, Augustine turned first to the Bible. He was not prepared to receive the wisdom of Sacred Scripture, however, and found holy writ gross and illogical. He then joined the sect of the Manichees (a group dedicated to a basically dualistic form of eclectic esoterism). Returning to Thagaste, he opened a school of “grammar” and rhetoric with the help of a benefactor, but the life he led did not please him, so he returned to Carthage with hope for a better future there. He continued to be dissatisfied. His thirst for truth was not slaked by the Manichaean doctrine. The young and promising rhetor went in search of new shores, and in 382, he moved to Rome with his companion and son, without informing his mother, who who had reached Carthage in the meantime. In the Imperial city, however, Augustine maintained his contacts with the Manichaeans, from whom he received financial support and encouragement. Later, he would come to understand that Providence also operates in one’s wrong choices. His career began to advance full-sail, and in 384 he earned the chair of rhetoric in Milan. Nevertheless, his inner turmoil continued to torment him.
Conversion: Tolle! Lege!
Augustine’s ambition is satiated at Milan, but his heart continued restless. To refine his ars oratoria, he listened to the sermons of Bishop Ambrose. He wanted to overwhelm Ambrose’s dialectics, and instead the words of the Bishop touched him to the quick. Meanwhile, his mother Monica came to join him in Milan, and she accompanied him with her prayers. Augustine grew ever closer to the Catholic Church, and entered the catechumenate. Desiring a Christian wife, he sent his concubine to Africa. Still troubled, Augustine devoured philosophical texts and plunged into Sacred Scripture. Tempted by the experience of Greek thinkers, and attracted to the lifestyle of Christian ascetics, he cannot make up his mind. One day in August, 386, disoriented and confused, weeping in a garden, he seemed to hear a voice: Tolle! Lege! (which means, “Pick it up and read”). He considered the voice an invitation to turn to Paul’s letters, a copy of which was on a nearby table, and opened them at random. “"Let's trade honestly, as in the daytime, not in the midst of or**es and drunkenness, not among lusts and impurities, not in litigation and jealousy. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ instead of letting go of the fleshly desires. (Rm 13, 13-14)” The lines were decisive for him. He decided to change his life and to devote himself to God. He was baptized by Ambrose in the night between April 24 and 25, 387, and wishing to return to Africa, travels to Rome to embark from the port city, Ostia, where his mother, Monica, died before taking ship.
The first Augustinian community and the episcopal ministry
Augustine founded his first community in his hometown, Thagaste. Between the end of 390 and the beginning of 391, he found himself perchance in Hippo, in the basilica where Bishop Valerius was talking to his faithful about the need for a priest in his diocese. Alerted to his presence among them, the congregation pushes Augustine to the fore, and insists that Valerius ordain him. THough he had been convinced of his calling to live in a vowed religious state, Augustine, studying and meditating on the Scriptures, came to understand that God had else in store for him. He eventually became Bishop of Hippo, succeeding Valerius, and left countless writings behind, in which he carried forward his lifelong project of truth-seeking through faith and reason.
Familiar quotations:
“You made us unto yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless, until it rest in you.” Confessions I.i.
“Go not outside. Return into yourself. In the interior of man the truth abides.” De vera religione - Of True Religion - 39.72
No one may safely cross the sea of this world, unless he be carried by the Cross of Christ … abandon not the Cross, and it shall carry you safely.” Commentary on the Gospel according to St. John, 2.2 (Source: Vatican News)

08/27/2026

Saint Monica pray for us!

Saint Monica, August 27
Of Berber stock, Monica was born in northern Africa in 331, in the town of Thagaste, to a wealthy family with strong Christian traditions. She learned the teachings of Sacred Scripture with great devotion: prayer and assiduous practice of the sacraments forged her interiority, and she was active in the service of the Church community. She married Patricius, an ambitious, irascible pagan who was unfaithful unfaithful to her. Gentle, benevolent, and capable of finding the right moment in dialogue, with her “method” of waiting, patience and prayer - which she suggested to friends who confided in her their own problems and misunderstandings with their spouses - succeeded in winning over her husband and leading him to the faith.
Wife and mother
At the age of 22, she gave birth to her firstborn, Augustine, who was followed by Navigius, and a daughter whose name has been lost. Monica reared them in a Christian household. Widowed at 39, she was left in charge of managing the family property, dedicating herself with love to her offspring. A thoughtful and careful mother, Monica experienced great difficulty on account of Augustine, the “son of so many tears”, the restlessness of whose heart is known throughout the world. Before his conversion, Augustine was an ambitious rhetor who, in search of truth, moved away from the Catholic faith and went from one philosophy to to other. Monica never ceased praying for him, and followed all the affairs of his life in an effort to remain close to him. For this reason, she moved to Carthage and then to Italy, when her son, a professor of rhetoric, at the height of his career, went to live in Milan (then the seat of the Roman imperial government). Her motherly affection and prayers accompanied the conversion of Augustine, who, having received baptism from Bishop Ambrose, decided to return to Thagaste to found a community of God’s servants. Monica was with him. To return to Africa, it was necessary sail from Ostia. There, however, mother Monica and son Augustine were compelled to stay and await the arrival of their ship.
Ostia's ecstasy and death
Waiting to take ship at Ostia, Monica and Augustine enter into days of intense spiritual dialogue. One of these constituted the so-called vision at Ostia, narrated in the Confessions (IX.x.23-27). “she and I stood alone, leaning in a certain window, from which the garden of the house we occupied at Ostia could be seen; ... We then were conversing alone very pleasantly; and, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, ... we opened wide the mouth of our heart, after those supernal streams of Your fountain, the fountain of life, which is with You; that being sprinkled with it according to our capacity, we might in some measure weigh so high a mystery. And when our conversation had arrived at that point, that the very highest pleasure of the carnal senses, and that in the very brightest material light, seemed by reason of the sweetness of that life not only not worthy of comparison, but not even of mention, we, lifting ourselves with a more ardent affection towards the Selfsame, did gradually pass through all corporeal things, and even the heaven itself, whence sun, and moon, and stars shine upon the earth; yea, we soared higher yet by inward musing, and discoursing, and admiring Your works; and we came to our own minds, and went beyond them, that we might advance as high as that region of unfailing plenty, where You feed Israel for ever with the food of truth, and where life is that Wisdom by whom all these things are made[.]” Monica felt that she had reached the pinnacle of her life and confesses to her son: “As far as I am concerned, this life now has no attractiveness for me. What I am still doing here and why I am still here, I do not know. My hopes on earth are exhausted. There was only one thing that made me want to stay here ...: to see you as a Catholic Christian before you died. My God has greatly satisfied me, for I even see you despise earthly happiness to serve Him. Why do I tarry here?” A few days later, Monica fell ill. She died at the age of 56, and her body was buried where Ostia Antica stands today, in the church of Sant'Aurea, probably an early Christian basilica with a necropolis alongside.
The relics of Saint Monica
The relics of Saint Monica have been kept for centuries in Sant'Aurea. Today there is only a tombstone, since in the 15th century Pope Martin V desired that her relics be translated to Rome, and housed in the church of San Trifone - in the care of the Augustinian Friars - and then enshrined in the larger Basilica of St. Augustine. There they remain to this day, in a sarcophagus of green marble, in the chapel decorated by Pietro Gagliardi with frescoes in 1885. (Source: Vatican News)

08/23/2026

Saint Bartholomew, pray for us!

Saint Bartholomew, Apostle, August 24
In the New Testament, Saint Bartholomew is mentioned only in the lists of the apostles. Some scholars identify him with Nathanael, a man of Cana in Galilee who was summoned to Jesus by Philip. Jesus paid him a great compliment: “Here is a true Israelite. There is no duplicity in him” (John 1:47b). When Nathanael asked how Jesus knew him, Jesus said, “I saw you under the fig tree” (John 1:48b).

Whatever amazing revelation this involved, it brought Nathanael to exclaim, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel” (John 1:49b). But Jesus countered with, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than this” (John 1:50b).

Nathanael did see greater things. He was one of those to whom Jesus appeared on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias after his resurrection (see John 21:1-14). They had been fishing all night without success. In the morning, they saw someone standing on the shore though no one knew it was Jesus. He told them to cast their net again, and they made so great a catch that they could not haul the net in. Then John cried out to Peter, “It is the Lord.”

When they brought the boat to shore, they found a fire burning, with some fish laid on it and some bread. Jesus asked them to bring some of the fish they had caught, and invited them to come and eat their meal. John relates that although they knew it was Jesus, none of the apostles presumed to inquire who he was. This, John notes, was the third time Jesus appeared to the apostles. (Source: Franciscan Media)

08/22/2026

Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah! Because flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.
And I tell you, that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.

A short biblical reflection on Matthew 16:13-20 "Peter’s Confession...

08/22/2026

“A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.”
(Revelation 12:1)

Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary, August 22
Pope Pius XII established this feast in 1954. But the Blessed Virgin Mary’s queenship has roots in Scripture. At the Annunciation, Gabriel announced that Mary’s Son would receive the throne of David and rule forever. At the Visitation, Elizabeth calls Mary “mother of my Lord.” As in all the mysteries of Mary’s life, she is closely associated with Jesus: Her queenship is a share in Jesus’ kingship. We can also recall that in the Old Testament the mother of the king has great influence in court.
In the fourth century Saint Ephrem called Mary “Lady” and “Queen.” Later Church fathers and doctors continued to use the title. Hymns of the 11th to 13th centuries address Mary as queen: “Hail, Holy Queen,” “Hail, Queen of Heaven,” “Queen of Heaven.” The Dominican rosary and the Franciscan crown as well as numerous invocations in Mary’s litany celebrate her queenship.
The feast is a logical follow-up to the Assumption, and is now celebrated on the octave day of that feast. In his 1954 encyclical To the Queen of Heaven, Pius XII points out that Mary deserves the title because she is Mother of God, because she is closely associated as the New Eve with Jesus’ redemptive work, because of her preeminent perfection, and because of her intercessory power. (Source: Franciscan Media)

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