Pope Francis has declared 2021 to be the Year of St. Joseph, and Catholics will gather at multiple California churches on May 1, the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, to consecrate their state to the foster father of Jesus Christ.
Among them will be Father Donald Calloway, an Ohio-based priest of the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception and author of the book “Consecration to St. Joseph: The Wonders of Our Spiritual Father.” He encouraged others to take part the consecration.
“I am so excited to be participating in the Consecration of California to St. Joseph on May 1.” Calloway said on the website of BVM Blue Mantle, the group organizing the event. “In these very difficult times, we need a message of hope, and all families, marriages, men, women, children, bishops, priests, and nuns need to go to St. Joseph!”
One major event is hosted at St. John the Baptist Church in Costa Mesa. It will begin Saturday May 1 with Mass at noon, followed by the consecration prayers at 1:15. The congregation will lead a procession with a statue of St. Joseph at 2 p.m.
Father Calloway will then deliver a talk and sign books at 2:30.
BVM Blue Mantle, LLC, describes itself as a group of Catholics “whose love for our Lord and Mary has inspired us to consecrate California to Our Lady, and now to St. Joseph.” While the group has invited all Californians to join them for the consecration at the Costa Mesa church, they encouraged others to involve their parish or take part at events at other churches.
Participating churches include St. Mary Catholic Church in Escondido, St. Ephrem Maronite Catholic Church in El Cajon, Star of the Sea Parish in San Francisco, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church in San Diego, St. Anne Catholic Church in San Diego, and St. Andrew Catholic Church in Pasadena.
Blue Mantle encouraged those without access to Mass to pray the rosary and consecration prayer outside a local church.
The group invoked Pope Francis’ proclamation of a Year of St. Joseph.
“Let’s ask St. Joseph to help us to defeat the Culture of Death. Together we are praying for an end of abortion, euthanasia, (and) natural disasters,” Blue Mantle said. “As brothers and sisters in Christ, we will be praying for the sick, elderly, unwanted, and an end to the violence, sex abuse, drugs, alcoholism, (and) sex trafficking.”
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Father Patrick Hughes shows how to make a traditional St. Brigid’s Cross in County Cavan, Ireland. / Credit; Courtney Mares/CNA
Rome Newsroom, Feb 1, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
Ireland on Thursday is celebrating the 1,500th anniversary of the death of St. Brigid of Kildare, the Emerald Isle’s female patron saint.
St. Brigid (c. 453–524 A.D.) is credited with pioneering female monastic life in Ireland. Her feast is celebrated on Feb. 1, which became an annual public bank holiday across Ireland last year in her honor.
“St. Brigid was a huge figure of authority in the early Church, baptized by St. Patrick, professed by St. Mel, spiritual adviser to St. Conleth,” Bishop Denis Nulty of Kildare and Leighlin said at a Mass ahead of her feast.
Ireland’s Kildare County has organized lectures, pilgrimages, and many activities in its Brigid 1500 Program to mark the anniversary, including a workshop on how to weave a St. Brigid’s Cross — St. Brigid’s most enduring symbol.
A St. Brigid’s cross is traditionally made out of rushes or reeds freshly pulled from the ground.
Father Patrick Joseph Hughes, a country priest in County Cavan, can make a St. Brigid’s cross from rushes in a matter of minutes.
Hughes told CNA that the story that has been handed down over the years is that St. Brigid was trying to explain to the local chieftain, who did not believe in God, that Jesus was his savior and died on a cross for him. The chieftain did not understand, so she made a cross out of rushes from the ground and presented it to him: “‘Look,’ she said, ‘that’s a cross, and Jesus was stretched out on that for the world.’”
On the eve of the Feast of Saint Brigid, it is tradition in Ireland to make a St. Brigid’s Cross out of rushes.
Last year while we were filming in Ireland, Father Patrick Hughes gave us a quick demonstration of how to make one.
St. Brigid’s Catholic Church in Kildare will kick off the feast day on Feb. 1 with a Mass at 9:15 a.m. offered by Bishop Nulty.
The bishop recently installed St. Brigid’s relics in St. Brigid’s Catholic Church on Jan. 29 as part of the 1,500th anniversary celebrations.
The relics were taken from the bone fragment of St. Brigid’s head, which has been kept in St. John the Baptist Church in Lumiar, Portugal, since three Irish knights brought it there in 1273. The Portuguese church gave the relic to the Brigidine Sisters in Tullow, Ireland, in the 1930s, and they recently gifted it to St. Brigid’s in Kildare.
“Today we have brought her home,” Nulty said. “Obtaining the relic of a saint like Brigid is no easy feat. I visited Lumiar in October 2021 with the singular intention of securing a relic for St. Brigid’s Church. I was privileged then to hold the relic of her head, which is contained in a splendid brass casket. Sadly, I couldn’t squeeze it into my Ryan Air flight bag!”
Notably, the Catholic bishop and female Anglican leaders will also come together for an ecumenical service at 11 a.m. on the feast day at the historic St. Brigid’s Cathedral, built on the site of the ancient hilltop where St. Brigid founded her monastery in the year 480 A.D. The previously Catholic cathedral, consecrated in 1230, is now an Anglican cathedral.
The service will be followed by a “pause for peace,” a minute of silent prayer for peace. St. Brigid was known as a peacemaker. Among the many stories told about St. Brigid, local tradition holds that Brigid gave away her father’s sword in exchange for food for a family suffering from hunger.
The fifth-century abbess St. Brigid is one of Ireland’s three patron saints, along with St. Patrick and St. Columba. Most historians place her birth around the year 450, near the end of St. Patrick’s evangelistic mission.
St. Brigid. Credit: Octave 444, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
It is notoriously hard to establish the historical details of Brigid’s life, but according to one of the more credible biographies of Brigid — Hugh de Blacam’s essay in “The Saints of Ireland” — Brigid was born out of wedlock to a pagan chieftain named Dubthach and a Christian slave woman named Broicsech. The chieftain sold the child’s pregnant mother to a new master but contracted for Brigid to be returned to him eventually.
Brigid was likely baptized as an infant and raised as a Catholic by her mother. Thus, she was well formed in the faith before leaving Broicsech’s slave quarters at around age 10 to live with Dubthach and his wife.
After this, Brigid’s faith grew immensely. She gave generously to the poor and tended to the sick. One story says Brigid once gave away her mother’s entire store of butter, which was later replenished after Brigid prayed.
Once she was released from servitude, she was expected to marry. However, Brigid had no interest in marrying. She went so far as to disfigure her own face and prayed that her beauty be taken from her so no one would want to marry her. Because she refused to change her mind about marriage, she received permission to enter religious life.
Brigid, along with seven friends, is credited with organizing communal consecrated religious life for women in Ireland.
In 480, Brigid founded her monastery in Kildare, which was called “Church of the Oak.” The monastery sat on top of a shrine to a Celtic goddess. Throughout the rest of her life, she established several monasteries across Ireland.
Brigid rooted her life as a nun in prayer, but she also performed substantial manual labor: cloth making, dairy farming, and raising sheep. She also spent time traveling across Ireland founding new houses and building up a uniquely Irish form of monasticism. When she was not traveling, pilgrims made their way to Kildare, seeking the advice of the abbess.
“What were the character traits that defined St. Brigid of Kildare? To mention just a few, she was hospitable, she was a peacemaker, she was a strong woman of faith,” Nulty said.
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1 Comment
The consecration of the state to Mary and the reconsecration to Mary last year didn’t work to make things better so, sure, why not try this? And after this doesn’t work what will they try next to keep people hoping? I don’t understand why people get excited over these consecrations nor why they bother with them.
The consecration of the state to Mary and the reconsecration to Mary last year didn’t work to make things better so, sure, why not try this? And after this doesn’t work what will they try next to keep people hoping? I don’t understand why people get excited over these consecrations nor why they bother with them.