Young Catholic Adults and WAF Marian Day - on 9th April between 11:30 - 2pm at St. Gregory's Cheltenham

The Parish of St. Gregory the Great (10 St James Square, Cheltenham, GL50 3PR) will be hosting a Marian event on April 9th 2016 11:30 - c.2pm. It will start with a Rosary at 11:30am followed a procession around the Church. 

There will be a presentation on Fatima by Donal Foley, the Secretary of the World Apostolate of Fatima, England and Wales, which will start at 12:15pm in the Old Priory and finish by c.2pm. It will include a DVD and a PowerPoint presentation, as well as time for refreshments and questions and answers. Books, booklets and DVDs will be available for sale. The focus of the presentation is the importance of the Rosary and the Five First Saturdays devotion, and how they can revitalise our own spiritual lives, the parish, and the Church generally. 

This event is organised by Cheltenham YCA and the World Apostolate of Fatima and is for ALL AGES. There is a suggested donation of  £5 – please bring a packed lunch.

The Devil Hates Latin!

By David Clayton.
 

I just attended a talk by the exorcist for diocese of San Jose, Fr Gary Thomas. He is the subject of a book and a film called The Rite, starring Anthony Hopkins. (The talk was organized by a group called Catholics at Work.)

First, he was a great speaker. He described how almost by accident, and after 20 years as a parish priest, he found himself sent to Rome to learn how to perform the Rite of Exorcism. He was very clear in saying that, in his opinion, the recent rise in interest in (the) New Age.... has opened the door to adherence to the occult for greater numbers of people than before, which in turn opens the way to diabolical possession. He has always been inundated with requests, even before the publicity. 

The fact that he described these things pretty much in the same straightforward, matter-of-fact way that one might describe what goes on in a marriage or baptism in a parish RCIA class only served to reinforce the truth of it all for me. And I would say that if anything is to increase your faith, it is listening to accounts of how the Church overcomes the effects of possession by the devil and demons, and the suffering of those poor people who are affected by them.

I wanted to pass on one little comment that he made almost in passing. I do not know where he stands liturgically in regard to the Mass - there was nothing in what he said that led me to believe that he celebrates the Latin Mass, for example. However, he did explain that the Rite of Exorcism is only said in Latin. One reason is practical - there is no approved translation in English as yet. He gave another reason why he was so strongly in favor of the use of Latin in the Rite of Exorcism: “The Devil hates Latin, it is the universal language of the Church.” I asked him about this afterwards, and he repeated it, saying that his personal experiences as an exorcist who has performed many, many exorcisms have convinced him of this. He told me he had heard from exorcists who did exorcisms in Italian, Spanish and Portuguese (the only approved vernaculars for this Rite) that Latin was the most effective language.

H/t: http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/