8
Gulf Pine Catholic
•
September 9, 2016
Serving the Community within the
Diocese of Biloxi with Dignity & Respect.
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Riemann Service
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Phone: 228-539-9800
THANKSGIVING NOVENA TO ST. JUDE
O Holy St. Jude, Apostle and Martyr, great in virtue and rich in
miracles, near kinsman of Jesus Christ, faithful intercessor of all who
invoke your special patronage in time of need, to you I have recourse
from the depth of my heart and humbly beg to whom God has given such
great power to come to my assistance. Help me in my present and urgent
petition. In return I promise to make your name known and cause you to be
invoked. St. Jude pray for us and all who invoke your aid. Amen.
Say three Our Fathers, Hail Marys and Glorias. Publication must be
promised. This Novena has never been known to fail.
I have had my request granted. Publication promised. MLH
THANKSGIVING NOVENA TO ST. JUDE
O Holy St. Jude, Apostle and Martyr, great in virtue and rich in
miracles, near kinsman of Jesus Christ, faithful intercessor of all who
invoke your special patronage in time of need, to you I have recourse from
the depth of my heart and humbly beg to whom God has given such great
power to come to my assistance.
Help me in my present and urgent
petition. In return I promise to make your name known and cause you to
be invoked. St. Jude pray for us and all who invoke your aid. Amen.
Say three Our Fathers, Hail Marys and Glorias. Publication must be
promised. This Novena has never been known to fail.
I have had my request granted. Publication promised. JCH
THANKSGIVING NOVENA TO ST. JUDE
O Holy St. Jude, Apostle and Martyr, great in virtue and
rich in miracles, near kinsman of Jesus Christ, faithful
intercessor of all who invoke your special patronage in
time of need, to you I have recourse from the depth of my
heart and humbly beg to whom God has given such great
power to come to my assistance. Help me in my present
and urgent petition. In return I promise to make your name
known and cause you to be invoked. St. Jude pray for us
and all who invoke your aid. Amen.
Say three Our Fathers, Hail Marys and Glorias.
Publication must be promised. This Novena has never been
known to fail.
I have had my request granted. Publication promised. RFG
I stood in line waiting to check in at
the airport for a trip to Medugorje. While
in line, I started a conversation with a
young married couple. It was their first
pilgrimage to Medugorje. Then, I no-
ticed the “bump” in the young woman’s
tummy. She began to massage it ever
so gently. “Well, it seems that there are
more than two of you travelling,” I com-
mented. The young woman just smiled
and said, “We’re four months.”
The husband chimed in, “We had
a miscarriage a while back and we are
keeping our fingers crossed for this one.”
Then, he went on to drop a bombshell saying, “You might
remember hearing or reading about a young four-year-old boy
who was tragically killed in a farm accident a year ago, last
July. Well, that was our son. We had gone home to my wife’s
home parish for a wedding and while we were there, our four-
year-old son was killed when he was run over by the fam-
ily tractor. My brother-in-law was driving the tractor. He was
devastated by the accident as well. “
“How do you deal with something so tragic?” I asked.
“Counselling helped us. That, with family and friends, we
are still trying to understand it and deal with it.”
I asked if they had read about a young eight-year-old girl
who died a few weeks earlier in a similar farm accident. This
time, the driver of the tractor was the little girl’s father.
“Yes, we read about the little girl. In fact, we wrote a letter
to the family. We told them about our son and that we would
be thinking about them and praying for them.”
I asked them what prompted them to go on pilgrimage to
Medugorje. “Something kept telling us that we needed to go,”
suggested the wife. “It wasn’t someone we knew like family
or friends. It was a kind of inner voice that kept reminding us
we should go. We’re not sure why. So here we are. We’ll have
to wait and see,” said the husband.
The young couple embraced the pilgrimage program, par-
ticipating in common meals, daily Masses in English, spend-
ing time in Adoration chapel, going to confession, climbing
mountains, visiting cemeteries, saying rosaries, visiting with
visionaries as well as purchasing some mementoes to take
home with them.
Most days, I bumped into them in the church courtyard or
on a sidewalk. We stopped and I got an update on how their
trip was going. A few days later, the husband told me that he
had climbed one of the mountains three times already, per-
forming the Stations of the Cross as he went. Another time,
the wife told me that on this pilgrimage, they were amazed to
meet so many people who had lost young children or young
adults so tragically. Even though these tragedies happened
many years ago, the families were still trying to cope with
their losses. It gave the young couple hope,
Another encounter with the couple on the street, led them
to showing me a precious little four-year-old boy with a devil-
ish look on his face. This was followed by, “We didn’t want
his headstone to be just like everyone else’s. So, we did a lot
of research and came up with this one.” She showed me the
tombstone. “We also got rosary beads here with his name in-
scribed on it to hang on it.”
We invited them to join us for our small group Mass in a
local convent on the outskirts of the town. On the way there,
in the back of the taxi, she turned to me and asked, “Do you
know that prayer/poem called ‘Footprints in the sand,’?” I
nodded an affirmation. Without hesitation, she launched into
it like a little child who, finally, had memorized her favourite
poem. When she was finished, she said, “That’s us. He is the
one who is carrying us now and the one set of footprints is
his.”
Arriving back at the same airport the next evening, we
parted amid hugs and promises. “We will be back next year,”
she assured us, “and, this time, we are bringing our eight-year
old-little girl.” Smiling, she looked at her pregnant tummy
and said, “We will have to wait and see what happens with
this one.”
As I rode home, I thought about how a chance encoun-
ter at the airport had unfolded into a journey through tragedy
and questioning; through mountains of crosses and resulting
energized faith; through redemptive suffering and hope filled
callings.
I know that this young couple now have a better idea what
and why that “something” is that kept telling them to make
that trip to Medugorje.
Father Michael Tracey is retired and lives in Ireland.
He can be contacted by email at
His
website is
Mountains and crosses
Across
the Pond
Fr. Tracey
Sábado/Saturday
Pascagoula: Sacred Heart
Parish, 6 pm
Domingo/Sunday
Laurel: Immaculate Conception
Parish, 4 pm
Hattiesburg: Sacred Heart
Parish, 1:30 pm
Picayune: St. Charles Borromeo
Parish, 7 pm
Gulfport: St. John the Evangelist
Parish, 2 pm
Ocean Springs: St. Alphonsus
Parish, 2 pm
Lunes/Monday
Biloxi: Our Lady of Fatima
Parish, 6 pm
Las Misas Celebradas en Español/ Masses Celebrated in Spanish
