Mark your calendars for August 14, 2010, and join us for a wonderful family folk festival!
Step back into the past with a one-of-a-kind, old-fashioned family festival: the eighth annual Blueberry Fiddle Festival, organized by Richmond’s Immaculate Heart of Mary School. Enjoy live music and delicious food, browse the craft vendors, participate in an original New England melodrama, and join us for a family contra dance.
SBC Watch is a Site5 Affiliate
Monday, March 15, 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
One Man + One Woman = Marriage
But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother; and shall cleave to his wife. And they two shall be in one flesh. Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh. (Mark 10:6-8)
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Richmond Sends Message to Legislature: Let THE PEOPLE Vote on Marriage!
Notably, some people, who display signs reading "Democracy not Theocracy," voted against the measure seeking to give the people of New Hampshire a voice on the issue. The reason? One spokesman offered his opinion: "It's a civil rights issue."
Who says?
"Civil rights" — arbitrarily defined — has become the new theocracy that supplants the much-lauded democracy. Behold what contradictions result when the pretended rights of man displace the real rights of God, the natural law, the traditional laws of these United States and their antecedents in Christian Europe, and, as David Berman said last night, "6,000 years of history"!
Details from the Sentinel:
Who says?
"Civil rights" — arbitrarily defined — has become the new theocracy that supplants the much-lauded democracy. Behold what contradictions result when the pretended rights of man displace the real rights of God, the natural law, the traditional laws of these United States and their antecedents in Christian Europe, and, as David Berman said last night, "6,000 years of history"!
Details from the Sentinel:
Voters spent hours chipping away at proposed spending articles and by midnight more than half the audience was gone — when the Sept. 11 article and a petitioned warrant article for a resolution asking for legislators to allow New Hampshire residents to vote on a state constitutional amendment defining marriage came up.
But the dwindling numbers didn’t tamp down a lively discussion on both articles.
The marriage article passed, 58-33.
Before the vote, Richmond resident David Berman told voters to look at the article not on one side of the gay marriage issue or the other, but as a chance for voters to weigh in for themselves, rather than through elected officials.
“The Legislature has continually decided not to let people speak on this important issue, so what this is is a nonbinding resolution that simply says to the Legislature, ‘It’s our opinion that you should let the people vote and have a say on this issue,’ ” Berman said.
Resident Joshua Jarvis disagreed, saying a citizen referendum would be a chance to take away people’s hard-earned rights.
“People have been struggling in pain and they have finally gotten their own right to live the way they want to,” he said. “We have people vying to take their rights and that’s what giving the vote to people would be.
“It has been taken away in California, it has a chance of being taken away here.”
But the dwindling numbers didn’t tamp down a lively discussion on both articles.
The marriage article passed, 58-33.
Before the vote, Richmond resident David Berman told voters to look at the article not on one side of the gay marriage issue or the other, but as a chance for voters to weigh in for themselves, rather than through elected officials.
“The Legislature has continually decided not to let people speak on this important issue, so what this is is a nonbinding resolution that simply says to the Legislature, ‘It’s our opinion that you should let the people vote and have a say on this issue,’ ” Berman said.
Resident Joshua Jarvis disagreed, saying a citizen referendum would be a chance to take away people’s hard-earned rights.
“People have been struggling in pain and they have finally gotten their own right to live the way they want to,” he said. “We have people vying to take their rights and that’s what giving the vote to people would be.
“It has been taken away in California, it has a chance of being taken away here.”
Monday, March 8, 2010
Tobias and the Priest's Mother (about Father Michael Jarecki, our Chaplain)
By Brother André Marie
Father Michael Jarecki is our chaplain. At ninety-two years of age, he is not yet quite as long-lived as Brother Francis (who died at ninety six), but he’s close. I fear that his recent hospitalization is a sign that he is soon to exit this world. Truth to tell, he wants to do just that, because, as he has told us many times, he wants to go to Heaven soon. Whether his departure is anon or no, I think a few words in tribute to this heroic alter Christus are appropriate now, even while he is still with us.
His name — Yah-RET-skee, with the “r” tipping the roof of the mouth — is a gift of his Polish immigrant father. Yes, our long-lived chaplain is proudly Polish, and has been labeled a “Polish War Horse” by one of his doctors, also a Pole, who is probably referencing the enormous beasts of burden once mounted by the heavily armed winged Polish lancer hussars. This equine appellation is a tribute to Father’s herculean strength of character as well as his physical robustness. In his youth he hiked every mountain in his native New York State’s Adirondack mountain chain. (To say that Father Jarecki is tough would be like calling Mathusala old.)
I was recently reminded of Father’s Polishness during his hospitalization. When he was awake, but a bit groggy from medications and illness, I asked if he wanted to say another Rosary together. He said that he would like, instead, to say another particular prayer to Our Lady, but he had trouble remembering its name. I suggested that it might be the Memorare he was thinking of, but that wasn’t it.
He said, “My Father taught it to me in Polish. It goes like this…”
Naturally, I did not understand the Slavic verbal outpouring that came my way, but by its rhythmical, repetitive sounds, I discerned that Father was reciting a litany.
“The Litany of Loreto?” I asked.
“Thaaats the prayer!” he enthused, like an excited little boy. We then recited it together. And every day since Father has been back at the Center, one of the brothers recites the Litany with him after his daily Mass — yes, the Polish War Horse still offers daily Mass.
Father’s mother was not Polish. She was a Scots-Irish lady by the name of Black, who professed Presbyterianism and even came from a family of Protestant ministers. She was stalwart in her religion and had no intention of changing it when she went for marriage instruction to a Catholic priest. (There was no way Mr. Jarecki was going to marry outside the Catholic Church!) The first appointment the engaged couple had with the priest saw Miss Black with her Bible under her arm, ready to do battle with the Papist and teach him a thing or two about Holy Writ.
It was something of a surprise to her to find out from the Catholic Reverend that the Bible she cherished was incomplete. To his credit — and probably to his eternal glory — the priest who instructed the future Jareckis in matrimony made it a point to teach them the beauty of marriage, and the chastity to which married couples are called, from the book of Tobias, which he had them both read. Of course, this book is one of the deutorocanonicals, those Old Testament books dismissed by Protestants as “apocryphal.”
How much today’s engaged couples need the advice given by Raphael to the younger Tobias!
Then the angel Raphael said to him: Hear me, and I will shew thee who they are, over whom the devil can prevail. For they who in such manner receive matrimony, as to shut out God from themselves, and from their mind, and to give themselves to their lust, as the horse and mule, which have not understanding, over them the devil hath power. (Tobias 6:16-17)
A tale of an adventurous and dangerous journey, a real-life parable, and a chaste romance all in one, the Book of Tobias has a sweet attraction that I believe only a black heart — no pun intended — could reject.
And thank God, Miss Black didn’t reject it. Far from dismissing it as a Romish interpolation, the future Mrs. Jarecki found great beauty and truth in the book of Tobias, which became to her an efficacious channel of grace. Having failed to rout the priest in a Bible argument, the would-be polemicist desired to embrace that religion which possessed the whole Bible, instead of her incomplete one. She became a Catholic, and — as Father Jarecki emphasizes — she became a real one. As a convert, she respected her husband’s deeply rooted Catholic sense, which converts can often take a long time to acquire due to the non-Catholic culture of their upbringing. She was not adverse to incorporating Polish Catholic customs into her family’s “table culture,” so that her children might have a vital atmosphere for the nurture of their faith. As others have pointed out, the Catholic faith needs a Catholic culture to survive; after all, a culture is an atmosphere conducive to life.
Mr. Jarecki died while his son, the future priest, was yet a teenager. For a time, young Michael Alexander Jarecki had to work jobs to help support the family. But when they could afford it, he left to go to seminary: St. Bernard’s in Rochester, known affectionately to its inmates as “The Rock.”
In the terrible confusion that engulfed the Church in recent decades, Father Jarecki had much to suffer, especially from parishioners and clergy who thought him not sufficiently progressive. Of all things, he was accused of being overly devoted to Our Lady, which charge Father considered a compliment, for he was long since totally consecrated to her (and thus was a Slave before ever being our chaplain). Ever faithful to the traditional Mass, even when people thought it was “outlawed,” he still managed to keep his diocesan faculties for all these years while attending to the needs of various groups of traditional faithful, who were perceived by others as “rebellious.” We here at Saint Benedict Center Richmond have had him these last 20 years, but many other groups and isolated individuals here and there have benefited from his wide ranging priestly apostolate long before and during his association with our community.
Father Jarecki often recalls his mother’s virtues, piety, and practical, homespun advice. Without at all being a “mamma’s boy,” he still bears a great affection for her.
And, oh yes, he still loves the book of Tobias.
Dispelling Misinformation
There is a large amount of misinformation about SBC that has been circulated in the Town of Richmond. Much of it has been addressed already. Recently, some email correspondences have surfaced, which reveal a concerted effort to portray SBC in a false light for political reasons. This explains the existence of many of the dishonest claims about our community.
There is also the continued dissemination of the false and libelous claims of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
To dispel this misinformation, we draw our neighbors' attention to two letters we have published:
Thank you and God bless you.
There is also the continued dissemination of the false and libelous claims of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
To dispel this misinformation, we draw our neighbors' attention to two letters we have published:
Thank you and God bless you.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
The Path of Grace
By William and Christine Wrobleski
December 31, 2009
Local News
Coming to Saint Benedict Center has been, for Chris and me, a long-term stop on a difficult journey. Hopefully, in the end we will see a situation in which any Catholic in America will be able to go to any parish and find the Traditional Latin Mass along with solid teachings on every aspect of the Faith. My selfish prayer is that my wonderful wife and I will live to see and participate in this restoration. In the meantime, Saint Benedict Center is a good place for us to be.
We are both fifty-nine years old and are cradle Catholics, born twelve years before Vatican II. I went to Catholic school K through 12 and Chris went to Catholic school until third grade. Even with the faults of the Baltimore Catechism, we were pretty well formed in the Faith.
The liberalism that hit the Church in the wake of Vatican II came at a bad time for people our age. Imagine being in your mid-teens and all of a sudden being told that much of what you were taught about faith and morality was not important. It caused me pretty much to leave the Church around 1972 or so. I mean, why bother practicing when you’re told by your “teachers” in a Catholic school, and by priests, that going to Mass is not necessary to save your soul? I would go to Mass on occasion, but I didn’t care much.
I was married in 1972 and ended up divorced in 1982. My former wife cared less about the Faith than I did. Our two children, David and Amy, were being brought up nominally Catholic, but I failed as a parent when it came to teaching my children the Faith.
My divorce was not particularly contentious, but it was difficult for me, as I did intend to stay married permanently. In this situation, however, I had no choice; I just had to make the best of it.. I was away from the Church at that time, so I wasn’t thinking of Catholic teaching regarding dating or anything. (I now know that I should have waited for the Church’s annulment before dating.) In any event, I used to go to a nightclub where an early thirties crowd went to dance and drink. I didn’t drink, so I went to dance and, hopefully, meet the woman of my dreams.
On March 17, 1984, I was at this nightclub on a Saturday night and I looked up and saw a stunning redhead whom I had never seen there before. Little did I know Our Lord had just blessed me greatly. I asked her to dance, and the rest is history.
We were married on September 8, 1985 in a Congregational Church. At the time I wasn’t sure if I even believed in God, but I liked the idea of there being a God. Chris did believe in God, but she didn’t try to force it on me. Looking back it appears that she was just waiting for me to wake-up to reality some day.
In 1986, we bought an old farm house with a barn and twelve acres in Chester, Massachusetts. This was a dream come true for me. We could now grow our own food and we had access to good areas for hunting and fishing. At first, poor Chris came along kicking and screaming but, in time, she ended up loving her new lifestyle. At the time I was not attending any church, Chris, however, would sometimes go to the Novus Ordo at the local parish.
The summer of 1987 was to become extremely important to us. I started praying to God that if He was really there to somehow show me. Shortly after that, which would be the end of May 1987, I became very sick. At first we thought it was the flu, but after three then four weeks we became concerned.
During that summer the doctors ran many tests but found nothing wrong. I worried that I was dying, maybe of AIDS or something, but I wasn’t in any risk group for AIDS. I was getting worried, so I started praying, mostly to Our Lady and St. Jude. Then I started reading about miraculous healings at Lourdes and, with my appreciation of science, I was impressed by the documented evidence. One night, while reading more of these documented miracles from Lourdes, it dawned on me that the Faith I was born into was real.
In late August, 1987, I learned that, back in May, I had picked up a parasite while shoveling manure for our garden. I finally recovered about two months later and started attending the Novus Ordo with my wife. In early 1988 we made Cursillo and I got involved with the Medjugorje movement. We had been away from the Church for so long and just wanted to “do Catholic stuff.” Little did we know at the time how dangerous to the Faith both of these movements are.
In 1992, I received an annulment of my first marriage. Due to certain circumstances I probably would have been granted one even in more Catholic times. That same year Chris and I were married in the Catholic Church.
After learning what had happened to our beloved Church since Vatican II, we slowly started moving toward tradition. Our first exposure was the 1993 Easter Triduum at Saint Benedict Center in Still River, Massachusetts. We started going there as regularly as possible, even though it was a two hour ride from home. Brother Thomas Augustine and especially Brother Joseph (God rest his soul) were a great help to us.
By 1997, Massachusetts was becoming more and more hostile to hunters, gun owners, and anyone who wanted to live reasonably free. We decided it was time to move to New Hampshire, the last state in the Northeast that seemed to respect the rights of its citizens.
We visited Saint Benedict Center in Richmond in January 1998 and had a long chat with Brother Francis and the other religious. Soon afterwards we started attending Mass there and night classes. We moved to Richmond in August 1999 and joined one of the study circles. It’s been ten years now and, yes, they sure have gone by in a flash. Most of our friends are connected with SBC and they, along with the religious, have helped us to grow in and keep the Faith. We try to help out at the monastery whenever we can as it is a very active place, very hospitable, and the brothers and sisters can always use helping hands. SBC has become a home for us — more than that, a family. Hopefully, we can become less unworthy of such a gift from God.
December 31, 2009
Local News
Coming to Saint Benedict Center has been, for Chris and me, a long-term stop on a difficult journey. Hopefully, in the end we will see a situation in which any Catholic in America will be able to go to any parish and find the Traditional Latin Mass along with solid teachings on every aspect of the Faith. My selfish prayer is that my wonderful wife and I will live to see and participate in this restoration. In the meantime, Saint Benedict Center is a good place for us to be.
We are both fifty-nine years old and are cradle Catholics, born twelve years before Vatican II. I went to Catholic school K through 12 and Chris went to Catholic school until third grade. Even with the faults of the Baltimore Catechism, we were pretty well formed in the Faith.
The liberalism that hit the Church in the wake of Vatican II came at a bad time for people our age. Imagine being in your mid-teens and all of a sudden being told that much of what you were taught about faith and morality was not important. It caused me pretty much to leave the Church around 1972 or so. I mean, why bother practicing when you’re told by your “teachers” in a Catholic school, and by priests, that going to Mass is not necessary to save your soul? I would go to Mass on occasion, but I didn’t care much.
I was married in 1972 and ended up divorced in 1982. My former wife cared less about the Faith than I did. Our two children, David and Amy, were being brought up nominally Catholic, but I failed as a parent when it came to teaching my children the Faith.
My divorce was not particularly contentious, but it was difficult for me, as I did intend to stay married permanently. In this situation, however, I had no choice; I just had to make the best of it.. I was away from the Church at that time, so I wasn’t thinking of Catholic teaching regarding dating or anything. (I now know that I should have waited for the Church’s annulment before dating.) In any event, I used to go to a nightclub where an early thirties crowd went to dance and drink. I didn’t drink, so I went to dance and, hopefully, meet the woman of my dreams.
On March 17, 1984, I was at this nightclub on a Saturday night and I looked up and saw a stunning redhead whom I had never seen there before. Little did I know Our Lord had just blessed me greatly. I asked her to dance, and the rest is history.
We were married on September 8, 1985 in a Congregational Church. At the time I wasn’t sure if I even believed in God, but I liked the idea of there being a God. Chris did believe in God, but she didn’t try to force it on me. Looking back it appears that she was just waiting for me to wake-up to reality some day.
In 1986, we bought an old farm house with a barn and twelve acres in Chester, Massachusetts. This was a dream come true for me. We could now grow our own food and we had access to good areas for hunting and fishing. At first, poor Chris came along kicking and screaming but, in time, she ended up loving her new lifestyle. At the time I was not attending any church, Chris, however, would sometimes go to the Novus Ordo at the local parish.
The summer of 1987 was to become extremely important to us. I started praying to God that if He was really there to somehow show me. Shortly after that, which would be the end of May 1987, I became very sick. At first we thought it was the flu, but after three then four weeks we became concerned.
During that summer the doctors ran many tests but found nothing wrong. I worried that I was dying, maybe of AIDS or something, but I wasn’t in any risk group for AIDS. I was getting worried, so I started praying, mostly to Our Lady and St. Jude. Then I started reading about miraculous healings at Lourdes and, with my appreciation of science, I was impressed by the documented evidence. One night, while reading more of these documented miracles from Lourdes, it dawned on me that the Faith I was born into was real.
In late August, 1987, I learned that, back in May, I had picked up a parasite while shoveling manure for our garden. I finally recovered about two months later and started attending the Novus Ordo with my wife. In early 1988 we made Cursillo and I got involved with the Medjugorje movement. We had been away from the Church for so long and just wanted to “do Catholic stuff.” Little did we know at the time how dangerous to the Faith both of these movements are.
In 1992, I received an annulment of my first marriage. Due to certain circumstances I probably would have been granted one even in more Catholic times. That same year Chris and I were married in the Catholic Church.
After learning what had happened to our beloved Church since Vatican II, we slowly started moving toward tradition. Our first exposure was the 1993 Easter Triduum at Saint Benedict Center in Still River, Massachusetts. We started going there as regularly as possible, even though it was a two hour ride from home. Brother Thomas Augustine and especially Brother Joseph (God rest his soul) were a great help to us.
By 1997, Massachusetts was becoming more and more hostile to hunters, gun owners, and anyone who wanted to live reasonably free. We decided it was time to move to New Hampshire, the last state in the Northeast that seemed to respect the rights of its citizens.
We visited Saint Benedict Center in Richmond in January 1998 and had a long chat with Brother Francis and the other religious. Soon afterwards we started attending Mass there and night classes. We moved to Richmond in August 1999 and joined one of the study circles. It’s been ten years now and, yes, they sure have gone by in a flash. Most of our friends are connected with SBC and they, along with the religious, have helped us to grow in and keep the Faith. We try to help out at the monastery whenever we can as it is a very active place, very hospitable, and the brothers and sisters can always use helping hands. SBC has become a home for us — more than that, a family. Hopefully, we can become less unworthy of such a gift from God.
Monday, March 1, 2010
The History and the Purpose of Saint Benedict Center
Richmond residents (and others) interested in learning a little something about our history, goals, and overall purpose are invited to look at a new posting on our main site: "A Brief History of Saint Benedict Center."
Who Was Saint Benedict?
Our patron saint, the Father and Lawgiver of western monks, Patron of Europe, rebuilder of civilization after the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, man of letters, miracle worker. Saint Benedict of Nursia (480-547) was all these things, but first he was a man of profound prayer, love of God, and interior life. You can read more about him in the Second Dialogue (Life of St. Benedict) written by a Benedictine monk who became Pope: Saint Gregory the Great (540-604).
Saint Benedict, by the great Netherlandish Northern
Renaissance Painter, Hans Memling (ca. 1435-1494)
Renaissance Painter, Hans Memling (ca. 1435-1494)
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