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:

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.”

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:

• An Open Letter to Richmond Residents
• False and Misleading Rumors

 Thank you and God bless you.

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.

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)

'Live Free or Die!': A New Hampshire Meditation

By Brother André Marie, M.I.C.M.

A displaced Dixie-dweller living in the frozen wilds of New England, I was, until recently, quite unaware of the history of my adopted state’s motto. New Hampshire’s license plate sports the catchy slogan, “Live Free or Die.” The phrase was the personal proverb of New Hampshire’s hero of the War for Independence, General John Stark.

Could there be a Catholic angle to this motto? Perhaps, but let’s first explore it at face value.

There are Granite Staters today, Catholics and non, who say that “Live Free or Die” is more than a motto, and they cite the fact that the stark sentiment behind Stark’s words are still enshrined in Article 10 of New Hampshire’s State Constitution:

Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security, of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government. The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.

The possibilities of open revolution or secession put aside for the moment — these options appear fairly limited, to say the least — the average law-abiding, concerned citizen in rural New England has another option to secure his “benefit, protection, and security” this March: Town Meeting.

New England town meetings generally take place during Lent, which seems particularly apt for some reason. Catholics of the Granite State can use this penitential occasion in a penitential season to recall, in keeping with our State’s motto, our obligation to free ourselves from the bondage of sin. Sin is a sort of slavery, as Saint Paul assures us, and we can revolt against that slavery by giving a supernatural meaning to General Stark’s motto.

A seven-year-old Saint Dominic Savio did it quite well in Italian: La morte ma non peccati, which is usually translated, “Death Rather Than Sin!”

From Gate of Heaven

By Catherine Goddard Clarke

[ Gate of Heaven Note: These words were written in 1951]


It gives me happiness to write, for those who have wanted to know, of what has become of us since October 28, 1949, the date at which our story ends in The Loyolas and the Cabots. I am happy to tell you this further story, even though briefly, because it is a recounting of the bounty and the protection of us by the Blessed Mother of God.

We who took part in the so-called Boston Heresy Case are, thanks to Our Lady, still together and intact. “Heresy,” by the way, was an accusation made by us, not of us. Our accusation was substantiated by Father William Kelleher’s reply in the newspapers to the charge of the four professors.

We have lost of our number only six. Two dropped out, and four were dismissed, because, though we are not strict without reason, we do have our rules and decorum, which must be lived up to.

At this point a reader may ask, “But are you a religious group?” The answer to that question reveals our secret. Yes, we are a religious community. We are indeed a religious order – perhaps more technically a religious congregation. Each of us has, by vow, dedicated his life to the preservation of the truths of his Holy Faith under the title of Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

We took our vows and became Slaves of Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart on the first of January, 1949, three months before we were disciplined by our Archbishop for continuing to profess the defined doctrines of the Church on salvation. It was while Father Feeney was in correspondence with Father Vincent A. McCormick, S.J., the American Assistant to the General of the Jesuits, and while Father was pleading for a doctrinal hearing before his superiors. It was while three of the professors were under severe pressure by Boston College to give up both the Church’s doctrine on salvation and their support of Father Feeney in upholding it.

We were beginning to realize the character of the battle before us, not only for the preservation of the sacred dogmas of our Church, but actually for their restoration. It was to prepare ourselves by prayer and discipline, and to secure graces enough to enable us to face such a battle, that we became a religious order.

It will be asked of us, “Who are you that you should take responsibility for the Church’s doctrine?” Our answer to that, I hope I have brought out in this book. The answer is, as I wrote in the second chapter, that the sacred doctrine of our Holy Church is the responsibility of each Catholic, be he powerful or lowly, learned or unlearned, clergy or laity, rich or poor. Each of us is the Catholic Church. God’s Truth belongs to each of us, and we are each responsible for it.

We live a community life, as Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, with hours of prayer, hours of study, and hours of work. Father Feeney and the young men who someday hope to be ordained priests live in one of the houses known to us as Sacred Heart Hall. Our girls, who have dedicated their lives in singleness to Our Lord and Our Lady, live in a house which we call, among ourselves, Immaculate Heart Hall. Our families live in houses just below Sacred Heart Hall.

We are, during this interval, under fire, waiting for the time when we can present our order to the Holy See, as all other orders must eventually be presented. We know that many of the orders in the Church whose work was most lasting and fruitful began under circumstances similar to ours. We know that many men and women who were later placed upon the rolls of the saints were at some time in their lives under the ban of interdict, and even excommunication. St. Joan of Arc died excommunicated; St. Ignatius of Constantinople died under threat of excommunication. [Editor’s Note: Blessed Mary McKillop (soon to be canonized Australia’s first saint) was also excommunicated by her bishop.] We are not saints – though we pray we may be – and we are not excommunicated. We have offered our lives to God, and have consented to die, if need be, for our Holy Faith, in the saddest way (to our minds) that it is possible to die – under the ban even of excommunication.

We are waiting then, to present our order to the Holy See, to secure the blessing of our Holy Father, and to ask the Holy Father to foundation us as a permanent and abiding battalion in the army of our Holy Faith.

Public Service Message: Town Meeting, Town Elections - Vote Your Conscience

March 9, 2010 is election day in Richmond. Residents must be registered in order to vote. You can find a number of resources on the Internet, via Google, which will tell you how to register to vote in Richmond.

Remember that candidates night is March 4. (You can do a Google search to find out who the candidates are.)

Here is some additional information from the Town's official Web site:

Poll Location
Veterans Hall
150 Old Homestead Highway

Elections
March 9th 2010
11:00 AM to 7:00 PM

Town Meeting to follow at 7:30 PM

Regarding their civic duties, Catholics are reminded of the following:

1. We ought to pray for the welfare of our Town, its residents, and its government.
2. We should vote according to an informed conscience. The Popes have taught us that, where a society is governed according to free elections, Christians are to discharge their duties as citizens for the greater good of society.
   
3. Small town politics can become very animated. No matter what, the Gospel imperative to love one's enemies must always be observed.
   

Fire!

By Sister Marie Thérèse

Dear Friends,

As you can see from the picture, we are delighted to have our new wood stove at our convent. Besides the stove being donated, the beautiful hearth was built with some of the funds that you provided by your generous donations to the convent. A large portion of the wood was gathered by our brothers from the trees that had been damaged in the ice storm of last year. The rest of the wood for our winter supply was donated by a generous family; so it is not costing us anything to run our wood stove. Finally, we have met the challenge of being able to heat our entire convent with the wood stove and the aid by a few fans. So our furnace room has cooled off and we are now saving many hundreds of dollars per month in heating bills. Deo gratias!

The wood stove has benefits beyond just heating our convent. As one of the brothers said after he finished stacking our woodpile, “You’ll have many meditations with your new wood stove.” He was right. You’ll have to excuse me, Dear Reader, for sharing my Christmas meditations with you during this post-Christmas time, but I promise to lead you into Lent and Passiontide with them. The following is a poem in which I found an eloquent exposition of all the aspects of a hot fire, and it is what I have been using for my meditations in preparation for Christmas and for the twelve days of the feast. It was written by an English martyr, Saint Robert Southwell, S.J. (1560-1595).



The Burning Babe

As I in hoary winter’s night

Stood shivering in the snow,

Surprised I was with sudden heat,

Which made my heart to glow;

And lifting up a fearful eye

To view what fire was near,

A pretty babe, all burning bright,

Did in the air appear;

Who, scorched with excessive heat,

Such floods of tears did shed,

As though His floods should quench His flames

Which with His tears were bred:

“Alas!” quoth He, “but newly born,

In fiery heats I fry,

Yet none approach to warm their hearts

Or feel My fire, but I!

My faultless breast the furnace is,

The fuel wounding thorns;

Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke,

The ashes shame and scorn;

The fuel Justice layeth on,

And Mercy blows the coals,

The metal in this furnace wrought

Are men’s defiled souls,

For which, as now on fire I am,

To work them to their good,

So will I melt into a bath

To wash them in My blood!”

With this He vanished out of sight,

And swiftly shrank away;

And straight I called unto mind

That it was Christmas-day.



Because the wood stove needs frequent attention, I find myself drawn to it in my thoughts and then in my steps. It needs to be checked and fueled, and perhaps the heat generated is so great that it needs help to be dissipated throughout the house. I can’t help but think that there are two fire boxes in our house, not counting the obsolete oil furnace. One warms our bodies and the other warms our hearts. Of course, that “other” fire box is the tabernacle. So I have told the sisters that if they get up in the night they should put another piece or two of wood on the fire and also make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament.

It is unlikely, Dear Reader, that you have a tabernacle and a wood stove in your home, but the burning fire box that you should have can be found right in your own heart. Yes, it needs attention and fuel. Many of the saints felt that fire physically in their breasts. Saint Philip Neri, for example, would wear his cassock unbuttoned at the top to try to cool himself, and once, overcome by the excessive heat, he jumped into an icy pond which immediately began to boil.

Lent is coming, if it isn’t already here when you read this. This is an excellent time to clean out the furnace in your heart and, with Our Lady’s help, light a fire using the flames in Her own Immaculate Heart and fed by the acts of love and sacrifices you will make during Lent. As Our Lord said, “I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and what will I but that it be kindled?” A blessed Lent to you, Dear Reader. Thank you for helping to make these special meditations possible by your generous donations.

Email Sister Marie Thérèse at convent@catholicism.org.