CHARLOTTE — St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Charlotte began a new commemoration of First Saturdays devotion by offering a Solemn High Mass in the Extraordinary Form Sept. 3.
The Mass, which previously was offered in the Ordinary Form (English), will now be a High Mass in the Extraordinary Form each First Saturday at 10 a.m. Parochial vicar Father Jason Christian, who served as homilist for the Mass, noted the purpose of this Mass is to offer to God the highest of solemnities as a way to honor Our Lady of Fatima’s request for prayer and penance for the sins of man.
The Solemn High Mass was attended by nearly 120 people and offered by Father Joseph Matlak, administrator for St. Basil the Great Ukrainian Mission and Holy Trinity Middle School chaplain, with Father Noah Carter as deacon and Father Christian as sub-deacon.
— Mike FitzGerald | Catholic News Herald
CHARLOTTE — There's plenty of one-of-a-kind rosaries, but none are quite like the one Kathleen Harrison has designed.
Adorned with the hand-stamped names of 49 priests and clergy important to her family, the Harrisons easily pray for each of them as they pray the rosary.
The idea came about in November, Harrison explained, when she was at MiraVia with Sister Mary Raphael and Robyn Magyar, one of the founders of the Mary's Sons kneelers' ministry in the diocese.
"Together the three of us were praying and talking about the different ways to pray for priests and show them support, and this idea popped in my head," said Harrison, who is a parishioner at Sacred Heart Church in Salisbury. "We'll pray the rosary as a family for priests important to us, and most of the time we forget which priest we were on and who we haven't prayed for yet."
She first looked for a way to engrave or stamp beads with names of priests, but that proved to be very cost-prohibitive, she said. So Harrison found someone in California through the online handmade marketplace Etsy who could hand-stamp up to nine characters on a round, flat disc and put a hole in the top.
From there, Harrison's friend who makes rosaries in New York, Darlene Griswold Kerfien, assembled the rosary. It cost her about $130 just for the hand-stamped discs and shipping, Harrison said.
040816-rosaryThe rosary, which includes 49 names of priests and Bishop Peter Jugis as well as one blank disc on the rosary for a prayer intention of the family as the "Ave" markers, was blessed at the Chrism Mass.
"It was neat because I just sent Darlene a package of the names and she put them together in a random order. What she didn't know was she was placing some of the priests next to each other who are very close emotionally. So it's neat to see how the Lord put this together," Harrison said.
Originally, Harrison had planned to use clergy as the decade marker as well, but Kerfien suggested using a bead to help break up the rosary. Since they weren't able to use all the names, she's already has the beginnings of another one.
Since her husband, Dr. Matthew Harrison, is a convert and her uncle is a priest and her son Matthew is applying to attend the new St. Joseph College Seminary, Kathleen Harrison said there are several priests who are influential and impactful in her family, which may differ from others.
"We're trying to put a little business together. We're trying to find someone who can hand-engrave beads or stamp metal as inexpensive as possible so others can order their own custom rosary with names of those priests influential in their lives or maybe one just those in the seminary," she said.
— Kimberly Bender, online reporter. Photo provided by Kathleen Harrison