One of the added advantages of membership of a religious Order is that one gets extra feasts. So while everyone else is continuing with the Lenten obligations and fast, and keeping this first Tuesday of Lent as a Lenten Feria, we in the Order of Saint John are invited to celebrate with joy the Dedication of the Conventual Church of Saint John of Jerusalem in Valetta.
The Church, the centrepiece of Grand Master de la Valette's new city, is now the Co-Cathedral of Saint John. In it are buried most of the Grand Masters, and many knights, beneath its magnificent inlaid floor.
This is also, by custom of Holy Mother Church, the day upon which other churches of the Order, the date of consecration of which is unknown, are celebrated, and thus this day is kept as the Dedication of our own eponymous Conventual Church in Saint John's Wood. Pray for all those who worship and minister there, especially the Chaplain, Fr Hugh MacKenzie, and that the Order may once again have fruitful use thereof.
O HOW awesome is this place, this is none other than the house of God and the gate of Heaven.
V. This is the house of the Lord, strongly built.R. It is well founded upon firm rock.
Let us pray. O GOD, who for us bring each year the recurrence of the consecration day of your holy temple, and always bring us back safely to the sacred rites, has the prayers of your people and grant that whoever enters this temple to pray for blessings, may rejoice in having obtained whatever he sought. Through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son, who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.
Our Lady of Philermo, pray for us
Saint John the Baptist, pray for us
Blessed Gerard, pray for us.
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