Easter III

It’s almost time for the St. Gertrude the Great Girls’ Camp! Girls ages 5-16+ are welcome to join us on July 6, 7, and 8th for three days of fun and spiritual activities. We will be joined by three sisters of St. Thomas Aquinas for days filled with camp favorites such as archery, scrap-booking and of course, the popular Ice Cream Social.

This year we’ll also be adding new activities such as candy making, a canoe trip (age appropriate), overnight camping (age appropriate too!) and bonfire, as well as an elegant Little Girls’ Tea Party. Come join the fun!

Please call the office for further details and to register. The cost of this camp is funded by the donations of our generous sponsors.

May Crowning 2011

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Bishop’s Corner
Joseph follows his virginal spouse this Sunday, charged as he is by the Supreme Pontiff to watch over the whole Catholic Church. By exception, we were able to solemnize St. Joseph on his very Wednesday feast, as our three priests joined with the school choir and servers to sing Solemn High Mass in his honor. Every day in his Octave we commemorate the Patron and Protector of the Catholic Church, both at the Divine Office and Mass. Today’s Mass then, Jubilate or Easter III, is sung as we heed the Church’s call to rejoice that Christ is risen, and will soon rise to the Heavens (St. Joseph with Him) on His admirable Ascension Day.

So much sun shone in our hearts Sunday, Mother’s Day, that the sun itself tarried and was not missed all morning as we crowned her who is “elect as the sun,” our Mother and Queen. The timing was perfect, the music was grand, and it was wonderful to see such a representation of the Rosary Confraternity, as well as the First Communion Class, their families, and the faithful.

The May Crowning Mass started off a bit shaky, due to some technical difficulties (perhaps Old Scratch, anticipating his smashing, was acting up) but soon things were in order, and more. Anymore we always count it a successful crowning when the children avoid falling in to the pond (delicately colored blue for the occasion; the grotto as well beautifully turned out with candles and flowers). But with Mr. VandeRyt as MC all proceeded smoothly.

One father reports that he heard a four or five year old boy ask his dad: “Will there be a donkey for the procession?” No, but I did think some sheep would have been a nice touch. Maybe next year.

Our school year is in its final weeks, all too soon for Corpus Christi comes late in June. Yesterday Our Sunday Catechism children were tested for First Communion by Fr. Cekada, and made their First Confession. They are scheduled to be made Soldiers of Christ on the Vigil of Pentecost, and receive Our Lord for the first time on Easter’s fiftieth day.

First Friday in May we had the pleasure of a visit from a fairly new “sede vacantist” priest, booted out of the Pius X Society a couple of years ago. Don Floriano Abrahamowicz is Austrian by birth, and has a small chapel in Treviso, near the birthplace of St. Pius X. His tour is giving him an idea of the strength of the Church in our land. Father was most complimentary of our warm church, and the wonderful singing of the Bonaventura Quintet Friday evening.

Meanwhile, the dean of our sede vacantist clergy, Fr. Martin Stepanich, OFM celebrates the Seventieth Anniversary of his sacerdotal ordination this Wednesday May 18th. (Father would say every Catholic is a sede vacantist, for all hold that at times the seat is, well, empty!) Fr. Martin is still active doing good in his garden and in the garden of the Church, planting seeds and pulling weeds. May God grant him a long life, and every blessing of his long fruitful priestly apostolate.

Finally, word has reached us of the death of a classmate of ours from Econe, Fr. Yves Maury, a holy hermit and sede vacantist priest whose edifying death closes a priestly life full of sickness, suffering, and satanic attack. Pray for him to enter now into rest.

Fr. Maury goes down in the annals of the Pius X Society as the only priest who left on his ordination day! He was in Fr. Cekada’s class, and always felt called to the eremitical life. So, having received the holy priesthood, he thanked the good archbishop and retired to the desert, there to fight his demons with prayer and fasting and remain faithful until called for his crown.

Pray for them all, our priests, won’t you? Fr. Cekada goes today to Florida for a bit more work in preparing the next generation of “other Christs.” Send the seminary your monthly offering. They will be sending another other Christ your way one of these days.

St. Joseph, protect our priests and faithful, and bind them together in the holy chain of faith filled chastity.

–Bishop Dolan