Within the Octave of the Ascension

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.

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Bishop’s Corner
Memorial Day weekend, almost on cue, saw the start of summer, sudden, brusque, burning away with it startling heat all of the moisture of our cold wet spring. We were out in the middle of it each morning of Rogationtide, chanting the Litany of the Saints, praying for all of our needs.

We are in the middle of this wonderful but taxing week of prayer as I write this on June 1, the opening of the Sacred Heart’s month of June. It is only a month from now that we will keep the actual feast of the Sacred Heart on July 1, due to so late an Easter. This is a grace, as we prepare for and celebrate Pentecost, and Confirmation, Graduation and Trinity and Corpus Christi, St. John the Baptist and Ss. Peter and Paul, all in the loving light of the Sacred Heart, whose flames are the Holy Ghost. The Paraclete will prepare us to keep well the feast of Him who sent Him to our hearts. May they be inflamed with His love!

Keep June sacred to the Sacred Heart by “lifting up your hearts” as the celebrant admonishes us at Mass. Do this by hearing Mass frequently, to honor the Sacred Heart during His month. Make a family Holy Hour at your Sacred Heart shrine. Rediscover the Friday night Mass and Novena. Enthrone the Sacred Heart as King of Love in your home. (Give us a call to set it up.) Remember, in the midst of marriage and family problems, the powerful promises of the Sacred Heart. Resolve to make, starting next month, July 1, the Nine First Fridays, and to take your children to make theirs. Help us to make once more this devotion as our parish devotion at St. Gertrude the Great.

This week we continue our Holy Ghost Novena, praying for a renewal of Pentecost in our hearts and homes, and the end of heresies and schisms. Pray for our future Soldiers of Christ, to be confirmed on Saturday. Pray for our graduates, whom we proudly send off today. Pray for Fr. Cekada, who’s heading down to steamy Florida, where the school bells still ring through July 1st, for our future priests. Pray for our students, on summer vacation, and for all of ours who will be traveling soon.

Let us pray as well for our families in need, and those families who help us in our need. May God bless our gardeners and lawn mowers, hot and hard work under the blazing sun.

May God bless you for a good summer, for it seems it is well begun!

In the Sacred Heart,
–Bishop Dolan

P.S. Thank you for your prayers, greetings, gifts, spiritual bouquets, food and breakfast for my birthday last Saturday. God reward your generosity!