Low Sunday
The historic April 15th deadline for the SSPX to make an agreement with Benedict XVI has arrived.
What will SSPX head Bp. Bernard Fellay do?
A former SSPX priest, Fr. Anthony Cekada, will join Restoration Radio to talk about this event and similar situations in SSPX in 1983, 1988, 2000, and 2007.
• Date: Sunday, April 15, 2012
• Time: 2:30 PM EST, 1:30 PM CST, 19:30 GMT
• Link: Restoration Radio
The show will run approximately one hour and we will start taking calls at the halfway mark.
Bishop’s Corner
Everyone here rested a little for Easter Week, and I hope you did, too. By Easter Sunday we were all properly tired, I think, but still soldiered on for the great, high feast of feasts, the Resurrection, this year with one more Pontifical High Mass. I wish again to thank all who helped in so many ways to make for such a splendid, yet smooth and very spiritual Holy Week.
We had good attendance throughout, especially for the Maundy Thursday Mass and Maundy. It was wonderful to see so many little ones with us to assist at the Foot Washing service in the afternoon. The children got a bird’s eye view. Good Friday is always well attended, and the Mass of the Presanctified went beautifully under the competent direction of John Vande Ryt, an annual tradition. His police skills come in handy in the sanctuary!
Tenebrae attendance seemed to be a little bit lighter this year, but especially beautifully sung by the choir, and exquisite solos by Fr. Nicholas Desposito and our own Charles Simpson for the Lamentations. The setting sun perfectly illuminated the final Stations of the Cross on the eastern wall, just as the choir was singing the moving “O vos omnes” (“All ye that pass by the way”), a plaint from the lips of our Lady of Sorrows.
On Saturday, young Thomas Simpson had a gadget for striking the spark for the new fire from stone, which he used to start the holy fire. Later on in the long morning service (a true vigil of four and a half hours) his brother Joseph was surprised at the Baptismal font when I splashed water on him, but the rubrics direct the celebrant to cast it to the four points of the compass, and our very competent candle-bearer was standing due east.
Marge and Jim Soli prepared a fine feast for after the Vespers which closed the Easter Vigil, and Lent of 2012. You all must have been hungry after so much praying, because the platters were practically licked clean!
It was nice to see the church full again at all of the Masses on Easter, and that mainly with family members, young and old, of the regular Sunday faithful. A few welcome old friends came for good measure, adding to our Easter joy. The perfect weather, sunny yet cool, did as well, and made so much easier the work we had to do those days of Holy Week and Easter.
On Easter Wednesday the Pattons invited me to accompany them to the Mt. Eden Art Museum. It was an enjoyable outing, as I was wanting to see the new and improved version, with the idea of taking our students sometime. The “good stuff ” is mostly in one section, and can be seen and savored fairly expeditiously. The entire museum is a daunting task!
The religious art reminds us, as does Holy Week, and indeed our church of St. Gertrude the Great, of an age in which God came first, and we found our life’s meaning, our highest achievements, the solace in our sorrow, as well as recreation and play, all in the field of the Faith, all with the saints, all for God’s glory. How cold and ultimately meaningless the other eras in a museum, or a life, seem; away from the Faith, and God’s glory first. The challenge of a Christian is to live by the Church’s calendar, and to consecrate everything to God’s glory, seeing and serving Him in the smallest details of life. He alone gives meaning to life, Our Risen Lord. How mean, how meaningless, is the post-Christian era which claims our interest, and yet offers nothing of substance…I think of the museum with a Campbell’s Soup portrait on par with a Murillo or Tiepolo!
But Christ is Risen! He conquers, and yet also it is He who quietly colors in the corners of our life. To Him be all our efforts, for Him be all the glory!
–Bishop Dolan