Easter IV
Save these dates for the St. Gertrude the Great Girls’ Camp!
Girls ages 5 – 16+ are welcome to join us on July 11th, 12th and 13th 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, scrapbooking and of course, the popular Ice Cream Social. We’ll also have our second “annual” canoe trip (age appropriate), overnight camping and bonfire again. New activities for this summer include origami, cake decorating, making a personalized Rosary and some surprises! Come join the fun! The cost of this camp is funded by the generous donations of our sponsors.
Also, Save the Date for Boys’ Camp!
July 24-26
Our school children sing at their spring spaghetti dinner fundraiser.
Bishop’s Corner
Perfect Spring mornings greet us each day, perfect for these sweet days of May. If later the summer heat and humidity rise, then the peace and strength of morning prayer with Mary becomes all the more important. Did you remember your Regina Caeli this morning, as well as to offer your day to Jesus through Mary? Start everything with a Sign of the Cross, and then your three Hail Marys, and the rest. Your day may even keep its fresh springlike sweetness regardless of the weather.
We prayed through the night for First Friday, after the example of the Saint of persevering prayer, Monica. Gather your family together for evening prayer in May. Say Our Lady’s Litany together. It only takes a few minutes. Her name and praise will dissipate the storm clouds which may gather at day’s end.
On Holy Cross Day, Thursday, we sang a solemn Mass and we blessed the Palm Crosses, which are used devoutly against bad weather. Fr. McKenna commented that we could have used them earlier in the week, and this is true. The Kinnetts’ old house was hit by lightning last Tuesday night, but mostly spared. We were awakened by a midnight storm, so loud I thought it was hail. I was so sleepy I could only just manage invoking an angel or two to see to things, and they did, as I fell back asleep. The only damage was a big puddle of water by Dr. Jesus, a mysterious leak we have never been able to trace and fix. Maybe the angels will see to it.…
I want to thank our school, its staff and students, as well as our resident Italian chef, Dominic O’Donnell and family, for a perfect Spring Sunday last week. We wanted to thank you for your support of our fine little school all year long, as well as to show you some of its sweet fruits. They are a talented bunch, aren’t they? Every piece sung or poem declaimed was a delight, and such charming little touches, as well!
Who would not be touched and moved by the innocence of little children, all the sweeter in contrast with all of the ugliness and bitterness of this wicked world of ours? It is good to celebrate the good. May more souls be won away from the dark side by the dear voices of innocence and love.
These same voices are raised to God daily in song at the Sacrifice of the Mass, at the heart of the school day. We know how this stirs up the devil’s furious hatred and infernal persecution, but who knows the blessings won for us and for the Poor Souls, by the innocent chorus of Christ’s lambs, gathered about the Holy Altar? Come and pray with them some day, won’t you? Satan can bear Sundays, even perfect Gertrudian Sundays, because he knows that Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and the rest are his, as even their names indicate, hearkening back to the old heathen demons the pagans worshiped as gods. Prove him wrong some workday, won’t you?
Fr. McKenna is in his final month with us, but has returned home to Boston for First Holy Communions at Sacred Heart Church. Fr. McGuire reports a good number of lambs to be fed for the first time by the Lamb of God, both at St. Hugh and in the missions. Let us pray for these children never to lose their Lord and their God, Who comes soon to feed them with Himself.
This is the last of our quiet Paschal weeks at church. Next week begins with two processions, morning and night, for the Blessed Mother’s May Crowning, and Our Lady of Fatima’s crown of roses–the Holy Rosary for peace. The processions continue with the Lesser Litanies, which lead into the Holy Day of Ascension, in turn sparking the fire of the Holy Ghost for the Pentecost Novena and Confirmations. May will end in a busy blaze of red, Pentecostal flame.
May the Holy Ghost produce His fruits in your soul, starting each morning and lasting all week until Sunday sees you on your knees at church again.
Come, Holy Ghost!
–Bishop Dolan