Pentecost XXIV

We have two extra sermons this week:
1) From All Saints’ Day: St. Therese, Clothed in Christ, by Bishop Dolan
2) From All Souls’ Day: I am Here, by Fr. Lehtoranta

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✠ The Bishop’s Corner ✠
I always remember this time of year what Fr. Siordia once told me: “The gates of Purgatory are open these days.” That is to say, they are days of great grace for the suffering souls who come to ask for prayers, as well as for the Church Militant on earth whose duty it is to pray. (Almost sort of Bargain Days…your poor prayers go far.) I was happy then that already last Wednesday five Requiem Masses were offered here to start off these days of “suffrage” or of intercessory prayer for the Holy Souls Yesterday, twelve Masses were offered for the Holy Souls, as well as the Absolution, First Saturday devotions, and many indulgences of the “as often, so often” privilege for the poor Purgatorian souls.

Nor is this all. We continue to pray all month, especially for the souls named on our altar. Fr. Thielen will be here to offer Mass in our absence on Tuesday, and has kindly agreed to lead the school children to St. Mary’s Cemetery for their indulgenced visit for the Poor Souls. Fr. McGuire and I will be going with the Rosary Confraternity to Gate of Heaven next Sunday afternoon.

Tomorrow the travel begins to take us just north of Tampa, Florida, to Most Holy Trinity Seminary for the ordination of our first Nigerian priest. Fr. Nkamuke will have the daunting task of restoring the faith to his homeland some 130 years after it was first preached there by zealous French and Irish missionaries. Rejoice with us that Mother Church will have one more priest, and keep him and all of us in your prayers come Wednesday.

Our All Saints observance on Christ the King was uplifting. Beyond the regular beauty of a feast day at St. Gertrude, with all that entails, the children on this occasion give us so much. It is more than a matter of fine costumes (some are homely, some simple, some striking) or the little talks (ditto) the children gave. The combination of innocence and earnest striving and holy humor is irresistible, and ever so elevating. If you’ve never come, mark your calendar for next year.

Speaking of calendars, the beautiful 2014 Calendar should be here November 19th. Plan on purchasing a few extra as a thoughtful gift for others. Don’t forget the cloister garden memorial stones, a unique way to remember our dear dead. On the spiritual front, shouldn’t you take a moment to enroll your deceased to benefit from the monthly Purgatorian Masses? Such riches we have at our disposal here! Be generous with others, especially those who cannot help themselves.

Something between damage control and mass brainwashing is occurring now in the Novus Ordo. After his outrageous interviews, in which the “pope” who refuses even to genuflect shows himself an apostate from Christianity (see today’s bulletin), the New Religion is now saying that Bergoglio is certainly not a modernist…but “a loyal son of the Church”!!! Bishop Fellay says he is a modernist, but that heresy does not in the least lessen his hold on the papacy. Beyond new teaching, this kind of propaganda flies in the face of objective reality, and eventually loosens one’s grip on the reasoning process if swallowed regularly. It’s enough to make you crazy, which is ultimately the idea. You are left some kind of a well-meaning, but brainwashed zombie when it comes to religion, still wearing your costume long after Hallowe’en. The trick’s on you.

May the saints, and even our future saints, our innocent children, inspire us to stay with commonsense Catholicism: “Jesus Christ, yesterday, today, and the same forever.” Reading, reflection and prayer are the best antidote to this mass insanity which seems to be in the very air we breathe. As we conclude our weekend of prayer today, let us confidently ask the Church Triumphant and the Church Suffering to keep us…Militant! That should do the trick. Never mind the stones or the arrows, any more than did St. Stephen or St. Sebastian.

The Faith of our Fathers is indeed living still, and come Wednesday we will have one more spiritual father. Deo Gratias et Mariae.

Be generous with the Poor Souls and priests in your prayers. These were two of the goals of little Thérèse Martin when she entered the cloister at the age of fifteen. May they be yours as well.

I send this benison home with you all in Jesus and Mary.
– Bishop Dolan