The Holy Name of Jesus
Our church, as decorated for Christmas Mass
Daily Sermons
December 25 – Bp. Dolan – A Christmas Conversion
December 26 – Bp. Dolan – St. Stephen
December 27 – Fr. McKenna – St. John, ApEv
January 1 – Fr. McKenna – Circumcise Your Heart
January 3 – Fr. McGuire – The Word was Made Flesh
✠ The Bishop’s Corner ✠
“Vive Jesus!” This Salesian greeting carries the connotation of “Long Live Jesus” along with the exhortation to live Jesus. It seems a fitting greeting for Holy Name Sunday, the first of the year.
I hope your New Year is going well so far, and that you will indeed live Jesus each day of this still fresh new year. I offered New Year’s Mass (and New Year’s Eve Holy Hour) for the dear little flock of Albuquerque’s Morada of St. Gertrude, usually served by Fr. Palma. Small in number (our Friday evening attendance is huge in comparison), they are great in faith, and thus steadily growing, and not only in virtue. Their second adult catechumen is being prepared for Baptism.
On a sunny, mild New Year’s Eve I was able to visit America’s Queen, the Conquistadora in Santa Fe, as well as Chimayo with its holiness and miracles. I was so happy to get my annual visit in before year’s end, and remembered all of you and all of our intentions there in prayer.
What a Christmas! “The days are just packed,” as Calvin (or was it Hobbes?) used to say. On St. John’s Day we blessed the wine and drank “the love of St. John.” On Holy Innocents we drank to the happiness of Tom and Karen Simpson, married that morning. On Sunday, some I think rested up from the fatiguing exertions of the previous Wednesday. Imagine both Mass and Christmas! Too much! Who wouldn’t be tuckered out? Well, the faithful came again, and joyfully. You did it again last Wednesday, to consecrate the New Year by Holy Mass.
Many children were blessed all day on Christmas Sunday, after each of the Masses. After the High Mass a nice party cum gifts lured some of them back to Helfta Hall. Further luring even yielded a little group for the children’s poetry. I had a great time. I hope the children did as well.
Janet Strauss, the former Sr. Scholastica, flew out from L.A. for the wedding. It was nice to see her again. She takes care of an invalid sister of hers, but also serves as Fr. Dominic Radecki’s volunteer sacristan. She is most devoted to her CMRI chapel, Queen of Angels (which bulges at the seams on Sundays) but is also an honorary lifetime Gertrudian.
News reached us last week that one of our own, †Iris Wilson, died way back at Thanksgiving but the family never informed us, and had a “private service” at Gate of Heaven. Due to family interference, it was always a challenge to find where they put Iris, stay in touch, and bring her the Sacraments. But still, this is a new low. We will schedule a funeral service for her this month. Do you have your instructions confided to a trusted executor?
Iris was Joe Wilson’s widow. He had always worked for her conversion, and finally did bring her into the Church, before he died. Joe (one of the original ‘trads’) and Iris were fixtures at the Sharonville church, at the old days of Monday Night Bingo, volunteering each week for our school. God reward their goodness, and grant them eternal rest.
I am writing this on a noisy American Airlines flight from Dallas to Dayton last Thursday, which would bring me from New Mexico’s mild sunshine to Ohio’s cold but beautiful Winter wonderland. There are more babies on board than at church! I am praying to their Guardian Angels, with intermittent success. Today’s trip on American from Albuquerque was particularly dysfunctional, even for them. The Rosary, as well as a little humor, helped.
“You bein’ bad, Father?” the flight attendance playfully accosted me on an earlier flight. Well, I had the will to obey and raise up my seat back to its full and upright position, but it wouldn’t stay up – broken. Although everything is crowded, dirty, late, unexplained and in bad repair, the flight attendants on American seem to be in admirably good humor on most flights. A good example for us. The world is full of unexpected edification, isn’t it?
The Terrorist Security Agency “strip and frisk” is another story. It fluctuates from almost agreeable (‘you can keep your shoes on, sir!’) to a grim facsimile of a prison processing, complete with milling crowds, shouting guards, and the nude search x-ray, complimented, for your convenience, by a proper pawing. Security Theatre. You gotta love it!
Although Bergoglio is a clown, there’s nothing funny about his antics in the Eternal City. I wonder how Fr. Cekada manages to keep up with the steady stream of stupidities, and now even blasphemies against Our Blessed Lady. Father’s articles are posted on the Internet (fathercekada.com) and we have some printed copies in the vestibule for the Luddites among us. Stay informed! Be the first in your neighborhood to unmask the Argentine imposter! Share it with your neighbor but don’t expect any thanks. Even most “traditional Catholics” wish to live in lala land, where a heretical layman could be Pope.
Still, the light of the Faith, the star of adoration, calls us to Bethlehem. Come again to adore tomorrow evening with Kings and Wise Men for Epiphany, and stay for our Christmas party. All the Fathers will be with us, but only for that night. The next day Fr. McKenna leaves frozen Ohio for the even more Frozen North. Fr. Cekada is off to meet with some N.O. priests who asked to see him. Pray for his success.
May the Holy Name of Jesus be our life, and the star of Faith appear to guide wise men to Jesus, even now, at this late hour.
Blessed Epiphany! Holy and happy Twelfth Night!
– Bishop Dolan