Within the Octave of the Ascension

Daily Sermons
May 21 – Fr. Lehtoranta – Ghost Stories
May 22 – Fr. Lehtoranta – St. Rita and the Hopeless Cases
May 23 – Fr. Lehtoranta – St. Julia and the Evil Queen
May 27 – Fr. Lehtoranta – Faithful Son Isaac
May 30 – Bp. Dolan – St. Joan of Arc
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zelusdomustuae
✠ The Bishop’s Corner ✠
This Sunday finds us again on our knees, praying the best possible way by invoking the Holy Ghost in preparation for Pentecost. Please do pray for our Confirmands. The little ones meet with me, as is customary, this Thursday. Some adults will be joining them. The Holy Ghost comes in Confirmation this Saturday, First Saturday. We should also remember in prayer four of our future priests who are receiving the first or second set of the Minor Orders Saturday morning from Bishop Sanborn at Most Holy Trinity Seminary. May the Holy Ghost guide them safely to God’s altar, and all of us finally to Heaven.

Surely it was the Holy Ghost who inspired so wonderful a holiday – more truly a holy day – which we had at church this past Monday, Memorial Day. What a success! Our “last minute inspiration” caught on, and, as in the best of projects, we began with prayer. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen so excellent an attendance for Memorial Day, with its memory of all of our dead, the dear veterans and the forgotten “collateral damage,” especially; or for a Rogation Day with its “prayer procession” and Mass. After that, down to work, and again on our knees! The ground at each outdoor station was carefully cultivated, enriched and planted with perennials and a petunia or two. The sun grew strong, the humidity, too, as we neared completion. The cooking crew came to the rescue and the traditional Memorial Day fare was grilled and blessed, and we all enjoyed a refreshing late lunch together before heading home to rest. I did a little gardening myself. I think I had forgotten what hard work it is. Thank you for your hard work to beautify our shrines. Thank you for praying with us in the beauty of holiness.

Remember that our All Night Adoration will not be this First Friday as usual, but rather Friday, June 20th, for both June and July. However, the regular schedule of Masses will be offered on Friday, permitting you to offer the Sacred Heart your Holy Communion of Reparation at 8:00 or 11:20 AM or 5:45 PM. The one Mass for First Saturday is the Pontifical Mass, a very beautiful vigil for the great feast of Pentecost. Don’t be discouraged by this, but come and watch and pray with us. The vigil starts at 8:00 AM, Holy Mass at about 9:30, with Confirmations following, but certainly not obligatory for all. It is a wonderful thing to make and remake our First Saturdays as Our Lady requests.

The Sisters of Our Lady of Reparation have purchased a house just a few minutes from church in Springdale, and will be moving here this month. We look forward to their cheery and prayerful presence with us at St. Gertrude the Great.

Fr. Cekada heads down to Florida today for the last of his teaching weeks. This is, as well, the last week of our little St. Gertrude the Great school. How sorry we will be to see our devout scholars depart for the Summer! Still, we know everybody needs a rest and a change, and send our teachers and students alike home with our sincere thanks and good wishes. Due to the late Easter this year, it seems everyone is heading out especially early. How quiet will our halls be. Also due to the late Easter, First Holy Communion will be next Sunday, Pentecost. Still, we will all meet together, God willing, for our Corpus Christi Sunday Solemnity, which will close our season with the customary Blessed Sacrament procession.

The cats are in full swing in their season, spending long wearisome hours hunting in the high grass, and never a word of complaint. Caravaggio continues unperturbed at the killdeer’s accusatory cries and peremptory attacks. If he were a person, he would probably speak to one of our local lawyers about getting a restraining order against the aggresive birds. No such luck for the bunnies, however. They are a quiet bunch. Caravaggio came in whining the other evening with a rather large dead baby bunny in his mouth, which he plopped down in Fr. Cekada’s room. Fulsome praise for our feline sentry followed, as Father disposed of the poor creature. Later in the dusk I thought I saw the mother bunny looking for its young. The ways of nature…

Let us open together our Month of the Sacred Heart, and persevere in this devotion, so dear to St. Gertrude the Great, throughout all of June. “Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make our hearts like unto Thine.”

A blessed June. Come, Holy Ghost!
– Bishop Dolan