Pentecost XI
Daily Sermons
July 28 – Fr. Lehtoranta – St. John Bosco and Good Example
July 29 – Fr. Lehtoranta – St. John Berchmans
July 30 – Fr. Lehtoranta – St. Dominic Savio
July 31 – Fr. Lehtoranta – St. Ignatius of Loyola
August 7 – Bp. Dolan – St. Cajetan
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✠ The Bishop’s Corner ✠
We begin this week with dear and well known saints, the Cure of Ars and St. Lawrence and St. Philomena, and end it with our Lady, of Fatima and Assumed into Heaven. Pray with us these days, be a peacemaker, surprise yourself and others–but not God–by showing up for something, and certainly Saturday’s Holy Day.
There was much adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament last week, Benediction three days in a row. Many thanks to all who showed up, especially for the blessed night watch. May no one ever show us up in our Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, or our devotion to the Blessed Mother. Would you make a sacrifice and show up for the Rosary Procession Thursday evening after supper?
State Schools open this week or next, I think. Be sure to read and pass around the excellent summary of their work which you will find again in today’s bulletin. We are working very hard for another excellent school year at St. Gertrude the Great, and I ask your prayers for its success.
One of our own Ohio seminarians, who hails from the Akron area, Paul Wesner, is spending a fortnight with us, getting to know our parish, and helping us with different projects. Paul has completed his first year at Most Holy Trinity in Florida. Bishop Sanborn is expecting several new seminarians for the start of the school year in mid-September.
Our two African seminarians, one starting, one finishing his studies, keep the already very occupied Fr. Nkamuke very busy indeed. Father is spending two months at each of his main missions, busy with the standard work of a priest today, as well as missionary endeavors. He recently received a request from enthusiastic Catholics in the southern state of Endo. Please do remember Abraham’s Burse, and Father’s many needs. Postage is terrifically expensive, but we have recently sent four packages with much-needed sacramentals and altar supplies. Thank you for your help.
Thurday’s cool rains made it miserably humid in church for the Transfiguration, but we prayed away anyway, High Mass and Holy Hour and more. The weather seemed to prefigure the coming Fall, even though Summer is back again now. Somehow the cats always sense the coming cold during otherwise warm August, and seek out a good hiding place to spend the night. The trouble is that their night does not correspond with ours, and Puccini will be rested and ready for the hunt by 2 or 3 AM, meowing and scratching up a storm outside Fr. Cekada’s door. The other evening he hid under Father’s recliner, and could have ended up as a squashed cat, had no Fr. Cekada been on the hunt for him.
Caravaggio has developed into something of a music critic of late. That is to say he is critical of all music. Fr. Cekada likes to play his in the evening as well as generally offering me some improving anecdotes from a Bach biography he is working his way through. Well, the cat slept through the factoids, but when our erstwhile organist hit play on his Wikki Music for a French Romantic piece, Caravaggio got up with an annoyed look and went to accost Fr. Cekada with a single but very intense meow, and stared at him until the racket ceased, and he could resume his nap. Such a Catholic cat. If he went to Mass (but he can’t stand crowds) I’m sure he’d go to the 7:30.
I happened across last year’s Bishop’s Corner, with its tale of the over seasoned casserole, the top having fallen off the cayenne pepper shaker. I ended up driving Fr. Cekada (but not the Africans, who like it spicy) off to Taco Bell. This year he drove me to Taco Bell, for I had another First Monday casserole mishap on Thursday. I had a big pot of it, doctored up with extra vegetables, old wine and some interesting looking soup, and fished with just enough time to get over to church to light the candles for Exposition. Fr. Lehtoranta had preset the oven for me…all systems were go, but no! I must have been thinking about candles instead, for I absentmindedly put the casserole in the microwave, rather than the oven. After Benediction, Fr. Lehtoranta announced the sad news. It was now 7 PM and the pot was cold, so we scurried off “south of the border” for tacos both hard and soft.
Last weekend I had a good Milwaukee visit, and enjoyed an excellent dinner with a fine farm family, every bit of it organic and raised by themselves. It was really neat. I thought how much Darlene would have appreciated it as well.
Well, God bless our cats, and God bless our Catholics, organic and not. Now, come, let us bless Our Lord in return!
Yours in the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
—Bp. Dolan