Rosary Sunday – Pentecost XVII
Daily Sermons
September 22 – Fr. McKenna – St. Thomas of Villanova & Almsgiving
September 26 – Fr. Lehtoranta – North American Martyrs
September 27 – Fr. McGuire – Saints Cosmas and Damian
September 28 – Bp. Dolan – St. Wenceslaus and the Dreams
September 29 – Fr. McKenna – St. Michael, Soldier in Heaven & on Earth
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✠ The Bishop’s Corner ✠
Blessed Rosary Sunday! October starts with the Rosary this year, as if to remind us that each day of the tenth month should be “Rosary day.” If you’re participating in the festivities today, or even just reaching for your beads, you’ve made a good start. God bless you with perseverance.
God bless and reward everyone participating in the Rosary Confraternity work this day. May our procession be fervent, and the Rosary Breakfast talks both interesting and encouraging. Thank to our speakers, Fr. Cekada and Fr. Lehtoranta. Rosarians, pray on, and remember the Wednesday and Friday afternoon October Devotions with Benediction. Saturday mornings too. We need you to help, so participate!
September really was a “Come, labor on” month, with its total of four deaths, two funerals, one wedding and a baptism, as well as Mary’s Birthday blessing, procession and party. We started school, Sunday school, choir (adding a men’s section), and don’t forget the picnic.
Last weekend in particular was heavy, with three sermons in three days, a lovely wedding, and the biggest funeral we have ever had. It made a beautiful tribute to a fine young man, Ryan Greenwell, and gave the grace of a taste of Catholicism to the almost five hundred who attended. Please keep his soul, and his family, in your prayers.
While the weather has been beastly hot, I am grateful that our air conditioning held out. Afterwards, one kind soul offered the mourners bottles of cold water, as they were on their way to the burial under full sun. Someone organized the parking for the funeral, and it all went remarkably smoothly. Deo Gratias.
Sr. Jeanne Marie is home at the convent, and happy to be with her sisters. She still requires intense care, and has a long way to go. Thelma and Henry Sieverding were so happy to see Fr. McGuire, and receive the sacraments again. Thelma will be having surgery soon. Keep these dear pioneers of the Faith in your prayers.
Spare a prayer for me too, please. I’m in Tijuana this morning, at Our Lady of the Rosary, and visiting Ss. Peter and Paul chapel this afternoon in always hot Mexicali. It’s near Yuma, Arizona. Tomorrow I head to Los Angeles to make my long flight to Mendoza, Argentina, to visit the Missionaries of the Most Holy Rosary. I return home, God willing, on October 10.
Do mark your calendars for a very blessed Friday the 13th, the 100th anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima. We’re planning on a candlelight procession, rain or shine. Please pray for good weather, and an excellent turnout. Fatima, devotion to Mary’s Immaculate Heart, is the key to everything. Do your part.
We had an excellent turnout for Sunday Mass these last two Sundays, due to visitors. But we are missing some of our own. How strong an example, how powerful a prayer would be ours if everyone did come on one given Sunday, and then kept it up. Say a Rosary for this intention, as well as for all of your own.
May Our Lady of the Rosary unite and bless your family, and our church family as well.
– Bishop Dolan
P.S. Remember there is no All Night Adoration this First Friday. It is transferred to the opening of Forty Hours on October 20. But there will be Exposition and Rosary at 5:15, with Benediction at 5:45, followed by Mass, most Friday evenings.
P.P.S. We are grateful for the cooler weather. Caravaggio greeted the Fall by climbing up on the couch, and claiming Fr. Cekada’s Pendleton nap blanket. Somehow he manages to pull it down, and then he naps on it all Winter.