Last Sunday After Pentecost
Our social hall was filled for our All Saints party
Our 2018 saints
✠ The Bishop’s Corner ✠
Among our causes for Thanksgiving figures also the weather. So many fine days, mellow November or even a bit of St. Martin’s Summer have blessed us. How safe we seem in our cozy Ohio Valley, so far from California’s fires or the already Arctic freeze of the north. I hope your Thanksgiving was a pleasant one. It was enjoyable to be all six of us priests together over an excellent meal, a rare grace. We are grateful.
Well, clergy gatherings and faithful and dear old friends are the order of the day this Friday as we celebrate my 25th Anniversary of Episcopal Consecration on St. Andrew’s Day. I hope you will be able to join us, and thank everyone for good wishes and prayers. Special gratitude to everyone who is working hard, so hard, to prepare a fine celebration. I am thankful for you all. Sometime I will have to write my thoughts on being a bishop all these years. But it is simply and perfectly true that I could not have done it without you!
Fr. Nkamuke draws to the end of his mini sabbatical in our midst. This weekend he is visiting the seminary, where he has two promising students. Four Baptisms are awaiting his return, and then the minor seminarians. He will be busy. One baby comes from a region currently raging with fratricidal strife, and the parents will take the baby away from the violence and meet Father where it is safe. Pray for our priests.
We were doing a series of “Generosity Saints” last week in the little daily sermons for the school children. If gratitude is important—and it is—surely it is generosity which feeds it, or should. These two virtues open up heaven, and sure make life on earth much more agreeable. How much sadness, how much bitterness, how much strife they cancel out. This is probably a good thought, and may suggest a resolution or two, for “Thanksgiving Sunday.”
I hope nobody is putting up Christmas lights or trees yet. That is the world’s way for secular “happy holidays.” Let the embers of Thanksgiving glow, and show the way to Advent longing. Saturday night we light the wreath, and next Sunday we should have our promised Advent prayers and promises in place. Remember the key to a good Advent is an early start, like those horrible shopping deals they promoted on “Black Friday.” We’re thinking of “Purple Sunday.”
Be sure to include our great gift shop in your Advent planning and Christmas shopping. Such variety, such creativity, and prices so reasonable. To give something sacred is to bring a permanent blessing. Put the holy back in Christmas, and everywhere. Check out the great men’s “liturgical ties,” lots of fun. And hand made craft items, too.
God bless you!
–Bp. Dolan