Septuagesima
✠ The Bishop’s Corner ✠
Much coming and going this past week at St. Gertrude. Fr. Cekada has returned from his Seminary teaching week, which he reports went well. Intrepid missioner Fr. McKenna barely returned (4:30 AM Tuesday) when he left again for another long trip (5:00 AM Friday). Now Fr. McKenna is many things, but a morning person he is not! But he is becoming one due to his devoted service of the missions. Although he left for the airport at 5 AM, at 10 he was still waiting for the iron bird, due to “mechanical.” Such is a priest’s life today. I am happy to have returned Wednesday from an excellent and most encouraging trip to Brazil. It seems they were all mostly young people, seminarians and Third Order Franciscan Friars and big young families, expertly led by newly ordained Fr. Rodrigo Da Silva. Sunday’s Pontifical Mass and thirty some Confirmations drew faithful from all over Brazil, a very large country indeed. It was also good to get to know and speak with our young vocations, and such militant Catholics. Their school year starts this month, late Summer in Brazil. Their land, once so Catholic before the cursed council of Vatican II, must be reclaimed for Christ by His Mother, patroness of Brazil under the title of Aparacida, “The one who has appeared,” Mary Immaculate.
I almost did not make it back to Cincinnati myself on Wednesday. I think Air Canada cancelled the last leg of my ticket, and I ended up running around Toronto Airport after I arrived at 5 AM, with two heavy, holy, suitcases, getting different stories in those panicky predawn hours. But I was praying to the Aparacida as well as the Infant (also very much honored in Brazil) and finally an Indian gentleman got me a boarding pass in the twinkling of an eye. I had similar problems getting down to Brazil to start with, but a very kind and competent Moslem lady from Africa, named Fatima of all things, arranged matters for me. You never know.
I found the Canadians as well as the Brazilians to be lovely people, but drowning in a leftist bureaucracy, unable to manage. Canada is far worse than Brazil. So many rules, such control, and yet such confusion and poor service. Welcome to the Brave New World.
Richard Smith’s funeral was surely a sad affair. It is always so when we say farewell to a great Catholic, one of our pillars for so many years. He died full of years, having outlived most of his contemporaries. Thus the sparse attendance for his Requiem. After the funeral, a sacrilege occurred. Someone spit out a half- chewed Consecrated Host, and left Our Lord on a pew. The Blessed Sacrament was discovered on Saturday morning. It has been twenty years since we have known such a sacrilege. May I ask you to offer a Communion and at least some extra prayers of reparation? Usually our practice is to wait until our guests depart before distributing Communion at weddings and funerals. This ensures reverence, but the devil got through this once.
We turn our attention to our sick this weekend, with the Sorrowful Mother Novena, as well as today’s Lourdes Blessing of the Sick. Let me know if you need any Lourdes water. I may still have some left. God still has lots of graces left, and He loves to bestow them upon us by Our Lady Immaculate.
Servers (and parents) please remember the wonderful Altar Boy Day on Saturday, fun, and challenges, and learning. That’s our St. Gertrude way!
God bless you today!
–Bp. Dolan