Last Sunday After Pentecost
✠ The Bishop’s Corner ✠
The weather is back to being what it’s supposed to be in late November, cloudy, overcast, cool, dark. But sunrise and sunset, if you can break away from your day for a moment, still offer surprising, cheering moments: an interesting sky towards day’s end, and for dawn intense bars of rose with pale blue, but only for a few moments. No wonder the starlings, more numerous this year, are taking every available seat on the power lines at Vesper time. I’ve noticed less formation flying this year, more independent soaring. I guess they think too much organization is for the birds.
On Tuesday Fr McGuire drive me up to Reynoldsburg, Ohio to see a faithful Catholic and old friend who’s in hospice now, Frank Ebner. We had a good visit. Later the McFathers were doing the regular sick calls. Fr Cekada is sending money, Mass stipends and support, to our priests throughout the world. We send about $7,000 each month, thanks to the remarkable and pious generosity of you faithful from all over. It’s a good thing, for most of these priests are almost entirely dependent upon your alms. Fr Nkamuke, with his seminary and ten missions is only one example. Believe it or not, the hardest thing about the procedure is the last step, actually sending the money, what with government regulations and even more arbitrary rules from the companies we use for this purpose.
But Fr Cekada also makes time for research, writing, scholarly correspondence as well as answering the letters especially of young men who have figured out the falsehood of the new religion, and are considering a vocation to the priesthood.
Fr Lehtoranta will be hosting two young Finns over the holiday weekend, one of whom he’s been preparing long distance for Baptism. The work, you see, goes on. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is spread, despite the propaganda of the atheistic idol worshipper (there’s a contradiction!) in the Vatican.
Yesterday we concluded St Gertrude’s Octave. Good numbers came to keep Our Lady’s Presentation on Thursday. That evening, through sniffles and infections, we five priests still managed a nice celebration for the November Ordination anniversaries of two of our number, Fr McGuire and Fr Lehtoranta.
I’m grateful to Renee Arlinghaus and her helpers for their enthusiastic reorganization of our parish library, down the school hall, and now dedicated to the Little Flower. Visit it. Borrow a book, a good book, and read a little daily. How much time we waste! How much good comes from good reading.
But the opposite is true as well. Be careful in your choices. Someone asked about Fr Wathen’s book, The Great Sacrilege. He meant well, surely, but it is full of falsehoods. He was a Feeneyite heretic, after all, and even changed the Baltimore Catechism. He never did understand about the Church’s infallible teaching authority. If you have the book, discard it. But spare a prayer for his priestly soul.
Thanksgiving reminds us to do that, to do it everyday, and most of all in the best possible way every eight days, by The Holy Eucharist, Sacrifice and Sacrament. “Let us give thanks unto the Lord our God” See you at Mass Thursday?
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
— Bp Dolan
P.S.
Alas, the fountain is no more. Workers covered it for the winter with a tarp, but came the wind and blew it away. The entire fountain collapsed as they attempted to secure it. Probably its time had come. We’re looking for a new one.
P.P.S.
On the positive side, St. Clare holding her Monstrance has joined the church saints. She’s in the corner opposite St. Francis, fitting for a humble and cloistered saint. Ask her for protection against the Moslems, and a deeper devotion to the Blessed Sacrament.