Pentecost Sunday
Blessing of the Baptismal Font:
✠ The Bishop’s Corner ✠
Pentecost…the day of completion, of perfection, of gifts given by the Paraclete whom the Fathers call “The Gift.” Blessed feast day. May the Fire of the Holy Ghost warm and warn you, enlighten and enliven you as we conclude a most curious, yet grace-filled Easter season, going back to Septuagesima in February.
Congratulations to our nine new soldiers of Christ. Our Canadian friends could not cross the border to join us during this manmade crisis/takeover, but we are ever so proud to welcome a confirmand from Georgia and even one young lady who managed to come from strictly Communist Virginia. Another family from that same beleaguered state hopes to visit us in June for the Sacraments. Where there’s a will, the Holy Ghost lights the way.
But do remember our own who have not yet returned, or perhaps have fallen away. This is to be expected, but is nonetheless greatly to be regretted. We continue to pray as well for our prisoners. Yes, the actual prisoners like Joseph Murphy and Michael Stallings and others, but also our virtual prisoners locked up in nursing home rooms, away from family and priest: Vic Ritze, Joan Landy, Joan Fey, Janet Clementi (pneumonia), and others. Doris wonders how Vic can bear it, as do we. He does ask frequently when he will be allowed to go to church. Other elderly are imprisoned by the fear propaganda, and do not want a visit. So sad, but the price of communizing a once free country.
“Social distancing is evil, inhuman, satanic and pseudoscientific,” somebody wrote, to say nothing of just plain silly. People were crowded in line at a popular nursery Memorial Day, waiting to get in a little at a time…so they could observe proper social distancing! I wonder if that applies to the plants, too? They say social isolation was developed by the CIA as a means of psychological abuse. You’d be surprised.
Fauci, Trump’s Covid Spinner, is a Jesuit educated insider who’s now “moved away from institutional religion.” Surprise, surprise. He recently remarked in a Jesuit magazine that concerning distribution of Communion, “you gotta forestall that.” I wonder if our government worshippers are ready to take the next step? Maybe they’d like to forestall it.
Bergoglio’s Argentina certainly is. Our priests there are still saying Mass secretly, in a chapel improvised in the dining room, so as not to be seen from the road. Curfew is at 7:00 PM, interstate travel is forbidden, and priests must carry their ID papers at all times. Brave new world.
I saw this tweet recently which I translate: “In Argentina, with 45 milllion inhabitants, the 416 doubtful Covid deaths represent 0.00093%. This is a pandemic? This justifies our domestic prisons which have destroyed the economy for families and for the whole country? NO to the tyranny of imprisonment.”
The president has refused to wear a face mask, and in one of his famous (re) tweets said it represents “silence, slavery and social death.” Amen to that, and also to his push last weekend to reopen the churches in our land. Bill of Rights, or something…. Easter would have been better, but we’re beggars now, not choosers.
Meanwhile, the Holy Ghost is active as ever, if only we would turn to Him. Tomorrow, June 1st, we remember that the Sacred Heart sends us His own Spirit, a ray of warmth and love and strength. In this spirit let us observe the Pentecost Octave during June’s first week.
Penance, don’t forget the penance. Yes, there’s plenty of it these days, but be consoled. St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi says, of the kind God sends, “Trials are nothing else but the forge that purifies the soul of all its imperfections” and “You will be consoled according to the greatness of your sorrow and affliction; the greater the suffering, the greater the reward.” Still, let us humble ourselves and add our symbolic fasting to the mix to beg graces for the summer, and for the future Fr. Petrizzi, to be ordained June 24th. Thomas Simpson and Anthony Brueggemann receive the last Minor Orders on June 29th. Pray and fast with us, and continue to survive.
Blessed Pentecost.
–Bp. Dolan