Pentecost XI
Extra Assumption Sermon: Judith Against the Invaders
Blessing of First Fruits for the Feast of the Assumption
✠ The Bishop’s Corner ✠
Assumption found us unusually busy with many comings and goings, even for us. Our Lady leaves us, going up to Heaven in glory on her most ancient feast, the Assumption. For love of Jesus and Mary and souls, the Fathers here have been on the road, hoping to help souls to Heaven.
Fr. McGuire no sooner returned from his trip than Fr. McKenna left, back to Texas for a work of mercy, the funeral of one of his faithful, Karen Ruse of Austin. He was with us yesterday, and leaves again this afternoon to attend to his North Dakota missions. Fr. Lehtoranta, having processed and prayed with 66 faithful for the Fatima Rosary on Thursday evening, was off early Friday morning to Milwaukee.
I myself visited St. Hugh last weekend for some ten Confirmations. This was my first trip since the Seminary Retreat in January, when Fr. Cekada’s strokes began. The Covid Conspiracy further clipped my wings in March. It was good to visit the faithful again, but travel “isn’t what it used to be,” pre-Plandemic. How eerie to walk through a nearly empty airport on a Summer’s Friday morning. I slipped on my slave mask for a few minutes to board the plane under the watchful eyes of the mask police. Everybody else pretty much had their face in the diaper. How can they bear that, how can they breathe, hour after hour, and for nothing? Stressful and sad, but this is what the world has become under Communism.
I did read of a reputedly successful formula to use when resisting: “I am unable to wear a face mask safely.” Speak calmly but clearly. Repeat if necessary. If asked for health details, answer that you do not wish to share personal details with strangers. Then repeat the main phrase. The author says it works, but everyone will have his own way of resisting. After all, it’s your face. But do your part, one way or another.
Elaborate plans for novenas and fasting are making their way around the internet. This is certainly very good, but we should first see to the duties of our state of life, and resist the ramifications of the revolution as we are able to, for they are “psyops,” based on lies: the suicidal social distancings, the obsessive washings and wipings, and of course, the occult face coverings. I believe that life as normal, Sunday Mass and Communion and Holy Water, public procession and private prayers, are our chief weapons against not a virus, but The Lie.
Fr. Cekada has been poorly of late, and once again I ask your prayers for him in his weakened state. There’s a traditional priest I know in Argentina, Padre Pio, a Capuchin, who is gravely ill after a serious stroke. Please pray for him too.
On a brighter note, it’s a continuing joy to welcome new families to St. Gertrude the Great. Some have settled in Ohio, some in Indiana, and all are welcome. We’re preparing for another excellent season, and an expanded school enrollment. How blessed we are to enjoy relative peace in this little island of tranquility in Butler County.
Many thanks to those who worked through the dark heavy dank days—so penitential and insalubrious—which often precede the Assumption. Yesterday’s feast was lovely, a beautiful and traditional homage to our Queen Assumed into Heaven.
Today it is the turn of “God’s Grandfather.” May St. Joachim bless our fathers and grandfathers and families. And may he bless you!
–Bp. Dolan