Maternity of Our Lady
Complete Requiem Mass for Fr. Cekada
Recent Short, Daily Sermons
St. Placid & St. Flora
St. Mary Frances of the Five Wounds
Holy Rosary, the Weapon of Our Lady’s Army
✠ The Bishop’s Corner ✠
The sun came out after Communion on Rosary Sunday. How could it not, for the Sun of our souls was surely shining on us? Thus encouraged we made our way outside, Rosary in hand, for the fine procession which concluded the beautifully sung High Mass. I thank the Rosary Ladies for an abundant and so welcome brunch, and all of you (a record 100+!) who bought a ticket from the ever entrepreneurial Paddy.
It was interesting for me to trace our church history for you afterwards. How clearly, even in the necessarily broad lines of the story, does the Divine Providence appear, and the patronage of great St. Gertrude. The last minute offering of a proper church in Sharonville, the devoted workers, the altar and confessional and communion rail, the mysterious statue of our patroness just standing in back of Mgr. Marceau’s chapel and available, free, gratis; our deliverance from lawsuits, real and threatened, our survival from splits time and again: Thanks be to God and the Mother of God!
Cool nights and breezy Summer days here make October delightful thus far. The month of the Rosary is customarily one of our busiest and certainly most prayerful. We have many October Rosaries and Benedictions, two Rosary processions and the two more Eucharistic processions with Forty Hours Adoration, and then, All Saints and the children. A good thing, too. So much we have to ask, and so little time remains. The rulers of England and Ireland are openly announcing the new age of strict, fascistic socialism (could you call it “National Socialism?”). They admit that these changes are not about Covid, whatever that may be, but rather a whole new world. Pray. Inform yourself. Pray.
Today is the Month’s Mind of Fr. Cekada. This ancient term goes back to Saxon England and indicates one month since the death of a dear one, observed with a Mass, very often, in the old days, a Requiem. Our Masses for the repose of Fr. Cekada continue each week, as I know your prayers do as well. We received so many touching memories, condolences, and expressions of gratitude for this priest of God, that I thought I would share some with you today. Our new world with its coming persecution Fr. Cekada dreaded. Its very thought caused him much grief in his last months. But now he is free of this “vale of tears.” Let us ask him to remember us, and our needs, even as we remember him and his soul. There is comfort here, in the sweet hour of prayer.
Maligned and attacked, his statues pulled down, the saintly Italian Catholic navigator Christopher Columbus, who claimed the new world for Christ as well as for Catholic Spain, is meant to be honored tomorrow. Remember him, and your daily Rosary.
But Tuesday evening us surely a mandatory turn out! The Candlelight Fatima Rosary Procession for Peace calls out at you, as Catholics and citizens. Let’s get a hundred praying together, more than a hundred, to answer Our Lady’s request, shall we? ’Tis little enough, but it could be everything to turn the tide of this threatened totalitarianism. May you remember the Mother of God. May she never forget you!
–Bp. Dolan