Lent II
Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face
Article by Fr. Lehtoranta
✠ The Bishop’s Corner ✠
Aside from the steady, stealthy advance of the revolution, like a tightening noose, the big news around here has been the weather. Most of the other stuff has been suppressed, anyway. Thank God for weather.
Last Sunday was wintry. Monday was a March day, raw but on the melt. Tuesday it turned, and Spring was in the air. One of the good things about slave masks is that it really does make you appreciate the air. Wednesday seemed like one of those premature but still welcome Spring days. Thursday morning we were back to mild and sunny transition.
How was your transition to Lent? The snow slowed things down a bit (only a bit!) here at church, but attendance picked up nicely for Sunday. Our first Lenten dinner was actually well attended, and the offerings tasty and abundant.
Fr. Lehtoranta’s Sodality of Charity had its meeting Saturday. Everyone was most impressed with his sermon on Communism earlier this month. He grew up so close to it, and knows it well. We’re not talking “politics as normal,” folks. The serpent first lies, then bites and paralyzes with its poison. Finally, immobilized, we die. A fervent Lent, devotion to the Holy Face, a well informed and an unashamed understanding of the Communist Conspiracy…these are things you can do. Life must go on, and we must resist “the new normal,” but we must not live as though the crisis was not real and threatening. Do your part!
One good bit of news is a change in hospital policy. Prisoners, er, patients, may now receive a clergy visit without it counting as your one visitor a day. Spain had strong anti-lockdown demonstrations, and the North Dakota legislature is trying to de-mask the state.
By the way, the West Chester Tea Party has its meeting Tuesday. You are welcome.
But it is Lent. Tomorrow good St. Joseph’s month opens. He’s a powerful patron for our day. Add him to the list. Don’t forget St. David of Wales, invoked for skin problems.
Bring the children Wednesday for the day of recollection. It would be nice to see the “other children,” the public school ones, getting in on these spiritual riches, learning how to survive in their world. But this is true of all children today.
The weekend affords us double graces, as we both offer reparation to the Holy Face, and Communions of Reparation to the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts. Plus…there’s dinner! See you Friday. Are you remembering Stations?
Fr. McGuire went down to recently frozen Texas last Sunday. It was a smaller attendance, with brave tales of suffering from the faithful, who did manage to survive. But it was cold.
Lent is the soul’s springtime. Cold and hot, lovely and barren, tiring yet hopeful, moving at times and otherwise boring. This is how God sows the seed in the soul, and things start up again. Stay with it. Be generous!
God bless you and yours, home and family.
– Bishop Dolan