Easter II
The Gloria Returns!
Here is just the organ piece (Marsh Fanfare) from the video above, minus the bells.
After Good Friday Mass of the Presanctified
Good Friday Tenebrae, during the Canticle of Zachary, just before the final light is hidden
Clouds of incense fill the air, as the bishop chants the preface on Easter Sunday.
_________________________________________
Bp. Dolan’s 2015 Lenten Retreat on The Joy of St. Francis
_________________________________________
Daily Sermons
April 10 – Fr. McGuire – Easter Friday
April 13 – Fr. Lehtoranta – St. Hermenegild and Civil War
April 14 – Bp. Dolan – St. “Just In Time” Defends the Faith
April 16 – Bp. Dolan – The Pilgrim Saint: St. Benedict Joseph Labre
April 17 – Bp. Dolan – Suffernig Now But…..
_________________________________________
✠ The Bishop’s Corner ✠
Things are stirring at church after a rest, a little rest which followed the great work of the Great Week. Of course the daily round of Masses (High Masses!) continued with prayers and ministrations to the sick and administrative work, calls and correspondence, all the while. But now the calendar calls us to return for holy observances, St. Joseph’s annual eight-day feat, the Greater Linanties, as well as novenas and Triduums. “No rest for the wicked,” my mother used to say, quoting her own mother. Well, since we are rather wicked, let us give ourselves no rest in the service of our Risen God and King.
Doby is back from his Winter travels, and trying valiantly to keep up with the grass between rainstorms. The grass of course is back, positively Gaelic in its green, thriving on all of the wet; bright with lion’s teeth, dandelions, little yellow buttons of Spring color. You can look on them as a weed or as a Spring salad in the making. Our lawn would yield a delicious meal. One of these days…
The kind cooks of the Cucina Cerical are bringing fine meals again, now that the mysterious terra incognita of the vegan diet has been passed. Katie is feeling much better, and says she is bored at home, so she’s driving her walker around church like a pro. We’re planning for May, and putting away some of the Paschal decorations.
April wouldn’t be April without all of the charming cuteness of the little ones offering their Spring Program of poetry and song, and maybe a dance or two. They’re practicing as a write this, and good Dominic O’Donnell and family are planning the traditional spaghetti dinner. All that would be missing is you for next Sunday, so don’t miss it, or we’d miss you!
Brendan “18” Lotarski is graduating from High School–already!–on Trinity Sunday, and had an abbreviated but enjoyable Senior Trip to the Ford Museum in Detroit the other day, along with our other high-schoolers. Graduation time approaches, the summer is almost here. Memories of our own “March madness” seem to fade with the now fine weather.
West Chester Township invited me to say a little prayer before their monthly meeting Tuesday evening, and it was an interesting experience, a “slice of life,” as we like to say. Of course, the local government hereabouts is conservative and “Fox TV Republican.” The Council president mentioned as a matter of course that he was just at the NRA convention, and was therefore hoarse. The council business was unexceptional, a good example of subsidiarity, I said in my remarks. They were selling some older Crown Vics from the police fleet, buying a somewhat pricey treadmill for a firehouse, and seeing about asphalt for paving streets. Paving streets is good government, about the best you could hope for. Now, if only they knew when to stop…
But the first matter of the evening was a grand celebration, something akin to winning a war, or discovering a cure for a deadly disease. It required multiple rounds of applause, both a movie with stirring music and a real life presentation, balloons, broad smiles, and speeches from all and sundry. It strained and exhausted all of the superlatives our language has to offer. I have never been so proud. We will never see this again in our lifetimes. What virtue, what dexterity, what skill combined with sterling academic achievement, and long hours, years of edifying sacrifice. It seems the Lakota High School girls won the state basketball championship. Slice of life.
We forwent the speeches, and somebody must have forgotten the balloons, but you know our school boys did really very well last month in the district fencing championships, placing second. I note this with some pride myself, and not only for the hard work and talent shown by a very small team of boys, but also because of the intrinsic worth of this classical discipline in the education of young men. Maybe next year we’ll do the movie.
Puccini was patrolling the perimeters last week, and chasing off the Iranian invader, the Persian who comes regularly to trouble our cats, always a very loud and bizarre sounding affair. Maybe they fight in Farsi. Caravaggio has troubles of his own and was under the weather. The other night Fr. Cekada and I removed a tick from his paw, which required tweezers, hydrogen peroxide, gloves, (he Googled the instructions) as well as e holding the wrapped up cat so he wouldn’t scratch. Mission accomplished. I wonder if St. Jerome had similar adventures when he removed the splinter from the grateful lion’s paw?
Blessed Good Shepherd Sunday to you. Don’t forget the good quiet St. Joseph this week. He certainly won’t forget you as this “shepherd in Israel” guides and cares for the Catholic Church he protects.
—Bp. Dolan