This Week: Pentecost XIV

“Cultivate the Faith”  –Bp. Charles McGuire

The Bishop’s Note
Today is already the last Sunday of August! Our school teachers have been “in service” since Thursday, getting everything ready for the beginning of the school year which starts this week. The year always begins with a Votive High Mass in honor of the Holy Ghost as we ask Him to enlighten our faculty and students and to assist us in all of their needs. A good, classical education is very important for our students, but the most important thing we want for them is that true wisdom which comes from the Holy Ghost. This wisdom will give them a relish and taste for the things of God. It is the wisdom of the saints and the wisdom that leads to Heaven. Come, Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of Thy faithful!

I am writing this on a beautiful Friday morning in Milwaukee. It is quite a change from a usual Friday morning at St. Gertrude’s. Normally, there are flowers to decide upon, bulletins to work on, meetings to arrange, but it is so quiet here at St. Hugh of Lincoln. There is nothing on the schedule until this evening when we have Mass and Benediction. I am certainly not used to that anymore. Although it is much quieter than St. Gertrude’s, this mission chapel has grown a lot over the years. I can remember the first few years I came to offer Mass: there were perhaps only half the number of parishioners as there are at present. Now, there are two Masses on any given Sunday be-cause the small chapel cannot hold everyone at once. The Faithful have done so much work over the years just to keep the mission going. They would pick up the priests from the airport, lend them a car for the weekend, make sure they were well fed, clean the rectory and church, take care of the sacristy, do the bulletin, etc., etc.—all voluntarily! In fact, they pretty much built and ran the place themselves…all while starting families of their own and working fulltime jobs. The generation that helped found our missions and churches (including St. Gertrude the Great when it was just beginning) sacrificed so much of their time and used their talents to help the church. We owe that generation so much! If it were not for their sacrifices and dedication to the true Faith and Mass, we would not have all that we have today. I think we often take it all for granted. I sometimes wonder who will re-place them when they are gone, as many are already gone and the rest are at retirement age yet still doing much of the work. God will provide. He always does.

After Sunday Confirmation at St. Hugh’s, I am off to St. Teresa of Avila Mission in Grand Forks, North Dakota, to administer the same Sacrament. The mission began perhaps around 2010, or thereabouts. It started up with 8 souls, all of them in their twenties. I was still in my twenties and was the oldest person in the room! Mass was held in a tiny apartment belonging to the coordinators who were then recently married. St. Teresa’s has grown significantly and now has its own little chapel where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved. It will be good to visit again.

Other missions where Confirmations will be given include St. Joseph of Arimathea, in Park Falls, Wisconsin. St. Joseph of Arimathea Mission is so named because it started in a funeral home owned and run by the mission coordinator. St. Joseph of Arimathea, of course, was the saint who helped bury Our Lord after His death on the cross. The final visit of this trip will be to Holy Face Mission in Effingham, Illinois, where Fr. Brueggeman will meet me to assist with Confirmations. An update on these visits will be given in next week’s bulletin. Each mission has its own story, just like the founding of St. Gertrude’s. Each story is a part of the history of the Church. Each story is yet another example of how God takes care of souls during these times of general apostasy and widespread heresy. Really, it is a reminder of the truth contained in today’s Gospel: Just as God takes care of the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, so He will take care of all of our needs. We simply have to put the kingdom of God first. This is true wisdom.

– Bishop McGuire

Mass Livestream