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Second Sunday of Easter - Divine Mercy Sunday
11 April 2010
Dear Friends in Christ,
A few items for your consideration:
1. The Divine Mercy devotion will be celebrated at 3 pm today (Sunday 11 April) at the new home of St. Rafka Maronite Catholic Church, located at 1215 South Highway 14 in Greer. This is not far from GSP airport, directly on Highway 14 between I-85 and downtown Greer.
2. The Octave of Easter ends today, but the liturgical season of Easter runs until the Solemnity of Pentecost on Sunday 23 May. Let’s use these Easter days to follow the Lord Jesus ever more faithfully.
3. On this day in 1842, the first Bishop of Charleston died after serving 22 years as our founding bishop. John England was, despite his name, an Irishman, and he was born in Cork in 1786. He was consecrated the Bishop of Charleston in Cork in 1820 at the age of 34, and when he arrived for the first time in the United States, his new diocese included all of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. In 1826 John England became the first, and so far the only, Catholic bishop to address a joint session of the United States Congress, and in 1830 he founded the Sisters of Charity of Our Lady of Mercy, the diocesan congregation who provided Sisters for our parish school for seventy-five years. Bishop England founded the first Catholic newspaper in the country, the United States Catholic Miscellany, and he defended his flock from the hostility of the large Protestant majority among whom they lived. On this 168th anniversary of his death, let us give thanks to God for the life and ministry of this courageous shepherd, our founding bishop.
4. As all who follow the news in the mainstream media know, Pope Benedict XVI has spent the past two weeks at the center of a media maelstrom surrounding the Church’s handling of priests accused of sexually abusing minors. Most of the criticism directed at Pope Benedict personally is based on false and tendentious readings of the record, and the truth is that no bishop in recent history has been a more dedicated agent of reforming priestly life and ministry than Benedict XVI. In these difficult days of constant criticism, let us support the Holy Father with our prayers:
Heavenly Father, source of eternal life and truth, give to your shepherd Benedict a spirit of courage and right judgment, a spirit of knowledge and love. By governing with fidelity those entrusted to his care, may he, as successor to the Apostle Peter and Vicar of Christ, build your Church into a sacrament of unity, love, and peace for all the world. This we ask through Christ our Lord. Amen.