From the Pastor:    Our Lady of Good Help

       As I have been giving the highlights of my journey to the National Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help for a nice little retreat, I left off last week in Chicago. I failed to mention that before heading to that city, I had hoped to purchase a set of three beautiful old altars being salvaged from a closed church, but the spire behind the main altar turned out to be two feet too tall to fit in our church, so the search goes on. Though passing through Chicago, I didn’t want to take the time necessary for a meaningful stop at St. John Cantius, as much as I would have liked to. Neither did I visit any cemeteries to ask how the residents would be voting next year, although each time I passed by one, I prayed that those lying there could at least rest in peace outside of election seasons. No, when I left I was hurrying to get to the retreat center before it closed for the day, something which never actually happened anyway, because I misjudged the timing and wound up getting there too late. That was probably because I stopped at Rest Area 52. There was supposed to be some sort of mass storming of the area by crazy Farcebook people looking for aliens or something like that, but I didn’t see any fences or armed guards trying to keep anyone out. It was only after I got back home and back on a computer that I discovered that the aliens are in Rest Area 51, which is in another state. Looking back on it, I am skeptical that I was incorrect. All the people up there were driving the speed limit, whether on the highway or in the city, even though the limit in every city is only 25 mph, so it may be that they are all aliens, and are just hiding out in the open. Such strange behavior... By the time I reached Green Bay, which is a short drive from Champion, where Our Lady appeared to Sr. Adele Brise in 1859 (a year after She appeared to St. Bernadette in Lourdes), I had listened to 16 hours worth of Bishop Fulton Sheen tapes, prayed countless rosaries, celebrated Mass at and visited many different churches, and answered only a handful of phone calls, text messages and emails (replying while stopped, I might add), most of which required a simple, “I am on retreat. Please contact me again when I return.” Some of you asked me how I could withstand such a long, grueling road trip. This was blissful!
       The Shrine is nothing like Lourdes, which, though magnificent, is surrounded by shops and city and clutter. This one is out in the middle of nowhere and it takes quite good directions to find it. It is surrounded by cornfields and not much else. It was just a couple of acres of safety in the midst of fire in the past (all people, animals, and plants on the church property survived unscathed the 1871 Peshtigo fire, which was put out by miraculous rains on October 9, the anniversary of Our Lady’s apparition to Sr. Adele) and continues to be a place of spiritual safety to this day. The priests there are the Fathers of Mercy, and one of them even remembers meeting a couple of Epiphany parishioners when they were up there once! They just completed a large conference center (where they are hosting Scott Hahn later this month) at the front. There are a few small buildings, including a museum where you can find the history of the Apparition, a gift shop, and lunchroom, and, of course, a small church built on the site where Our Blessed Mother appeared and told the youthful Adele, “Teach them (the children) their catechism, how to sign themselves with the sign of the Cross, and how to approach the sacraments; that is what I wish you to do. Go and fear nothing. I will help you.” The rear acres of the property are manicured into a large grass park with two sets of Stations of the Cross, one straight down the middle (for those with mobility issues) and one more spread out, along with a Rosary walk, along the long outside path.
       I asked a few questions of the lady in the gift shop and soon was introduced to a man who, she assured me, “knows everything about the Shrine and won’t stop telling you stories until I come to rescue you.” She was right. For a good two hours or more this elderly gentleman sat and fascinated me with stories about his childhood visiting the Shrine and how his uncle was healed there. In a nutshell, his uncle was working on an engine when it fell on him, crushing one of his legs. The doctor saved it, but he was never able to walk without a pair of crutches again. But one day, while at the Shrine, (in the first part of last century) he threw down his crutches and declared that he had been healed. After years of not walking on his own, he insisted on walking back to Green Bay as a means of thanking Our Blessed Mother for this miracle. It took him seven hours and proved that he did not even experience any muscle atrophy after being crippled for so long. One of his crutches is still on display at the Shrine. His story is told in the movie at the museum and in the books about the Shrine, but I got to hear it in person. More to come next week.

With prayers for your holiness,
Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka

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From the Pastor:    Yes, I was on a Driving Retreat

       Evidently, some of you got a little worried about me a couple of weeks ago when I seemingly just disappeared. But the simple explanation is that I had a last-minute opportunity to take some time off and I took advantage of it! Fr. Vincent thought he might be able to spell me for a bit after his summer assignment was completed but couldn’t be sure until he returned. When he showed up one Saturday morning after the Mass, he gave me dates that he could take my Masses, starting with the next day’s 10:30 am and continuing for more than a week. I was not about to pass up this opportunity, so Sunday I celebrated the 7:30 am Mass and took off driving (with a CD of Pope John Paul II praying the Rosary in Latin plus 24 hours of talks by Bishop Fulton Sheen to help me make drive time retreat time) toward the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help in Wisconsin, which I wrote about last week. It really was that simple. The traffic was terrible. I didn’t have my phone set to GPS mode since I was planning on simply driving north on I-75 for the entire day, but after the second time I got stuck in traffic due to crashes ahead, I turned it on to see if it could plot an alternative route for me the next time. Over and over I heard, “Slowdown ahead. You are still on the fastest route.” Crash after crash after crash. Only once did I ever get re-routed around a major crash. I drove an hour or so down tiny, twisting roads through a beautiful part of Georgia to bypass a few miles of stopped traffic. At least I was moving and I enjoyed it enough that I later decided to stay off the interstate the whole way back down to Florida for a longer but much more interesting return trip.
       Early Monday I pulled up to St. Mary in Athens, Tennessee, and, after their morning NO Mass, asked if I could celebrate a private TLM. The pastor, it turns out, is a transplanted Florida boy who keeps up with many of the goings on in Florida Church circles, and he graciously welcomed me. (Yes, I had searched ahead of time for parishes along my route where the TLM was celebrated, though I had expected to get far past this one on Sunday!) After spending several hours, both in great conversation with the pastor and with Our Lord, I took off for the one and only stop I had planned (two days prior!) other than my destination. A childhood friend of mine, whom I have not seen in a number of years now, lives in Decatur, Indiana. I spent a couple of days with him and his wife and celebrated Mass at what, especially for a small town, is a very large and beautiful church, St. Mary of the Assumption. During my stay we also took a trip into Fort Wayne, searching for a small community of Franciscans. We found the church we were looking for and found a priest inside praying. He was from a local parish but said he stops by there regularly to spend time in prayer. He told us that the church had been purchased and was being restored by a lay group after it had been abandoned by the diocese and was about to be demolished. Their ministry is saving once-beautiful old churches. It was being set up in such a way as to accommodate the community of cloistered nuns who were now there. We never found any of the Franciscan brothers or priests and it wasn’t “visiting hours” for the nuns but it was a very worthwhile trip. There is, of course, much more to the story than what I can relay here.
       When I took my leave of my friends, I drove next through Chicago, where I stopped by the US Provincial Offices of the Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest, which is the order one of our seminarians, Joshua, belongs to. He, by the way, arrived Epiphany during my absence, as he had a few weeks to visit his family before heading back overseas for further studies. Canon Commins, who celebrated Latin Mass once at Epiphany when his family attended here (his father was working at Macdill AFB) before moving back to France, is assigned there but he wasn’t in the day I stopped by. But I was still warmly welcomed and got a tour of the place. I got to see the major restoration work being done to their huge, beautiful church whose roof and interior were completely destroyed by fire some years back. It was absolutely amazing. And, of course, everybody there knew Joshua, for he had been up there for his first year of seminary formation. I think I may have been given extra special attention just by throwing his name around! (You know Canon Commins? That’s nice. You were his parents’ pastor? That’s even better. You know Joshua Heiman? Why didn’t you say so? Come on in and stay a while!) That bodes well for our future priest!
       Somewhere in Chicago I got stuck at a toll plaza with a boom gate arm which wouldn’t raise up for me. The car in the lane next to me had the same issue but for half the time. Google maps timeline shows that it took 6 minutes for it to get raised, but it sure seemed like a lot longer. Anyway, there will be more next week. Stay tuned.

With prayers for your holiness,
Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka

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From the Pastor:    A Trip to the Heart Doctor

       A few months ago the priests of the diocese received word that the bishop had teamed up with a top-notch cardiologist to give us an opportunity for a full cardiac exam if we wished to take advantage of it. I ignored the invitation, as I am a male. An unmarried male. As in, a man without a wife to nag him into going to the doctor. My last “real” doctor, as in the one who gave me Tamiflu when I got the flu one time and who made sure I had antibiotics whenever my normally bad sinuses went into full-blown infectious assault, passed away five or six years ago. Other than some allergy relief medication and another dose of sinusitis repellant, which has been swiftly supplied by a doctor from the church pews, I haven’t seen much of a need to have anything checked out. Our Lady of Good Health takes care of me. But then the diocese sent a nurse, Pat Mullarkey, out to give us a sales pitch. She had the initials RN and BSN after her name. I know the “RN” stands for “Registered Nurse” and I assume the other initials stand for the mandatory training needed by any nurse before dealing with the likes of me. (Let it sink in, you’ll get it.) At her presentation, she mentioned that quite a number of priests had already gone through with the screening and a couple were found with unexpected, undiagnosed, but potentially serious heart conditions which necessitated immediate action.
       I signed up for a screening. I don’t know why, exactly. I always figure that I have to die of something sometime, so let nature take its course. Plus, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But I signed up. For four hours worth of tests. A list of do’s and don’ts was sent to me. No eating or drinking before the tests. No coffee from midnight. Early morning appointments were out of the question because of my Mass schedule. I couldn’t very well fast from Holy Communion, though, and still celebrate the two Masses of the morning. I got the OK to receive the Eucharist but was told no other food. No problem there, fasting comes with the job. But no coffee? That’s just cruel. I should have done this during Lent. A few days before my appointment, I was on the phone with an out-of-state cousin and she mentioned that her favorite priest had been out of action for a few months after an emergency heart operation. He never knew he had issues until his bishop asked his priests to get tested—wait, that sounds familiar—and he wound up going straight into surgery. I told her what I was about to do. “What if,” she asked, “the liberal bishops are doing this as cover to get rid of the conservative priests?” Dang. Why put that into my head? Like they could be so evil. It is to laugh. Ha ha...heh..um..gulp.
       The morning of the tests I was met at the doctor’s office by nurse Mullarkey. She was already there with one of the youngest priests of our diocese and he was sweating and breathing hard, having just come from one of his tests. Hmmm. I almost had a heart attack just pondering going through whatever it was that he just did. They took me to a little room where they checked vital signs and hooked up wires to my chest to see if I had a heart. Back to the waiting room. The nurse and other priest had disappeared. I was sitting there, confident that I was in great health. Pulse? Good. Blood pressure? Good. Weight? Just 18 inches too short. But then a man came out to tell me that I had to go get a CAT scan right away. “Where’s your nurse?” he asked as he lead me to the door. “Gone? Well, you have to go to that building right now,” he said, pointing across the parking lot, “even without her. Did you drive yourself here? You might want to take your car. We normally walk but you might want to drive...” He seemed afraid that I was going to collapse just walking across a parking lot. I somehow survived the journey, got the scan, and returned to the building without keeling over. As I walked back in, I spotted the nurse and young priest and went to join them. But before I could even get comfortable in the chair, a nurse came out beckoning me to come. “The doctor wants to go over the test results with you right away,” she called. Yikes! What in the world was wrong that he was already looking at them?
       I went in and the doctor introduced himself and as I shook his hand he said, “How did you pronounce your name? I didn’t quite catch it.” He was not expecting “Palka”. They had called the wrong priest. I was just the only one looking like a priest (the instructions said to dress comfortably, so I was wearing my cassock) but they really wanted the “incognito” priest. I don’t know how he fared for I was having other tests done when he got finished with the doctor, but eventually it was really my turn to see the results. I found out that, probably due to my obviously marvelous exercise regimen and carefully monitored diet (the cassock is heavy, not me!), my heart is in great shape and there is no plaque in my arteries. Whew! Just what I expected...

With prayers for your holiness,
Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka

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From the Pastor:    Father’s Day and Corpus Christi

       Although this is not a Catholic Feast Day, in the secular world we are celebrating a very important day. Father’s Day. Being a priest Father myself, I may be a bit biased, but I think that this is a great feast day! We have had our Father’s Day Mass cards available for the past month and I hope you have taken advantage of them, sending your father a loving note of prayer, something he certainly needs more than a new tie! At Dictionary.com there is a short story explaining the origins of Father’s Day. I think you might enjoy reading it.

The Origin (And Grammar) Of Father’s Day
       While Mother’s Day became an official holiday in 1914, Father’s Day took a little longer to be considered a national holiday. And its origin, sadly, lies in two, unrelated tragic events. How did Father’s Day begin? About six months after the Monongah mining disaster of 1907, in which the small West Virginia town lost over 350 men, Grace Golden Clayton organized an event to honor the fathers killed in the catastrophe—including her own. On the other side of the country, Sondra Smart Dodd, whose mother died in childbirth, had a similar father-related thought. Inspired by a Mother’s Day sermon she attended in 1909, Dodd believed there should be a corresponding holiday to celebrate fathers. After all, she and her five siblings had been raised by her father and Civil War veteran, William Jackson Smart. Dodd successfully gained support for her idea, and the first Father’s Day was celebrated by Washington State in 1910 in June, the month of her father’s birthday. Though President Calvin Coolidge publicly supported the holiday in 1924 and President Lyndon B. Johnson issued a proclamation naming the third Sunday in June Father’s Day, it wasn’t until 1972 that President Richard Nixon officially signed Father’s Day as a permanent, national holiday into law.
       Why is the apostrophe in Father’s Day singular? People often wonder why Father’s Day has an apostrophe before the S and not after. We’re celebrating all fathers on this day … not just one, right? The quick answer is that Mother’s Day set a precedent on this fuzzy grammatical issue of apostrophe placement. With the apostrophe before the S, Father’s Day “belongs” to each individual father. If the apostrophe fell after the S, the meaning slightly changes. That would be a holiday “belonging” to fathers as a collective, implying we’re prioritizing honoring all fathers on the occasion over our own father. The holiday April Fools’ Day, for example, takes the possessive plural (fools’) rather than the singular (fool’s). Perhaps this is because the individual fool doesn’t matter here in the way that each individual father matters to his children.

       With that in mind, our prayers go out to all of our fathers, individually and as a group. From Sunday through the rest of the month we will be praying for all fathers, especially those whose names you have written and have been placed next to the tabernacle. May God give each of them whatever graces and blessings he needs to fulfill his role and bring his family to Heaven!
       In the Church later this week we are celebrating a very special feast, too. Corpus Christi is this Thursday. For many, many, many decades (since an indult dated November 25, 1885) the United States has had the exceptional mandate to celebrate this feast of the Body of Christ on the proper Thursday (the Thursday following Trinity Sunday) as well as celebrating it again on the following Sunday as an external solemnity, at least at the main Mass. We will be doing that once again this year but with the added solemnity of having a Solemn High Mass at 10:30 am next Sunday, followed by a procession with the Blessed Sacrament. Corpus Christi commemorates the Institution of the Holy Eucharist. A young Belgium religious Sister named Juliana (now Saint Juliana, + 1258), who had a great love of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, was the one most influential in getting this feast day started. Although there was already a feast day commemorating the Institution of the Eucharist and the Priesthood (Holy Thursday or Maundy Thursday), on that day the immanent Passion of Our Lord seemed to overshadow His giving of Himself in the Eucharist, so the new feast of Corpus Christi was not seen as “competition” in any way. Of course, there is a whole story that goes along with the eventual proclamation of Corpus Christi as a universal feast day. The story began with a German priest who doubted that Jesus was actually present in the Eucharist and so Our Lord revealed the Truth to him through a Eucharistic miracle as he was celebrating Mass. The blood-stained corporal and the Sacred Host are still on display in the cathedral of Orvieto, Italy.
       So here we have two feasts, one secular and one of the Faith, in which fathers (even a not so faithful one) play an important role. The role of fathers in the family and in the Priesthood has been severely denigrated in our society. But in times when God and His designs are mocked and/or despised, the greatest of Saints rise up. The next great Saint, believe it or not, could be the one who raised you or married you. Pray for him! While you are at it, please pray for all fathers, whether they obtained their fatherhood through biology, adoption, spiritual relations, or the Sacrament of Holy Orders. Fathers are essential, as we see most clearly in the Person of God the Father, the perfect pattern for all fathers.

With prayers for your holiness,
Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka

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From the Pastor:    Congraduations! Congratulations Graduates!

       “The Epiphany Council of Catholic Women would like to acknowledge and celebrate your college or high school graduate on June 9th after each Mass. Please let us know your student’s name if you would like them included.” That preceding note went out to all of our parishioners who have signed up for our parish “Flocknote” communications system a couple of weeks ago. (Don’t know what “Flocknote” is? More will follow at the end of this article.) Though there may be more graduates out there of whom we are currently unaware, the Women were able to ascertain that at least 9 of our youth graduated high school this year and one graduated college. Though a simple acknowledgment in the bulletin seems hardly a big thing, it is backed up by a “real” celebration in the social hall after Sunday Masses this weekend! The ECCW is supplying caviar and champagne, hosting hot air balloon rides, passing out full academic scholarships, and is even giving away free unicorn ponies to all who stay. Oh, wait, they had to cancel those things due to the weather. Or something like that. Just stop by after Mass and congratulate any grads who are there while you get a bit of cake and punch to eat and drink. Obviously, not everyone attends each Mass and the college grad might not even be home yet, but give your best advice, your heartiest felicitations or even your business card to those whom you meet. Graduating from high school we have, in some ingeniously cryptic order, Catherine Beard, Irene Brewster, Matthew Cantu, Maximillian D'Water, Maria Hernandez, Maddie Hyatt, Michaela Salcido, Anthony Stanley, and Eric Zayricki. Graduating Cum Laude from Franciscan University of Steubenville with her bachelor’s degree is Claire Rose Tomeny. If there are any more out there, let us know that day!
       Since most of those listed above are graduating from high school, I figured that I would reminisce a bit about the years, back in the Stone Age, when I was in high school. There are things which I remember fondly, such as sports and lunch, and there are people whom I truly loved being around or, though I would never dare say it back then, even loved being taught by. The science classes were the most challenging. Memorizing the periodic table in chemistry class seemed nearly impossible for this freshman, which now seems silly since there were only three elements in the periodic table at that time: water, air and wood. I understand that it has expanded a little since then. In my human physiology class we had to memorize all of the parts of the body. Thankfully, we thought there was only one long, strangely formed bone called the skeleton but the body’s “outer covering” had to be studied based on both size and sex. We learned that the girls were covered with maximus bodacious beauteous (my first introduction to Latin) and, after figuring that part out, none of us boys cared about the rest. Oh, and we also had to study the inner organs but they were simply named by general labels of “yuck” or “icky”. But overall, even though I never would have thought it, let alone admitted, it, high school was a good 6 years of my life.
       But enough about me. This is about our kids. They had to learn all that I did plus so much more. So let’s give them a big hand, and let’s encourage them to excel far beyond what any of us have accomplished in worldly and, most importantly, in Godly things.


       [The following is an important announcement aimed at those of you who don’t know what Flocknote is. It is a system of communicating among parishioners via email or cell phone text messages. We have been using it for quite some time now and I have gotten some good feedback about it. While signing up for our parish Flocknote you get to choose which parish groups you wish to receive notes from. For instance, if you belong to the He-Man Woman Haters Club you can sign up for that group’s reminders of upcoming meetings without having to also receive all messages meant only for the Knights of Columbus. You can choose to receive messages from both of those groups, yet still remain blissfully unaware of the messages being sent to the Schola if those would be of no interest to you. Each person can customize his/her own preferred method of receiving messages, so that if you don’t text, you can get them via email. Sorry, there is no option for carrier pigeon or snail mail. I still don’t know exactly how it works but every once in a while I remember to use it to send out reminders of upcoming meetings. I might send out messages to the Holy League, for instance, via email a day early and via text on the day of our meeting. Recently I sent out a general message asking for a ride for a visitor who wanted to attend Sunday Mass but was in Pinellas County without transportation. We got him a ride because of this message service. Sign up by going to Flocknote.com and hitting the “Get Started Free” button. Then click on “My church is already using Flocknote.” Enter our zip code (33610) in the search box and Epiphany of Our Lord will appear as one of the options. Click it and follow the sign up instructions by adding your name, email, and cell phone number and you should be able to then sign up for individual groups’ messages. Pretty nifty!]

With prayers for your holiness,
Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka

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From the Pastor:    Novena to the Holy Ghost

      Last Thursday we celebrated (according to the 1962 Traditional Latin Mass calendar) the Ascension of Our Lord. According to the revised and re-revised Novus Ordo calendar, that feast is celebrated Saturday evening and Sunday of this current weekend. During the days after Our Lord ascended into Heaven and before He sent the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles and others in the Upper Room, they remained in prayer, waiting and watching for that promised Paraclete. It is from these nine days of prayer, from the Friday after the Ascension to the Saturday Vigil of Pentecost, that we get our tradition of praying novenas (see Acts 1:6-14). I want to encourage all of you to seriously pray as much of a novena to the Holy Ghost as you possibly can. Not all of you can time-travel back a couple of days (the Novus Ordo switch of the Ascension shortened up the days between that feast and Pentecost) so as to start it on the traditional day, but don’t let that stop you from starting today. You can always “double up” on a couple of days along the way and pray what you missed. So just start today if you haven’t already begun, and don’t ignore the whole prayerful period just because you forgot or didn’t realize that it already started. Novenas are powerful prayers and by praying this one you will certainly be more prepared for God to work on and through you at Pentecost than if you just let it slide this year! According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the novena made prior to Pentecost is offered for the reconciliation of non-Catholics. That’s a worthy and needed intention! At the first Catholic Pentecost, the Holy Ghost gave the Apostles the gifts necessary to go into the whole world and bring all people of good will into the one true Church, which is necessary for salvation and founded by Jesus Christ, namely, the Catholic Church. Perhaps He will continue to bestow such graces upon all who pray this novena that they (you), too, may bring others into His Church (or back to His Church), with each receiving special assistance in the form of the various Gifts of the Holy Ghost to do so according to his/her state of life.
      There are many novenas to the Holy Ghost which are easily enough found in good Catholic books. They can also readily be found online. One particular one which I have promoted in years past can be found on EWTN’s website and in a 1948 book titled simply, “Novena to the Holy Ghost” and republished by Tan Books in 2010. It gives no specific author but rather simply credits “Holy Ghost Fathers”. (This religious congregation is also known as the Spiritans and its priests have the initials C.S.Sp after their name.) This novena is based on the seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost, which are received at Confirmation (I will give more information on these in the following paragraph). There is another novena which shows up high in my search results that is based instead on some of the 12 Fruits of the Holy Spirit (some recent writings like this one only list 9). The Gifts, by the way, are given so that one can produce the Fruit, so the two groups are very obviously necessarily related to each other. Just to be clear, there is no “official” novena for these days, since novenas are not considered part of the liturgy of the Church. That is, they are encouraged, even to the point of many receiving approbation for indulgences, but they are generally done “in private”, even if done in groups at the parish and even if led by a priest, rather than being found in the official liturgical books with particular rubrics to follow, vestments to be worn, and other specific rules to be observed. So go search for one that seems “doable” to you and pray it!
      Once you get to searching, you will inevitably find more than you were looking for. As an example, on the EWTN page I found an article by Fr. William G. Most with this little nugget (and lots of good things that followed, too!): We turn now to the Seven Gifts of the sanctifying category. They are: wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel, fortitude, piety and fear of the Lord. They each perfect certain basic virtues. Four of them perfect the intellectual virtues. Understanding gives an intuitive penetration into truth. Wisdom perfects charity, in order to judge divine things. Knowledge perfects the virtue of hope. The gift of counsel perfects prudence. The other three gifts perfect virtues of the will and appetites. The gift of piety perfects justice in giving to others that which is their due. This is especially true of giving God what is His due. Fortitude perfects the virtue of fortitude, in facing dangers. Fear of the Lord perfects temperance in controlling disordered appetites. I very much like this grouping and simple explanation of the Gifts. Has it occurred to you that it is essential to know what any particular gift is used for in order for it to be useful, appreciated, and cherished? Have you ever, for instance, opened a Christmas present from, say, Aunt Irma, and said, “What the heck is this?” That gift and the gift giver will be mocked even if it is truly a splendid gift unless its purpose is understood. Too often we do that very thing with God’s Gifts! Learn what purpose they have so that you can properly use them and love more fully Him Who gave them!

With prayers for your holiness,
Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka

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From the Pastor    Traditional Ordination Rite Continued

      Last weekend I wrote a little about priest ordinations (congratulations to the newly ordained Fathers Anthony Astrab, Ralph D’Elia and Joshua Hare!) and reproduced a small bit of the traditional Rite of Ordination (as seen fully at SanctaMissa.org). That section showed the bishop asking the congregation their opinion on the candidates for Holy Orders and his exhortation to the men about to be ordained. This week I want to show you a little bit more about the essential parts of the traditional Ordination Rite. It shows how the conferral of this particular sacrament, rather than either taking place outside of Mass (as is done with traditional marriages and confirmations) or being an interruption of the Mass (like a homily officially is), instead is fully incorporated into the Mass. It becomes an integral part of the Mass, or, perhaps, the Mass becomes an integral part of the Ordination Rite. The section of the Mass shown below follows the “laying on of hands” (which is the “matter” of the sacrament) as the Bishop prays over each man and then continues the Mass. This is the Preface of the Mass and, as you will see in the Ritual’s commentary notes in the brackets and in the headings, it is the “form” of the sacrament. (Each sacrament has its proper Matter, Form, and Intention, all of which are essential for validity.)

The Solemn Prayer and Form of the Sacrament
{This very beautiful prayer, also called the consecratory preface, is the actual form of the sacrament, and in early times the Roman rite for ordination had nothing more than a prayer or prayers of this kind, along with the imposition of hands. A theology of the sacrament could quite easily be constructed on this prayer. In brief, it asks for God's grace, for He is the source of all honors and dignities, as also of all growth and order. It states the principle that God's loving providence guides His rational creatures through stages of gradual progress and perfection. It points out how this principle operated in the Old Testament, in God's choosing Moses and the seventy elders to assist Him; and in the New, in Christ's choosing the apostles and their successors to carry out the ministry of His Church. Then follows a petition that the bishop may have helpers in the men being ordained, who will prove themselves to be elders in the best sense of the term. Lastly the Holy Spirit and His gifts are invoked on the candidates, that they be raised to the priesthood and be filled with the holiness which should characterize this office.}

The bishop continues with the consecratory preface:
It is indeed fitting and right, praiseworthy and salutary that we should always and everywhere give thanks to you, O holy Lord, almighty Father, everlasting God, the source of all honors and the dispenser of all dignities. Through you all things make progress and receive their permanence. In accord with your wise designs all rational creatures advance to a higher excellence. And in accord with this same principle the various grades of priests and the offices of levites, instituted for sacred functions, grew and developed. For after appointing chief priests to rule the people, you selected men of lesser degree and second rank to be their associates and their helpers. Thus in the desert you propagated Moses' spirit in the hearts of seventy judicious men, with whose help he was enabled to govern easily the countless multitude. Thus too you imbued Eleazar and Ithamar, the sons of Aaron, with the abundant graces of their father, in order to assure a sufficient number of priests for the offering of saving sacrifices and the performance of the more common sacred rites. By the same providence, O Lord, you gave the apostles of your Son associate teachers of the faith, and by their help as preachers of a second rank the apostles made their voice heard to the ends of the earth. Therefore, we beg you, Lord, to support us in our weakness with similar helpers, for inasmuch as we are weaker, so much the more we stand in need of them.

The Essential Form
At this point the bishop interrupts the chant and recites the following words, which constitute the essential form of the sacrament:
Almighty Father, we pray that you bestow on these servants of yours the dignity of the priesthood. Renew in their hearts the spirit of holiness, so that they may be steadfast in this second degree of the priestly office received from you, O God, and by their own lives suggest a rule of life to others.

Here the bishop resumes the chant of the rest of the preface:
May they be prudent fellow-workers in our ministry. May they shine in all the virtues, so that they will be able to give a good account of the stewardship entrusted to them, and finally attain the reward of everlasting blessedness.



With prayers for your holiness,
Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka

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From the Pastor    Traditional Ordination Rite

      Saturday, May 18, Bishop Gregory Parkes ordained three men to the Priesthood (assuming everything went as planned, since this was written before that date!) Last week at Mass I encouraged all of you to attend, especially if you have never been to an ordination before. I mentioned that I have never been to an ordination in the older Rite and hope to see it happen in this diocese one day. That got me thinking, so I later went online to check out the differences between the current and the 1962 rituals. There are many! Though I cannot reproduce all of it here, below is a quite interesting address and exhortation near the beginning of the older ceremony. It comes from SanctaMissa.org if you wish to read the whole ritual.
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The bishop addresses the clergy and the people as follows:
      My dear brethren, since the captain of a ship and its passengers alike have reason to feel safe or else in danger on a voyage, they ought to be of one mind in their common interests. Not without reason, then, have the fathers decreed that the people too should be consulted in the choice of those who are to be raised to the ministry of the altar.
      For sometimes it happens that one or another person has knowledge about the life and conduct of a candidate that is not generally known. And the people will necessarily be more inclined to be loyal to a priest if they have given consent to his ordination.
      As far as I can judge, the conduct of these deacons, who with God's help are to be ordained to the priesthood, is commendable and is pleasing to God. In my opinion, then, they are deserving of being promoted to a higher honor in the Church. Yet it is well to consult the people as a whole, rather than to rely on one or a few, whose approval might be a consequence of partiality or of misjudgment.
      Be perfectly free, then, to say what you know about the conduct and character of the candidates and what you think of their fitness. But let your approval of their elevation to the priesthood be based more on their merits than on your own affection for them. Consequently, if anyone has anything against them, let him for God's honor and in God's name come forward and sincerely speak his mind. Only let him remember his own state.

      After a brief pause the bishop continues, addressing himself now in exhortation to the candidates:
      My dear sons, who are about to be consecrated to the office of the priesthood, endeavor to receive that office worthily, and once ordained, strive to discharge it in a praiseworthy manner. A priest's duties are to offer sacrifice, to bless, to govern, to preach, and to baptize. So high a dignity should be approached with great awe, and care must be taken that those chosen for it are recommended by eminent wisdom, upright character, and a long-standing virtuous life.
      Thus it was that when the Lord commanded Moses to choose as his helpers seventy men from the whole tribe of Israel, to whom He would impart the gifts of the Holy Spirit, He said to him: "Choose the ones whom you know to be elders of the people" (Num 11.16). It is you yourselves who are prefigured in these seventy elders, if now, by the help of the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit, you are faithful to the Ten Commandments, and display soundness and maturity in knowledge and in action.
      Under the same kind of sign and figure, our Lord, in the New Law, chose the seventy-two disciples, and sent them before Him two by two to preach. Thus He taught us both by word and by deed that the ministers of His Church should be perfect both in faith and in works; in other words, that their lives should be founded on the twofold love of God and of neighbor. Strive, then, to be such, that by God's grace you may be worthy of being chosen to assist Moses and the twelve apostles, that is, the Catholic bishops who are prefigured by Moses and the apostles. Then indeed is Holy Church surrounded, adorned, and ruled by a wonderful variety of ministers, when from her ranks are consecrated bishops, and others of lesser orders, priests, deacons, and subdeacons, each of a different dignity, yet comprising the many members of the one body of Christ.
      Therefore, my dear sons, chosen as you are by the judgment of our brethren to be consecrated as our helpers, keep yourselves blameless in a life of chastity and sanctity. Be well aware of the sacredness of your duties. Be holy as you deal with holy things. When you celebrate the mystery of the Lord's death, see to it that by mortifying your bodies you rid yourselves of all vice and concupiscence. Let the doctrine you expound be spiritual medicine for the people of God. Let the fragrance of your lives be the delight of Christ's Church, that by your preaching and example you help to build up the edifice which is the family of God. May it never come about that we, for promoting you to so great an office, or you, for taking it on yourselves, should deserve the Lord's condemnation; but rather may we merit a reward from Him. So let it be by His grace.

With prayers for your holiness,
Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka

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From the Pastor:    Pope? Hello? Can You Hear Me Now?

      “Can you hear me now,” for those of you too young to remember when there was bad cell phone reception everywhere, was a tagline from a large wireless phone company claiming that they had better reception than all of their competitors. For those of us who grew up with landlines, which always sounded great and always worked, even when the electricity went out, the terrible reception and constant dropped calls of wireless phones was truly aggravating. Many people simply refused to use the new technology because even at its best it was subpar compared to what they were used to. Until pay phones disappeared, only those who favored innovation over quality used cell phones. Now we have an “innovating” Pope (unless you follow the quite convincing arguments of those who believe that Pope Benedict XVI did not validly resign; or that the St. Galen Mafia, including Bergoglio, excommunicated themselves, invalidating the conclave) who is very much like the then-new wireless phone service. Whenever he teaches in an incoherent or seemingly (at least) anti-Catholic way, real Catholics, those who know the clarity and soundness of the past Catholic teachings and the clarity with which (most) past Popes spoke, are as aggravated at him as they ever were at dropped calls and poor reception. And, just like the supposed “customer service” of the phone companies, where you would call and be put on hold for an hour only to be cut off just as a real person came on the line, so it is with him whenever a faithful Catholic asks for clarification. He refuses to clarify. He responds in a very arrogant and childish way through snide remarks and innuendos in his homilies and interviews, never naming names but making it crystal clear who he means as he, in a roundabout way, calls his “customers” vile names. Just as the phone companies’ lack of service while calling it service discourages its unhappy customers from seeking redress, so with the Pope’s “humble” service. It not only is a slap in the face to those whom he should most wish to assuage as to his Catholicity, but it also is a very purposeful message to others with questions that they will be treated with just the same contempt if they dare ask.
      “Can you hear me now?” A group of faithful Cardinals asked for clarification on not-unimportant matters of Faith and Morals 964 days ago. They were ridiculed, lambasted, demoted, and, finally, ignored. Then a larger group of non-Cardinal scholars asked even more questions. “Please,” they begged (I paraphrase), “clarify that you hold the Catholic position on Faith and Morals. Because you refuse to respond to charitable requests for clarity people no longer believe that the press is misquoting you or that radicals within the Curia are putting out messages contrary to your own beliefs. You refuse to repudiate statements against the Faith which are attributed to you. Your pontificate makes nonsense of two interchangeable and often-used rhetorical questions, ‘Does a bear ***t in the woods?’ and ‘Is the Pope Catholic?’” Silence. Most recently another scholarly group stuck their necks out and, through an Open Letter, asked the bishops of the world to either correct the Pope or declare that he, as a heretic, has removed himself from the Chair of Peter. What has been the response from the Vatican? Silence. What has been the response from the Bishops? Silence. What are Catholics to think? A lack of clarity, a lack of interest in proclaiming the Catholic Faith after making proclamations that seem to go against that very Faith which the Pope is bound to uphold and protect, points to one very obvious answer, one which no Catholic ever wants to even imagine could be true: That the Pope is not Catholic. That the Pope does not believe what the Catholic Church professes to be True. That bears are potty trained.
      Louie Verrecchio and Jimmy Akin, two reputable Catholics who often have very different ideas on Catholic teachings which involve prudential judgment, have had the best intellectual exchange of all of the commentaries I have read regarding the aforementioned Open Letter (search May 3-6, so far). Jimmy pointed out that “heresy” has a new, very narrow, definition as of the new (1983) Code of Canon Law, and that the Open Letter writers seem to have mistakenly used the older definition, nullifying their accusations. Louie responded that the disciplinary consequence for one guilty of these accusations, even if it meets only the old definition of heresy and not the newer one, is exactly the same: that the Pope (unless he clarifies that he does not actually believe and teach what he has professed and taught) has removed himself from the Faith and is no longer the Pope.
      Those who are outside of the Faith or with poor Catholic formation have no problem accepting a “heretical” Pope, for they don’t believe in the Church as Church or in Her moral teachings as the unchangeable teachings of God. For them, to proclaim that they like what Francis is doing is like having and showing off a new piece of technology, a new toy meant to impress others, even if it is worthless or dangerous. They don’t know or care what a “good” Pope is, or what his function is, or how a bad one can be deadly to countless souls.
      Please, Bishops and Pope! Proclaim that there is only one true God, only one true Church, only one sure means of Salvation! You either believe it or not. Silence in these matters is not acceptable, honorable, or moral.

With prayers for your holiness,
Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka

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From the Pastor: The Sounds of Life!


      Last Sunday at the 10:30 Mass we had a group of children who made their First Holy Communion. It was a glorious day! I don’t know about you, but seeing the children so excited about receiving Our Lord in Holy Communion is always a delightful reminder to me that I should be that excited every time I receive as well. I love that day. But this particular day brought about another delight to me that some of you might not have experienced quite the same way as I did. Most of the time I can pretty much tune out all of the noise going on behind me (thank you, Holy Mother Church, for ad orientem Mass!) such that even if I hear things I don’t pay attention to it. But this last Sunday was different. I don’t know if there were more children than usual or if they were louder than normal but I noticed them and was filled with joy. You see, I had just been talking with a priest about the way other priests and bishops see the Tridentine Mass and those who attend. I remember that even Bishop Parkes was in disbelief when he first came to this diocese and I told him that we had more people under 50 than over 70! The escalating trend is that the young Catholics leave the Church (not just their parish) in their teenage years and never return. Catholic schools which used to be teeming with kids close due to lack of enrollment. Baptisms, confirmations, and weddings are outnumbered by funerals. Yet bishops and priests whose parishes typically evidence such dreadful statistics, where young Catholics are scarce and where families with multiple children are a rarity, always assume that Traditional Latin Masses (and especially Traditional Latin Mass parishes) will have even fewer young Catholics and certainly will have no families with small children. Hahahahaha!
      There was one particularly noticeable young child last week. I don’t remember what she was screaming over and over but she must have been quite a handful for her mom and dad. I cannot imagine what they were thinking as she remained insistently defiant of something. Perhaps they were embarrassed. Maybe they were able to ignore her. But I can tell you with absolute certainty that that small child was the source of prayerful joy to a huge number of other parents, as each one silently praised God that it wasn’t their kid this time! Such is life at Epiphany! I can imagine that at many other parishes a mother with a child making such a “joyful noise unto the Lord” would have been scowled at. Here, though I didn’t see what was going on because only teachers have eyes in the back of their heads, I can imagine that other adults were coming to the rescue, maybe helping with the other children (assuming the family had multiple kids, which is a pretty good bet) or at least giving signs of encouragement and understanding. There is a special bond, maybe born of experience, that is shared among parents of multiple children that radiates love to even the (can I say this word?) spinsters and crotchety old priests so that nobody gets too upset even when one crying baby sets off the rest of the infants like a nighttime train setting off every car alarm at the apartments next door.
      Anyway, common sense shows that crying babies, defiant two-year-olds, eager First Holy Communion kids, inquisitive teens, parents striving to raise Saints, and wise and experienced elders who keep alive the traditional customs of the Catholic Faith all point to a healthy parish. Not that I am dissing old people, but a look at what should be normal for Catholic parishes shows that we should have fewer elderly than young. Always. Why? Mom and Dad, two people, have 8-12 kids. They grow up. Half become either priests or nuns. The others marry and have 8-12 kids each. How many old people are at that parish compared to the young in just three generations? The two original parents are now the elderly ones, the grandparents. The priests and nuns are obviously gone so the second generation has 4-6 adults, but each of them is married, bringing the number back to 8-12, yet half of them moved to their in-laws’ parish, for a final count of only 4-6 middle aged parishioners (which is still 2 to 6 times larger than the first generation). Of course, they have begotten 16-36 children who all attend the parish where grandma and grandpa are, making this group 4 to 6 times larger than their parents’ generation and 8 to 12 times greater than the oldest generation! If nobody died and none of the original kids entered Religious life or moved but rather all got married and raised Catholic families, the numbers would be an astounding 2 in generation one, 16-24 in generation two, and 64-144 in the third generation all at the same parish! Now multiply that times the number of families in the parish and wait for your head to explode! Numbers tell the story. It should be the normal, faithful, Catholic story of a flourishing parish. Anytime the older generations outnumber the younger ones, something is dreadfully wrong, whether it is due to a dead Faith, or a natural catastrophe, or destruction of a generation through war, and the parish will die. Which is more likely to be the parish with the largest percentage of youth today? The Traditional Latin Mass parish, of course. So let us celebrate even the noisy kids!


With prayers for your holiness,
Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka

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From the Pastor:    First Holy Communion and Latin Leonine Prayers

      At the Sunday 10:30 Mass a number of children from Epiphany, after what must seem like a lifetime of preparation and waiting, will receive their First Holy Communion. Please be sure to offer a prayer for them and, if you get a chance, congratulate them on what should be a most memorable day, the day they first receive Jesus Christ in the Eucharist!
      After the 8:00 am daily Masses this week I introduced the people to the Latin, rather than the English, Leonine Prayers, which are the ones said after each Low Mass. According to Wikipedia, “The Leonine Prayers are a set of prayers that from 1884 to early 1965 were prescribed for recitation by the priest and the people after Low Mass, but not as part of Mass itself. Hence they were commonly called Prayers after Mass.[1][2] The name "Leonine" derived from the fact that they were initially introduced by Pope Leo XIII. They were slightly modified under Pope Pius X.
      The intention for which the prayers were offered changed over time. Originally they were offered for the defence of the temporal sovereignty of the Holy See. After this problem was settled with the Lateran Treaty of 1929, Pope Pius XI ordered them to be said for the restoration to the people of Russia of tranquillity and freedom to profess the Catholic faith. This gave rise to the unofficial use of the name "Prayers for the Conversion of Russia" for the prayers.[3][4]
      The final form of the Leonine Prayers consisted of three Ave Marias, a Salve Regina followed by a versicle and response, a prayer for the conversion of sinners and the liberty and exaltation of the Catholic Church, and a prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel. Pope Pius X permitted the addition of the invocation "Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us", repeated three times.
      The Holy See's 26 September 1964 Inter Oecumenici which came into force on 7 March 1965, simply declared: "The Leonine Prayers are suppressed." However, many celebrations of Mass in the 1962 form are still followed by the same prayers with some discussion surrounding the intention for which they are offered.”
      A number of people expressed interest in getting a copy of those Latin prayers so that they could practice saying them and/or memorizing them at home. Here they are. Feel free to cut them out and hang them on your refrigerator, or stick them in your prayer book, or place them wherever you might find them most useful.

Prayers after Low Mass (Oratio Leonis XIII)

(3X) Priest: Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum, benedicta tu in mulieribus et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus.
All: Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatóribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.

All: Salve Regína, Mater misericórdiae, vita, dulcédo, et spes nostra, salve. Ad te clamámus, éxsules filii Evae. Ad te suspirámus geméntes et flentes in hac lacrymárum valle. Eia ergo, Advocáta nostra, illos tuos misericórdes óculos ad nos convérte. Et Iesum, benedíctum fructum ventris tui, nobis, post hoc exílium, osténde. O clemens, o pia, o dulcis Virgo María.
Priest: Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei Genitrix.
All: Ut dígni efficiámur promissiónibus Christi.

Priest: Orémus. Deus, refúgium nostrum et virtus, populum ad te clamantem propitius respice; et intercedente gloriosa, et immaculata Virgine Dei Genitrice Maria, cum beato Ioseph, eius Sponso, ac beatis Apostolis tuis Petro et Paulo, et omnibus Sanctis, quas pro conversione peccatorum, pro libertate et exaltatione sanctae Matris Ecclesiae, preces effundimus, misericors et benignus exaudi. Per eundem Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

All: Sáncte Míchaël Archángele, defénde nos in proélio, cóntra nequítiam et insídias diáboli ésto præsídium. Ímperet ílli Déus, súpplices deprecámur: tuque, Prínceps milítiæ Cæléstis, sátanam aliósque spíritus malígnos, qui ad perditiónem animárum pervagántur in múndo, divína virtúte, in inférnum detrúde. Ámen.

(3X) Priest: Cor Iesu sacratissimum.
All: Miserére nobis.

      As a final note, please pray for the people who attend the Traditional Latin Mass at the Cathedral of St. Jude the Apostle in St. Petersburg. They are currently looking for one or more priests to celebrate Mass for them on a weekly basis.

With prayers for your holiness,
Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka

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From the Pastor:    He Is Risen But She Isn’t Doing So Well

      Happy Easter, everyone! After a late Lent, it is finally time to celebrate Jesus’ Resurrection. He conquered death for us, something impossible for us to do without Him, as much as we try. When God created us, He gave us life. When we abandoned Him through sin, we chose death. But then we decided that we didn’t like death too much so we have been trying, unsuccessfully, to discover ways of living forever. Most of the time these attempts are done with God purposefully excluded from the equation. We have tried X + Y = eternal life; X - Y = eternal life; (X + 2√Y) / 3(A - B)⁵ = eternal life; (and every other equation we could find. X is our mortal life as we already have it. Y could be “diet” as in “add this food to your diet and you will live forever!” or “Don’t eat this food group and you will remain always young!” Y and the other variables could also be the Fountain of Youth, exercise, medicine, yoga, surgery, genetic manipulation, or any other number of supposed “cures” for death. About the only variable which cannot be added (and must be immediately subtracted should some dumb ox dare to mention it) is union with the one, true God. Oh, how foolish and stubborn we are!
      The Catholic Church teaches and we must be absolutely sure of this: the answer (eternal life) will be achieved with or without God on the X side of the equation. If achieved with Him, it will be wonderful beyond our wildest imagination. If achieved without Him, it will be more dreadful than our worst nightmare. Sure, the Church never put this teaching quite like I just did. She teaches with much more eloquence, as in the following: “God created us to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him forever in the next.” “Why,” you might ask, “is it necessary to know God?” A fine answer would be: “It is necessary to know God because without knowing Him we cannot love Him; and without loving Him we cannot be saved. We should know Him because He is infinitely true; love Him because He is infinitely beautiful; and serve Him because He is infinitely good.” Yes, Holy Mother Church teaches in just such a succinct and beautiful way in the Baltimore Catechism #3, questions 150 and 151.
      What non-believers fail to understand is that God created us to be immortal so we are all assured of eternal life! Yes, we see death all around us and throughout history. We are not blind to that reality. Those who reject Divine Revelation chalk up death to purely natural causes. When the body is dead, the person is dead as far as they are concerned. Catholics, on the other hand, know that bodily death comes about due to sin rather than nature. We also know that the human soul is immortal and survives the death of the body. Furthermore, we know that, as happened with Our Lord’s previously dead body on Easter Sunday, all the human corpses, no matter their state of decomposition or even complete disintegration with a dispersed scattering of minute particles, will rise again at the Second Coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, we all will rise again, body and soul, complete human beings. Some, the Saints, will rise glorified. Most, the damned, will rise hideous. Glorified bodies will share 5 qualities (BC #3, Q. 409). “1. Brilliancy, by which it gives forth light; 2. Agility, by which it moves from place to place as rapidly as an angel; 3. Subtility, by which material things cannot shut it out; 4. Impassibility, by which it is made incapable of suffering.” Can you imagine? Wow! In contrast, those who die separated from God will live eternally separated from Him. While in this world they might have been able to convince themselves that they didn’t need Him for happiness, Judgment Day will clarify what they have willingly and knowingly (even if only through culpable ignorance) given up. “The damned will suffer in both mind and body, because both mind and body had a share in their sins. The mind suffers the ‘pain of loss’ in which it is tortured by the thought of having lost God forever, and the body suffers the ‘pain of sense’ by which it is tortured in all its members and senses” (BC #3, Q. 1380). So everyone has eternal life, but each has a choice of spending it in Heaven or in Hell. Choose wisely!
      I leave you now with this. The “She” who isn’t doing so well as stated in the title of this article is Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Unlike humans, who will live forever, buildings, even Churches, have limited lives. But like humans, they can sometimes be good and sometimes be bad, in a manner of speaking. She was built some 800 years ago and was beautiful beyond compare at that time. She was later desecrated in the 1790’s during the French Revolution and turned into the “Temple of Reason” as paganism sought to destroy Catholicism in a so-called “Enlightenment.” She survived and later was rebuilt in the mid 19th century to be even more magnificent than before. But the Faith was never restored to the country. And now the State-owned building (She doesn’t belong to the Church!) will be rebuilt in line with modern French values, according to a report from the Macron government. A Catholic/Muslim/”Nones”/Secular-humanist/Pagan hybrid? Please pray that True Faith triumphs!

With prayers for your holiness,
Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka

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From the Pastor:    Holy Week

      This weekend we commemorate the second Sunday in Passiontide, or Palm Sunday. That means that Holy Week is upon us! There are glorious, though sorrowful, liturgies during this week that I hope you will be able to attend and participate in. The Chrism Mass is held at the Cathedral of St. Jude on Tuesday at 11:30. Though I would love to see how this Mass is done in the Traditional RIte, that will not be the case this year. Bishop Parkes has not been celebrating Mass or Confirmations for a couple of months now due to his ongoing (but improving) foot condition so I am not sure if he will be the celebrant or not. At this Mass, the Bishop blesses the three oils which will be used for the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, Extreme Unction (the Sacrament of the Sick), and Holy Orders. It is always a beautiful Mass. You are all welcome to attend or to watch it live streamed on the diocesan webpage.
      On Wednesday of Holy Week, at 7:00 pm, we will have the first of three Tenebrae services. Tenebræ is the name given to the service of Matins and Lauds belonging to the last three days of Holy Week, the Triduum. (Matins and Laudes are two parts of the Breviary which priests and religious pray daily. For Tenebrae, they are chanted by a schola in a very solemn tone. The church is in darkness except for candlelight. Candles are ceremoniously extinguished after each Psalm is completed, adding a reverence not often experienced while praying the Hours. You are welcome to come even if you are unable to stay for the whole ceremony, which will take approximately 2 1/2 to 3 hours each day. I will be hearing confessions during each Tenebrae service so you can listen with a clean soul!) Holy Thursday's Tenebrae is traditionally "anticipated", or chanted the evening before the actual day. This was done for practical reasons, as the Chrism Mass, which would be a long and complicated Mass for which to prepare and to celebrate, was traditionally held on Holy Thursday morning. No morning parish Masses were allowed so that the priests could join the Bishop at the Chrism Mass. Yet every parish had a Mass later, a Mass with plenty of “extras” in it, on Holy Thursday evening, followed by Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament until at least midnight (or even all night long). The Bishop, the priests, the sacristans, the altar boys, the choirs, and many other people would probably need burials the following day if all of that was done (and done well) on Holy Thursday. The next day being Good Friday, when no Requiem Masses are allowed, they decided to move Tenebrae to the evening before. Whew! But wait, then something else happened. After the new Rites came out, Tenebrae services stopped, another Catholic tradition supposedly but not really done away with by Vatican II. Also, the Bishops were given permission to move the Chrism Mass to another, more convenient day. So now most priests, not celebrating Tenebrae and having already gone to the Chrism Mass two days before, just have a free day. Don’t get me wrong, most of us will be using that day to do last-minute preparation for the evening Mass, for the Good Friday service and for the Easter Vigil and Easter Masses, so we will be thankful for the uninterrupted hours, but it ain’t like the old days! Our next two Tenebraes will be on Good Friday and Holy Saturday mornings at 6:30 am both days.
      The Mass of the Last Supper on Holy Thursday will begin at 9:00 pm. We get the late time slot this year and St. Joseph Vietnamese Mission gets the early one, a reversal from last year. During the Mass, the ceremonial Washing of the Feet will take place, a rare time that the Mass is ever interrupted for anything. After Mass there is a procession, taking the Blessed Sacrament to a Repository, as the main tabernacle will remain empty for the next two days. Adoration will end, for most people, at midnight. (Just ask if you wish to spend the night.) During Adoration we will have the ceremonial Stripping of the Altar, which will remain bare except for a short time during the 3:00 pm Solemn Good Friday liturgy which includes Adoration of the Cross and a Communion service. Holy Saturday morning, after the previously mentioned Tenebrae, we will have, at 10:00 am, the traditional Blessing of the Easter Baskets, which will be filled, as last week’s bulletin showed, with wine, cheese, meats, dairy, eggs, and many other such things that were given up for Lent but will be a part of the Easter Feast.
      Finally, at the end of the week, Easter begins! Last year we had the late starting time of 11:00 pm. This year we begin at 8:00 pm. The blessing of the New Fire and Paschal Candle will take place outside in front of the church. Once inside there is too much to describe, but we will have someone entering into the Church and receiving several Sacraments. Ashley Durand, whom some of you may already know, especially through CEW and CGS, will be making a Profession of Faith and officially enter in the Catholic Church, then be Confirmed, exchange Vows of Holy Matrimony with Justin, and, at the Mass, receive her First Holy Communion! (Psst... Justin, you can forget the calendar date of your anniversary as long as you remember that you were married at the Easter Vigil!)

With prayers for your holiness,
Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka

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From the Pastor:    Unplanned

      I went to see the movie Unplanned this week. I don’t get out to the movies too often, although I just saw Garabandal, so, though it’s only April I have now already seen two more movies than I saw in all of last year. At the ticket window was a group of 4, ahem, mature women. They couldn’t hear the ticket teller through the tinny-sounding speaker but they each had questions and they wanted answers. They were each talking at the same time, some asking the teller questions, some telling her they couldn’t understand her and others carrying on seeming random conversations with whichever other friend happened to not be speaking at the moment. The couple in front of me was getting a bit antsy as the minutes wore on, since the movie was about to start, but they were amused by the way the ladies just kept talking and switching places and misplacing their canes, which they kept either leaning against the booth or hanging from the little ledge before they moved around to yell into the microphone before being shoved aside by another one trying to put her ear to the speaker. The couple behind me (and that was the extent of the line) kept commenting on prices and discounts and how they compared to the Veterans 24. The mention of the AMC Veterans 24 reminded me that I stopped going to AMC theaters after I went to that theater one weekday afternoon and was told that I had to pick my seats before getting a ticket. I had never heard of such a thing but was assured that it was an AMC policy to keep people from fighting over seats when the place was crowded. That particular afternoon there were probably only a dozen people attending the matinee but, wouldn’t you know it, they were all loud talkers and bright texters and they all sat right around me. I switched to Regal theaters from then on, which is why I drove all the way to Regal Citrus Park instead of the closer AMC Westshore. Anyway, I wasn’t paying attention to the ticket prices or senior discounts until this couple started complaining about an upcharge of $2.00 for reclining seats. What? I never noticed any reclining seats before. Interesting. Finally, the group at the window figured out how much money they owed for their tickets and, of course, each paid separately. Not one of them pulled out their wallet ahead of time. Once each made it to the lone cashier, acted like she just realized that money would be needed, searched for the latch on her purse, searched even further for her wallet in one of the dozens of zippered pockets, finally found the little wallet where the dollar bills were stowed, carefully counted out the money, searched for the change purse, counted out the coins, received the ticket, put the bill purse and coin purse back in an excruciatingly carefully selected opening of the large purse, and, after once again closing all the zippers on the purse and finding her cane, walked, with the cane carried carefully in the crook of the arm, a step or two off to the side to continue whatever conversation she had been engaged in ten minutes before. Thirty minutes (it seemed) later, the couple in front of me stepped up to the window and laughed with the cashier about the spectacle they had just witnessed. The girl (at least my age) behind the bullet-proof glass was very amiable but was not about to make fun of the prior group. “They are all like that! It’s just like being with my mom at the Publix checkout!” she proclaimed, obviously enjoying her job. This couple had in hand a piece of paper to show her. “Did you purchase these tickets online?” the girl asked, already knowing the answer, “Then you didn’t need to stand in line. This is your ticket so just hand it to the man inside.” To their credit, both husband and wife laughed at themselves and the wife joked about not being taken out to the movies often enough. “Will he tell us where to go?” she asked, regarding the doorman, and then, with a grin and turning toward me, continued, “and I mean in a GOOD way!” as if anticipating where I might have told her to go. Finally, it was my turn. Guess what? I had to choose seats. “You can choose just about anywhere, honey. This is the front, this is the rear.” Hoo, boy. I guess I am done going to Regal theaters, too. Now I understood why the ladies kept switching positions. You cannot see the seating chart without moving at least one step left. I got my ticket and 30 cents change from a $10 bill. I caught up with everyone. The group had made it inside but were just standing there talking. The couple was still at the entrance, as the man taking tickets couldn’t figure out which theater to send them too. It was truly comical. Finally, exasperated, they pointed to me and said, “We’ll just follow him. I bet he’s going to see the same movie that we are.”  Sure enough, we were all there to see Unplanned, though I got to my seat first. A recliner. They were all recliners. I checked my ticket. It had a senior discount (unasked for) and the recliner upcharge. The ladies group sat right in front of me and spent ten minutes giving each other instructions on how to make the seat recline.
      And the movie? Need you ask? GO SEE IT!

With prayers for your holiness,
Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka

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From the Pastor:    Email Scam Hits Home!

      Last May we received word that several the names of several priests had been “used” in email scams looking for money. I warned you about it and told you that if you receive an email from me asking for money for any emergency situation, don’t buy anything and don’t pay anything, for it is certainly not me asking for it. This week a parishioner received just such an email using my name in a scam. Here is what the first email said, using a Gmail account with the name of Rev. John Nolan:

I need a favor from you, email me as soon as you get this message.
God Bless
Rev. Edwin Palka

There is no reason for me to send a message using someone else’s email account, but it is easy enough to overlook something like that when going through emails. The parishioner answered, asking how he could help, and the response came back from the same Gmail account stating:

Can you be able to help me get an iTunes gift card worth $500 at $100 or $50 denominations for a friend of mine going through cancer in the hospital. He needs the cards to download his favorite music and videos to boost his confidence on his next phase of surgery and fight over cancer which he's going to undergo today but i can't do this now.

Very strange! Yes, it was “signed” by me instead of Rev. John Nolan, though it was from “his” account. Thankfully, the parishioner contacted me instead of sending any money or buying iTunes gift cards. It certainly doesn’t seem likely that I would ask somebody to purchase music for a sick friend instead of, say, a prayer book, now does it? But whatever he needed, whether music or a prayer book or a chocolate milkshake, I think that I could pry open my wallet and purchase it myself. When I warned the daily Mass people about it, one of the ladies told me that the iTunes cards can be used as currency in some places. Go figure. Should you get one of these types of messages using my name, please let me know and forward a copy to me, for I would like to see it and see if I can find any common connection between the recipients. I highly recommend that, should you get an email from any priest, especially from me, or any parishioner or friend, or any anybody at all, asking for something that seems just a tad bit wonky, please don’t fall for it. Really. This is especially true if the email uses bad grammar, as an infamous fake Nigerian prince of email scam notoriety does while trying to “give” greedy people millions of dollars.
      There are several priests named “Rev. John Nolan” out there, and I don’t believe I know any of them but we may be connected through something like the Knights of Columbus or the Association of Ornery Priests. Scammers may look for connections to increase the odds of successfully bilking people of their money. For instance, email addresses are free and it is easy to get one with a priest’s name so that it sounds legitimate. People are often pretty, shall I say, stupid, when sending or forwarding emails to groups of people and they don’t hide the multiple email addresses of the recipients. That allows anyone on the list or anyone who intercepts the list to then know that there are connections between all of these people. Seeing a priest’s name on the list then allows a bad guy to contact all of the people on the list, who would, most likely, know him and trust him, pretending to be the priest and scamming them out of money. So if this is how the scammer has connected one parishioner’s email to my name (though I am just speculating that this may be the case), others who were on the same email list might have also been targeted or might be targeted in the near future. I have, over the years, received scam requests multiple times from people I know, mostly from Yahoo or AOL accounts which were hacked, similar to this: “Help! I am stranded in a foreign country and my wallet and passport were stolen. Please wire me money right away! I will repay you as soon as I get back.” Imagine receiving something like this from your pastor, perhaps with an added line such as “I was leading a pilgrimage, which is why I am in Nigeria, and got separated from the group because I couldn’t board the plane without my passport” or something like that to “personalize” it. It might sound convincing. You might be worried sick about poor, dear Father. You might be flattered that he thought you were such close friends that he felt confident to ask for your help in such a dire situation. You might not think that he would have contacted family or maybe even the bishop before asking you for money. You may be taken for a sucker. Please don’t fall for it.
      
With prayers for your holiness,
Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka

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From the Pastor: Donors to APA 2018, Thank You!

       I am always hesitant to publicly thank people who do things for God through the parish, as they often want to stay anonymous, despising rewards of honor in this life and instead desire them only in the next. Some even threaten bodily harm (in a half-joking way, of course!) if I dare mention them. So the folks who provide the food and drinks after the Sunday morning Masses or before Catechism class, those who Catechize the little sheep belonging to the Good Shepherd, the workers in the Women’s Guild and the Knights of Columbus and the Sacristy, those who clean up and stock the kitchen and bathrooms, who clean up the kleenex and used bulletins left in the church, who tend to the flowers and the statues, who train the Altar Boys and those who serve at the altar, who provide music and hymns for Mass and other liturgical functions, and (here’s the worst part) those whom I have forgotten to mention even in a generic way like this, usually do not get their names in the bulletin or called out across the room and they certainly don’t get applauded at Mass, to their great relief. Even more “prickly” is the notion of thanking by name those who give money, whether to the weekly collection or in support of the girls looking into a vocation or the young men in seminary, or who give to special collections, or who just quietly give money to solve a need at the parish. But there is one place where such acknowledgment, as hard as it is to make public and as hard as it is to accept as a public thanks, needs to be made. Not because the “event” is so extraordinary or because the money given is somehow more important than what is given elsewhere, but rather because so very often people have a hard time giving to this particular collection due to past “indiscretions”, shall we say, of our previous bishop (and public gross “mismanagement” of many other current bishops) yet they do it anyway, only to sometimes discover that their own parish didn’t even get credit for their donation. I am writing about the APA, or Annual Pastoral Appeal, which goes to pay the bills of the Diocese. Below you will find a list of those who gave to this appeal. I ask you as I have in the past years, and I am quite serious about this, not to peruse it in order to see who gave or did not give. Instead, I ask that if you gave to the APA for our parish, that you would check to see if your name is listed. If it is not, your donation went to a different parish. In the past, when we have found those donations which have gone astray (as my own donations have in the past, so I write from experience) we are able to check the following year to make sure it doesn’t happen again. There is not much worse than giving to a collection which you might not fully embrace for various reasons but, knowing that the parish must pay it one way or another, you give while holding your nose, only to discover that your gift went where you didn’t want it to go. (Please also note that not everybody gives this way. Personally, for instance, I am happy to give to APA and trust that our Bishop, knowing that he will have to answer for what he does with it, will spend it, using his own prudential and prayerful judgment—even if it varies from my own!—, for things necessary for running a diocese and helping get us all to Heaven.) The 2019 APA is already underway and we will be checking on anyone who notices a problem from the past, so please let us know if there is an issue with this or even with the amount (not listed here) which the Diocese sent you as a year-end tax statement. With that long way of saying I want to thank everyone but need to thank this group by name, I thank all of you who contribute to the spiritual and physical and intellectual and even emotional life of Epiphany of Our Lord parish.
       The 2018 APA Donor List: NOT AVAILABLE ONLINE. PLEASE CALL THE OFFICE TO CHECK FOR YOUR NAME IF YOU ARE NOT SURE WHERE YOUR MONEY WENT!

With prayers for your holiness,
Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka

From the Pastor:    A Penny For Your Prayers

      Lent is underway and beautiful things are happening at Epiphany. One particularly wonderful Lenten penance undertaken by many of you is the “Prayers and Pennies for Semmies” dreamed up by our Ladies Guild. They got their idea from the diocesan vocation program called “Penny a Prayer for Priests” and asked to do something similar as a “memory device” to remind people to pray for vocations to the priesthood, being especially mindful of the current seminarians and future vocations from our own families. Unfortunately, I failed to explain the purpose of the program well enough for many (or most) people to understand. I hope to remedy that situation here, so please keep reading.
      We currently have two seminarians which we claim from our parish because they attended Epiphany when they entered the seminary. Makes sense, right? Joshua Heiman is studying for the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, a religious order founded in France and dedicated to the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass and the other sacraments in their traditional forms. Many of you already support him financially (he has to pay for his tuition and other expenses as he goes through the required schooling) via his GoFundMe page. If you don’t know the page, shoot me an email and I can get it for you. On that page, even without donating, you can keep up with what he is doing, as he posts occasional updates on his studies and seminary life. The ICKSP will even give you a tax deduction under some pretty strict guidelines. They will also allow you to contact him by mail or email, again under some pretty strict guidelines, as they keep a watchful eye on those under their formative care.
      The second current seminarian, Esteban Merkt, is officially studying for the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, and is being “sponsored” by the diocese of St. Augustine. His family still attends here and you all just helped his sister Valeria raise funds to travel to the Home of the Mother convent in Spain to further discern a religious vocation with that community. (This is probably a good time to notify you that we expect to have a “Cents for Sisters” program for the girls in Religious formation this coming Advent!) Evidently, his diocese is not quite as keen on allowing such things as GoFundMe accounts so he was not able to set something up. He and his family are, like Josh, responsible for paying his way through seminary. (When I was there 500 years ago, the seminarians for this diocese had to pay tuition and expenses at the minor seminary and then, once at the major seminary, the diocese took over the tuition costs. I am not sure if it works that way for the St. Augustine seminarians, or even for our own diocesan seminarians for that matter, for things do change over the centuries.) Ask me, or, better yet, his mother, for his contact information.
     This next group of men I will refrain from naming but you may know who they are anyway. We had one man in seminary for the Jesuits but he is back with us now for a while as he continues to discern which order God wills that he enter. Another of our men, who was studying to be a Benedictine monk, has switched parishes and I haven’t seen him in quite a while. One of our diocesan seminarians shows up every once in a while with his dad at the men’s Holy League when he gets a break from school for a few days. Yet another comes for daily Mass when he gets in town, even though he, too, officially belongs to another parish. And, finally, one of our parishioners went off to the Franciscan University in Steubenville and is now in the beginning stage of applying for the seminary for our diocese.
      But I have become somewhat sidetracked. Why are we collecting pennies? NOT for the money! Yes, they can always use money. But they need something much more than that. Prayers. Collecting Pennies for Semmies is supposed to remind you to pray often for the men who will become, by the grace of God, priests. Scrounge around for a penny. Pick it up and say a prayer for the seminarian who will benefit from it. Put the penny in the box and say another prayer for vocations. This is a “whole family” prayer event. Even the little kids can search the sidewalk and couch cushions and grandpa’s pockets for these pennies (or quarters or fifty-dollar bills) and then say a Hail Mary for future priests. Soon they will actively be searching for pennies so that they can pray more! This form of Lenten Prayerful Almsgiving can become a year-round habitual virtue. It brings not just your family but all Epiphany Families together in a united form of prayer, and sets the proper tone for all true charitable giving, which is often overlooked even when giving to the Church! We must pray for our seminarians if we expect to have holy priests!
      Return your box(es) on Palm Sunday. You may run out of room, as the boxes are kid-sized. That’s OK. Use a jar or convert your coins to bills or check (made out to Ladies Guild). The women plan to send the money to the seminarians on Divine Mercy Sunday (Low Sunday), the Sunday following Easter, with prayers for a merciful and glorious “resurrection” of the priesthood (as opposed to what we see in the news all too often). I hope this helps you make cents of this prayer program!

With prayers for your holiness,
Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka

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From the Pastor:    Current Lenten Penance Requirements

      I have been besieged with requests for more penance options for Lent. Reading about Heaven, as I suggested last week, just wasn’t seen to be enough. I wasn’t expecting it to be the only thing done for Lent, just one small part of it. But for those who really cannot find enough things to do for penance, I am more than willing to expand my suggestions. First and foremost, though, might I suggest that you simply know and follow the current rules for Lent? The Catholic Church, being both venerable and universal, really does have a good understanding of human needs and desires and abilities. As time progresses humans obviously become wiser and holier and we can count on the Church to see that and make adjustments in her disciplines based on our current human condition. Since we are right now at the pinnacle of human perfection and know more than any other humans at any other time in our history we have progressed beyond simple black and white rules. But formally issuing documents proposing shades of grey is not really good PR so the current regulations are black and white but with a few merciful loopholes. Let’s look at the current practice of Lenten penance, shall we?
      To begin with the easiest and most obvious Lenten regulation, we turn to days of Fast and Abstinence. Current regulations are black and white. Eat as much of anything you want anytime you desire it except for eight days, namely, Ash Wednesday and all Fridays of Lent. On those days you must Abstain by not eating any meat, and you must Fast by limiting yourself to only eating three meals a day. The first two meals combined cannot equal the size of the last one so plan accordingly. If you eat a breakfast of pancakes and eggs with a side of cheese grits and perhaps some buttery biscuits with honey in the morning you have done well. Oh, I forgot to mention the drinks, which might include a couple of cups of coffee or tea with cream and sugar, a glass of orange juice, and, needless to say, a few Bloody Marys or Mimosas. Note that there is no bacon, ham, steak, or sausage included in the meal, making it truly penitential. If your lunch was then a grouper sandwich with fries, coleslaw, and hushpuppies, accompanied by an ice cold beer or two, with a couple of chocolate chip cookies for dessert, you are still in penitential mode and can congratulate yourself on a job well done as you refrained from ordering the hamburger and pie. But you must be sure that the dinner you choose is substantial so that you don’t die of starvation or malnutrition after having not had any meat earlier in the day. Common sense encourages the Faithful to have dinner at a seafood buffet on Ash Wednesday so that Abstinence from meat is assured. Be sure to eat at least three plates of seafood and maybe a vegetable dish to ensure that the rule of Fasting (the two previous meals not equaling the current main meal) is strictly followed. It is highly recommended that several cocktails and a full bottle of wine (red with seafood, as penance for wine snobs) be taken at this meal, as scrupulous souls may be counting the alcohol content of the early small meals in determining if they are, combined, less than the evening meal’s drink count. Those who are very strong and desire even more penance might, for the remaining days of Fast and Abstinence (the 7 Fridays) forgo the evening seafood buffet and instead attend the local Knights of Columbus’ All-You-Can-Eat-Fish-Fry. But seven days in Lent without lobster, crab claws, shrimp, oysters, and scallops might be overkill as far as penance goes, even for the worst of today’s sinners.
      Now that we have seen the black and white Lenten regulations for Fast and Abstinence, which might certainly be seen as draconian in nature and far too hard to accept for most Catholics today, let us look for the merciful “loopholes” which we might use to lessen these harsh mortifications. Let us begin with age. The young and the elderly, obviously, are too weak to Fast or Abstain. So if you are either young or elderly (actual age limitations can be ignored, as those are only in place for people too uneducated to understand “frailty” by any means other than chronological years of life) you may eat, drink, and be merry even during those still-mandatory (because the Church is slow to change) 8 days of penance during Lent. The same exceptions are in place for those whose jobs are strenuous (and whose isn’t nowadays?!), for those who are ill or use medications (including vitamins, herbal supplements, cannabis, and aromatherapy candles), or who are attending a Spring Training baseball game (for not even the greatest of Saints could be expected to pass up hot dogs or brats at the ballpark). You know you have done Lent right if you gain weight by Easter.
      Let us now turn our attention to the other penitential practices currently mandated by Holy Mother Church for the 40 days of Lent. Wait. There aren’t any. You simply have to follow the same moral and disciplinary teachings which are in place the rest of the year. From what I hear taught and see written, from Synods to Encyclicals to funeral homily (and “official”) canonizations, those are about as difficult to follow as the Lenten Fast and Abstinence rules. Fortunately, there are merciful loopholes even there, so relax and enjoy the easy penitential season of Lent.

With prayers for your holiness,
Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka

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From the Pastor:    Read About Heaven This Lent

      For three weeks now you have seen the violet tabernacle veil and, if you attend the Traditional Latin Mass, the violet vestments, as we have entered into a period preparing us for Lent. This period of preparation is just about over, as Ash Wednesday is this week! Have you figured out what you are going to be giving up for Lent yet? What extra prayers and spiritual readings you are going to take on during Lent? What additional Corporal and/or Spiritual Works of Mercy you will endeavor to fulfill? Time is short so don’t procrastinate any longer! A couple of years ago I suggested that you read a book or two on Hell for your spiritual reading. There is a terrible heresy spread far and wide these days that Hell probably does not exist or, if it does, that it is not too bad or, if it does exist and if it is bad that the few people who go there will only be there for a short time, as God cannot possibly punish anyone (let alone a bunch of people) for a long time, and certainly not for eternity. Reading books on Hell (written, of course, by orthodox Catholic authors) helps to combat such heresy and gives one a renewed interest in staying out of it. That leads to a better Lent, with more fervor behind the penances and reparations. The following year, I suggested that you read up on Purgatory. This subject, too, is one that many/most people, including Catholics, don’t engage in because they don’t believe it to exist or, if they do believe Church teaching about its existence, don’t understand how painful the purgation process will be. Reading up on it can be very helpful in trying to avoid it rather than looking forward to it or aiming for it, instead of Heaven, as life’s goal (as in “I just want to get a little pinky into Purgatory!”). This year I am going to encourage you to learn about Heaven. (See the logical progression here?) Dare I say that most people don’t believe in Heaven, either? Go ahead and challenge people you know and love by asking if there is a Heaven. Almost everyone will say, “yes” but then be completely and utterly unable to tell you why they would want to go there or what they would do there FOR ETERNITY. Saying that they believe in Heaven is no different than answering, “Fine” every time they are asked the question, “How are you doing”, whether they are fine or not. It is just the expected answer. It means nothing. What will they do in Heaven? Really, ask. See if they even mention God. Prayer. Adoration. Thanksgiving. Intercession. Knowing Him as He is. Beatific Vision. The properties of a resurrected body. Communion with angels and Saints. Or see if they rather answer, “Well, I’ll be happy” or “It will be pleasant” or “The weather will be nice” or “I’ll get to see grandma again” with no other idea of what to do or how to spend even a full day, let alone the remainder of eternity. “Golfing with Jesus” and “knitting with Mary” are the kind of things I hear priests talk about at funerals. Talk about being bored out of your skull after a few months! Why would anyone have that as their life’s goal?
      But here is the problem with finding good writing about Heaven: it is impossible to describe it. St. Paul writes,  “That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him.” (I Cor. 2:9). We really cannot describe Hell or Purgatory, either, but we certainly find it easy enough to describe the pain and torments that will be inflicted upon the souls there. But we are not as good at describing consummate, lasting and holy pleasure, joy, happiness, contentedness, charity, prayer, or fulfillment. Even the Catechism of the Catholic Church is woefully sparse in its teaching on Heaven. Where to turn to, then? Plenty of people write about how to get to Heaven but far fewer write about it. Here are some sources. St. Thomas Aquinas is my first choice. He writes about Heaven in the Summa Theologica, explaining what it will be like, the properties of the glorified body, the states of happiness and much more. The Catholic Encyclopedia comes next, with quite a bit of good information in the online version at NewAdvent.org. Ludwig von Ott’s Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma tells what the Church has officially taught on Heaven and the afterlife. If you prefer “stories” to “teachings”, you cannot go wrong with Dante’s Paradiso, though it helps a lot to have already read his Inferno and Purgatorio so you see his travels through Hell and Purgatory before he reaches Heaven. I assume you read both of those for your previous “Lenten assignments” so now is the time to jump into the third part of what is called the Divine Comedy. More books can be found with a google search, but I don’t want to recommend those which I haven’t personally read and approved and I really couldn’t remember which ones I have read as I did a search myself. As a general rule of thumb, though there are always exceptions, look for Catholic authors pre-1960’s, especially if they are priests! And absolutely stay away from non-Catholic authors, for nobody can really write well on Heaven if they have rejected the sure means of getting there!

With prayers for your holiness,
Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka

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