The Catholic Bard is still new and getting the swing and hang of the whole blogging thing. As much as we would like to, we often skip commenting on significant Catholic feast days, memorials and solemnity’s, as well as celebrated national American holidays. This is not done on purpose or protest or neglect or out of disrespect. Sometimes you forget, are unaware or just don’t notice what day it is. So, I thought it would be good to actually give some brief thoughts on some of the important days that have been celebrated recently in the short time we have been writing on the Catholic Bard as members of the Catholic writing and blogging community.
Mother’s Day/The Fifth Sunday of Easter Sunday May 10, 2020
A century ago, on May 18th, 1920 the future Pope John Paul 2 was born Karol Jozef Wojtyla. A 100 years and eight days earlier on the 5th Sunday of Easter and on the day we honor mother’s everywhere the Catholic Bard was born on the Patheos Catholic platform. It’s an honor to have started delivering posts to the world on a day we celebrate the women who delivered us to the world. We love you moms everywhere. And this was done during the season in which our savior delivered us from sin and death. Not a bad season to have started a professional Catholic blog. On the day Catholic Bard began its journey, the Carmelite of the group fled the Coronavirus threat and began a retreat away from the Catechist in her parents RI home. Sorrow and Joy mixed together on a special day.
Ascension Thursday May 21, 2020
Towards the end of May we commemorated the day Jesus left us in his human form as he ascended into heaven on Ascension Thursday.
Here’s our Lord, fully man and fully God, body and soul united in one resurrected, eternally-enduring piece. He appears among the disciples for forty days, cooking, eating, admonishing – all the things a person ought to do. You can touch Him. You can split a fish sandwich with Him.
And when He ascends into Heaven, He doesn’t just wisp away like the cheshire cat. He doesn’t slip out the door and into the sunset. There He goes, up into the sky towards eternity, and there’s no nitrogen-rich corpse left behind. The body goes with.
That is our eternal destiny. Why do we recoil against death? Because we were made for something so much better. So much cleaner. So much more comprehensible.
Jennifer Fitz, Why Does the Ascension Matter? (May 25, 2017) Sticking the Corners @ Patheos Catholic
Memorial Day Monday May 25, 2020
Four days after we celebrate Jesus leaving this earth we remembered our fallen men and women who left this earth as they died in battle on Memorial Day. I happen to compose this post on the topic of what different papal leaders have said during wartime.
Love Letter to a Wife Far Away Thursday May 28, 2020
Being separated by that stinking virus meant that I couldn’t hug, kiss or spend time in person with my wife. Working all day at the nursing home has caused us to communicate less then we usually do. So, I figured that even thou I see and talk less to my spouse; I wasn’t going to let that stop me from finding a creative and unique way to be romantic.
Pentecost: Back to Church Sunday May 31, 2020
After the blessed Son of God ascended into Heaven, He took a seat next to his Dad and then sent the third member of the eternal celestial family to light a spiritual fire into the hearts of those he left behind to guide his church on earth. This brings us to the last Sunday and day in May, the 31st celebrating Pentecost Sunday as I went back to my church for the first time in months. It was nice to actually once again receive the body and blood of Christ into my body and blood. On this particular Pentecost Bishop Robert Barron took the time to engage the feast day by relating it to current events.
The Spirit draws all of the followers of Jesus together in unity, and the Church’s missionary task is to overcome division, wherever it might be found. May I offer a challenge to all the members of the ekklesia today, Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox? Celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit this Pentecost, but then get out of the Upper Room! Light the fire of love in the streets, in the halls of government, in the world of communication, in business and industry, in schools, and in the hearts of your friends and neighbors. The stubborn survival of the awful cancer of racism in the body politic proves—and I say it to our shame—that we have not been the ekklesia that the Holy Spirit wants us to be.
Bishop Robert Barron, Pentecost and the Fires in Our Cities (June 1, 2020) Catholic World Report
Feast of the Holy Trinity Sunday June 7, 2020
On Trinity Sunday Eve, Saturday June 6th, The Carmelite returned from her exile in RI to reunite with her Catechist after about a month. On Trinity Sunday June 7th our long time friend and extended member of the family, Spencer Goodrich, who had lived with us for about two years, packed his things and I drove him back to NH.
It was sad to see him go but was happy Kristin had come back to live with me once again. We celebrated one last time as a household family by paying $20 bucks to watch Scobb!
On the Monday after Trinity Sunday June 8th our friend Pattie Goodale died at age 55 due to Coronavirus along with her mother who died on May 26 at 76 and her brother who died on June 12th at 51. All due to Covid-19
During this trinity of events on this Trinity Sunday the church wants us to really focus on God in this Post Easter season of ordinary time and it continues with Trinity Sunday. This is the day we commemorate the in-explainable doctrine that underlines our entire belief in the concept of God. This is also the first time Kristin had been back to Mass since before they stopped public attendance due to the Coronavirus.
Where One is Three
Only as God can be
Father, Son and Holy Spirit
Problem? God can hear it
True Love in Love in Love
A father, a God person, a symbol dove
It is a mystery, a God gift
In our soul the Trinity lift
-Kristin Wilson
Saint Anthony of Padua, Priest and Doctor of the Church Saturday June 13, 2020
He was a priest, confessor, preacher…and now he’s relegated to finding people’s car keys and flip flops. Poor guy.
Lino Rulli, On Facebook June 13, 2019 ·
The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ Sunday June 14, 2020
The Carmelite years ago composed several poems that covered many aspects of the feast of Corpus Christi.
Here they are the Corpus Christi Quartet of Poems
Monday June 15th saw our Silver Post after a little over a month of publishing articles.
Juneteenth/Sacred and Immaculate Hearts Friday/Saturday June 19- 20, 2020
Because of all the all the racial tension that has risen to the top of public consciousness, a little known holiday called Juneteenth has been suddenly cast into the spotlight. It is an official holiday in Texas but no where else in the United States. In Galveston, Texas June 19, 1865 Union army general Gordon Granger announcing federal orders proclaiming that all slaves in Texas were free. Martin Luther King Jr. has a national holiday in his honor, it seems as if the ending of slavery should be celebrated as widely as Dr. King.
And interestingly Juneteenth falls on the same day as the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus followed by the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. On the day slaves were pronounced free is the same day we celebrate and focus on the love of Jesus and Mary that they have on all mankind. He has come to set us free and to give us life to the full.
Father’s Day Sunday Jun 21, 2020
This weekend is the weekend we traveled and visited more people than we had in months. The day before on June 20th we visited the former foster parents of our adoptive daughter’s brother. Then on Father’s day we visited Kristin’s parents in honor of Father’s Day. I remembered my Dad in this post and we visited Kristin’s Dad (and Mom) in which they all had fish and I had one of the best pieces of steak I Have ever tasted in my life.
St. Thomas Moore, St. John Fisher Monday June 22, 2020
A Man for All Seasons stands apart as a classically-crafted, skillfully executed, emotionally engrossing political and historical drama about a man who was willing to sacrifice everything to stay true to his truest self. Its power and poignancy will never wane, but only grow with each passing season.
Avellina Balestri, “A Man for All Seasons” Movie Review (MAY 12, 2020) Long Bows and Rosary Beads @ Patheos Catholic
The Nativity of Saint John the Baptist Wednesday June 24, 2020
On the day we celebrate the birth of John the Baptist we sadly attended the grave-side service for the Gooddale Family. I’m not exactly sure of the extent of their religious beliefs but asked my Patheos Catholic priest friends to offer a Mass for their souls, which they gladly did.
Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Apostles Monday June 29, 2020
This is the 3rd day of the Catholic Bard’s big collaboration project of different Patheos writers.
The Catholic Bard’s Guide to Patheos Writers
I don’t know what to say about this important feast day. But Bishop Barron does. So once again here he is….
Wednesday July 1st
Feast Day Saint Junípero Serra whose statue was knocked over during the recent craze of knocking over any statue of any white male no matter their position on anything. He actually stood up and helped the native population that was mistreated by the Spanish. He is known as the Apostle of California” and “The Father of the California Missions”.
104th Birthday of actress Olivia de Havilland who was the only main character to die in academy award winning civil war era film Gone with the Wind, which was pulled from the new HBO Max service so they could slap a cultural warning label on it. I believe that my mother actually went and saw the film in the theater. Hattie McDaniel, was the the first African-American Oscar winner in cinematic history but wasn’t allowed to sit with white co-stars at the Academy Awards.
Anniversary of the infamous civil war Battle of Gettysburg, (July 1–3, 1863),
Friday July 3rd St. Thomas the Apostle
I guess you could say I doubted I would ever be writing full time and that we would get up to 40 POSTS. Noah and family were on the boat for 40 days. The children of Israel wondered for 40 years. Jesus did his pilgrimage for 40 days. Casey Casem used to give us his top 40 hits every week.
Friday July 3, 2020
35th Anniversary of Back to the Future. I saw it with my mother and the film kept breaking.
Tom Wilson (AKA Biff) a devout Catholic talks about the questions people ask him about playing Biff.
Independence Day The 4th of July Saturday
And to end this section of our life during 2020, here are some words from the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence, Charles Carroll.
On the mercy of my Redeemer I rely for salvation and on His merits, not on the works I have done in obedience to His precepts.
Grateful to Almighty God for the blessings which, through Jesus Christ Our Lord, He had conferred on my beloved country in her emancipation and on myself in permitting me, under circumstances of mercy, to live to the age of 89 years, and to survive the fiftieth year of independence, adopted by Congress on the 4th of July 1776, which I originally subscribed on the 2d day of August of the same year and of which I am now the last surviving signer.
I, Charles Carroll. . . . give and bequeath my soul to God who gave it, my body to the earth, hoping that through and by the merits, sufferings, and mediation of my only Savior and Jesus Christ, I may be admitted into the Kingdom prepared by God for those who love, fear and truly serve Him.
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