Dear members and friends of the Sodality of Charity,
Have a happy and blessed Easter. I wish to give a huge thank you to all our members and friends who worked so hard during Holy Week, so that our little church could once again successfully celebrate the Traditional rites of the Passion-tide. This year Bishop Dolan also consecrated holy oils on Holy Thursday, after many years’ break. It is with the Oil of the Catechumens that a new member of the Church is anointed at baptism, and also with which the hands of a new priest are anointed; with Sacred Chrism the indelible mark of the soldier of Christ is imprinted in his soul at Confirmation; and with the Oil of the Sick he is sent on to his final journey to the judgment seat of God through the Sacrament of Extreme Unction.
Our Seminarian Sunday was a great success, and we collected about $17,000 for our four Seminarians. In the parish we are now getting ready for the big event of the priestly ordination. That will take place on Wednesday, May 4, the Solemnity of St. Joseph, at 10 AM. We are expecting visiting clergy to attend, and of course all available faithful from St. Gertrude’s, St. Hugh’s, and our missions are cordially invited. The first Masses of our new priests are on the next day, May 5, First Thursday and feast of St. Pius V, at 9 AM. This happy occasion will be followed by breakfast, which is arranged by our Sodality.
Our next monthly meeting will be on Saturday, May 21, from 8:15 AM to 2:30 PM. We will continue making rosaries, which were a success at the Seminarian Sunday sale, to collect funds for this years Girls Camp, which will be on July 12-14. All members are invited to attend our monthly meeting, and of course to the Girls Camp as well. Last year’s camp was a huge hit, thanks to all of our generous donors, and we are planning to continue our own traditions of baking competition, scrapbooking, puppet show, square dancing, painting and outdoor and indoor games. And if we’ll collect the necessary funds, we will do a little fun outing.
In our latest newsletter you can read the story of one of our Sodality’s patrons, Venerable Mary of Agreda (1602-1665). She became a Sister when she was still living at home, because when she was 16 years old, her mother and sisters converted their family home into the Monastery of the Immaculate Conception and she took the name Mary of Jesus. When she was 25, she was appointed superior of the monastery, and continued to function as such until her death. Less than ten years after her death she was declared Venerable by Pope Clement X, in honor of her heroic life of virtue. Mary of Agreda was constantly guided and enlightened by her angels – for besides her guardian angels, God gave her five other angels, which she could see. She also had constantly with her St. Agnes and St. Ursula. Of the three theological virtues, Mary exercised especially charity, for her will was so captivated by the love of God. The biography in this news-letter is a shortened text of the abridgement of the full biography by Fr. José Jiménez y Samaniego. You can read the full text, edited by Father J. A. Boullan, from our website here https://www.sodalityofcharity.net/post/life-of-the-ven-mary-of-jesus-of-agreda
Thank you of your prayers for Fr. Valerii Kudriavtsev. He is now safely in Ireland, living from the charity of a good Catholic man in Knock, Ireland, the place where Our Lady and St. Joseph in 1879 appeared to a group of faithful. Fr. Valerii is addressed with his first name, because that’s the practice in the Byzantine Rite he belongs to. He was born in Luhansk, eastern Ukraine, in 1959. At that time Ukraine was nominally autonomous republic, but in reality it was an integral part of the Communist empire called Soviet Union. He was baptized in the Russian Orthodox Church. He later married, studied in an orthodox parish seminary and was ordained in 1991. On that same year Father Valerii found a Catholic prayer book in the parish sacristy, and started to study the history and Faith of the Catholic Church. Very soon he wanted to become a Catholic, so in 1992 he left the Russian Orthodox Church, and was ordained conditionally by Bishop Julian Voronovsky, who at that time was the rector of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Holy Ghost Seminary in Lviv. In 1992-1995 Fr. Valerii studied at that seminary and worked as a missionary priest in Luhansk. He became a traditional Catholic in 1998, and worked for a while with the Transalpine Redemptorists of Scotland as an associate priest. He also started his own mission as a Byzantine Slavonic Rite priest in Luhansk. When he became a Sedevacantist in 2006 all his parishioners left him.
We hope that now when Fr. Valerii is in exile in Ireland, his home country being destroyed by Russian invasion, he can start an apostolate in the land of St. Patrick – who is patron not only of Ireland, but of Nigeria as well. Anyone in Ireland can contact the mission he serves at his website http://www.catholicmessage.org/blog/non-una-cum-mass-in-the-byzantine-rite/2022-04-09-404
I will visit our St. Hugh of Lincoln chapel in Milwaukee, WI, on Sunday, May 1, feast of the Apostles Sts. Philip and James. Besides Milwaukee, our current and future priests are also serving the area of Chicago, IL. This once great Catholic city has been struggling for years under Communist leadership, but us Traditional Catholics will not concede defeat to the world. There used to be a big Catholic girls’ school named Maria High School in Chicago. It is closed now, the sad result of Communism and apostasy, which are ravaging that once great Catholic city much worse than any plague ever could. Maria High School graduated about 14,000 young women throughout its years of operation, and its motto was “Maria Women Make a Difference in the World.” What a good slogan for our parish girls as well. There are many people who attend the Mass at our mission right now, but there are much more who might do so, if they knew about it. If you, the members and friends of our Sodality could think a way how to get the word out, that there is a true Mass in the Chicago area, let our St. Hugh pastor Fr. McGuire know.
I celebrated the Mass for our Sodality members on Easter Wednesday, April 20. One of the benefits of a Sodalist is that she is entitled, not only to attend the monthly meetings, but also that to she is enrolled in the company for whom the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is celebrated once a month. The only obligations of the Sodalists are to attend the monthly meetings, if possible, and a voluntary prayer or devotion to our main patron St. Joseph once a month on First Wednesday, but neither one of these obliges under any pain of punishment. While you pray for our clergy, pray also for our Sodality that we can continue to make a difference.
Yours in Christ and Mary,
Fr. Lehtoranta
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