Dear members and friends of the Sodality of Charity,
Have a happy and blessed season of Pentecost! May is traditionally the busiest month at St. Gertrude the Great School, so I couldn’t arrange monthly meeting for this month. But Girls Camp is just around the corner, in three weeks. You can see our poster here. If you haven’t signed up yet, or have questions, contact our parish office or Cecilia Simpson. Cecilia and some of the other girls of our Sodality have worked hard in preparing our annual camp, following in the footsteps of Miss Sharon Patton and Miss Michelle Mikesell.
Earlier this month St. Gertrude the Great Roman Catholic Church published the collected writings of Fr. Anthony Cekada, who was our Assistant Pastor from 1989 until his death last year. The three-volume book is titled Don’t Get Me Started! and it covers Fr. Cekada’s writings and articles from the years 1979-2019. Two of our Sodality members appeared in the promo video for the book. You can see the video and read more about the book here.
French toast news! On Tuesday Miss Colleen Eldracher’s class arranged the competition among the class’s families who makes the best French toast in the whole universe. Our Sodality member Maria won this fabulous title, though it was a tight race between her and our other member Solène. I felt sorry for the boys of the class, because our girls did beat them pretty badly in the popular vote for the best French toast. But since we needed to choose simply the best, the vote was fair and square.
The celebrations continued on Thursday. After the school Mass we celebrated Bishop Dolan’s birthday, which is on Friday, May 28. Our pastor will then be 70 years young. Hamburger lunch between the Pentecost Ember days tasted great. Happy birthday Bishop Dolan! Please say a little prayer for him.
A youtuber called My Little Domestic Church has made a video about St. Jerome School, where some of our Sodality members are enrolled. She offers very praising words about the school and the quality of its publications. You can see the video here.
Our next monthly, or in fact, the summer meeting will be on Saturday, July 24, after the second Mass. It is the feast day of St. Christina, another great girl saint. She was a Christian girl, aged eleven, whom her father, who was an officer in the Roman army, closed in a tower. He tried to get the girl to deny her faith by persuasions and beatings. All in vain. He then gave Christina to be sentenced in prison. There she was tortured, for example using snakes, but she was always comforted and healed by angels. She was finally thrown into a lake with a millstone around her neck. But the angels removed the stone, and rescued the girl. She was returned to the prison where she was finally killed with arrows.
At Bolsena, her home city, there is an old tradition where people celebrate St. Christina. The festivities start on the evening of July 23, when the statue of the saint is carried in procession to the parish church of the Holy Savior. There it stays throughout the night, during which the people of the city play the scenes from her life. One of the most impressive ones is the scene where the devils drag Christina’s father to Hell. But perhaps the most famous one is the “snake play”, where a snake-catcher brings live snakes close to the face of a girl, who plays St. Christina. She is mimicking the effect of the deadly snake venom in her body, until she is saved by the angels. That is perhaps a saint play our Sodality will not re-enact...
Yours in Christ and Mary,
Fr. Lehtoranta
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