By Fr. Brian Wirth,
Director of Rural Life
For priests and laity alike, April and May are full of constant activity, yet full of life, excitement, and hope. God’s Providence continually marks the times and seasons.
This was apparent at the beginning of the month. On May 1, the Church celebrates St. Joseph the Worker. However, May 1 was the First Friday, thus a celebration of the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. May is also devoted to Mary, the Queen-Mother of Heaven, and the Church’s devotion to the Rosary.
Thus, as all families are thoroughly busy during the spring, most providentially God established the intercession of the Most Holy Family for our families in these busiest times and seasons.
Having concluded the Easter season, spring recalls the constant activity and graced busyness of the Acts of the Apostles. St. Joseph, the Holy Family, Apostles, and early Church continually remind us: The dignity of human work, which is the duty and the perfection of mankind, enables us as rational beings to exercise dominion over creation, share in the work of the Creator, offer our service to the community, and participate more fully in God’s plan of salvation.
How true this is now that Jesus has risen from the tomb, ascended to Heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, and sent the full power of the Holy Spirit upon us at Pentecost!
As farmers are busy planting good seed into the ground for the hope of an abundant harvest, and ranchers are busy tending their livestock, leading their cattle on drives across drylands to summer pastures and grazing/water/irrigation setups, so too the Church in these months focuses spiritually on planting and watering the good seed into the ground of the hearts of catechumens/candidates who were led forth by their pastors as shepherds to receive the Sacraments of Initiation, highlighted especially by the Most Holy Eucharist.
In the Eucharist, we receive fully the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ, He who has defeated sin, death, and Satan. In being led by the Good Shepherd brothers and sisters, so are we equally led to the banquet prepared for us in the sight of our foes, filled in the fullness of body and spirit alike. (Ps. 23)
Moreover, during these spring months, parishes are blessed to not only celebrate first Communion Masses for the newly prepared students to be received by the Good Shepherd in Holy Communion, but too April and May are the months in which Bishop James Conley travels throughout the Catholic Diocese of Lincoln to confer the full power of the Holy Spirit in the Sacrament of Confirmation. Finally, May is the month in which (God willing) we are blessed to receive newly consecrated men, ordained Shepherds via the Sacrament of Holy Orders.
So yes, while April and May are literally busy in the fullest sense, these months, times, and seasons are not only ordered toward our physical and spiritual transformation; April and May are ordered for our very sanctification.
As we begin anew in Ordinary Time, may we allow the Good Shepherd and the Holy Spirit to guide us constantly alongside streams of living water.
We pray to the most kind Father through you, his only-begotten Son, who for us became man, was crucified and glorified, that he send us out of his treasures the Spirit of sevenfold grace who rested upon you in all fullness: The Spirit, I say, of Wisdom, that we may taste the life-giving flavors of the fruit of the tree of life, which you truly are; the gift also of Understanding, by which the intentions of our mind are illumined; the gift of Counsel, by which we may follow in your footsteps on the right paths; the gift of Fortitude, by which we may be able to weaken the violence of our enemy’s attacks; the gift of Knowledge, by which we may be filled with the brilliant light of your sacred teaching to distinguish good and evil; the gift of Piety, by which we may acquire a merciful heart; the gift of Fear, by which we may draw away from all evil and be set at peace by submitting in awe to your eternal majesty. For you have wished that we ask for these things in that sacred prayer which you have taught us; and now we ask to obtain them through your cross for the praise of your most holy name. To you, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, thanksgiving, beauty and power, forever and ever. Amen.
