Denver, Colo., Apr 10, 2020 / 12:46 pm (CNA).- Isolated in their homes on a Good Friday unlike any other, Catholics across America tuned in April 10 for a litany to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, led by the president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, who himself stood nearly alone in a cathedral built to welcome thousands.
Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles said Friday that amid the questions raised by Christ’s death, and by the global pandemic, the most important answer is God’s love.
“We stand today at the foot of the cross with Mary, our Blessed Mother, and we look upon her Son, crucified. And we ask God: Why did he have to die? Couldn’t there be some other way?”
“Today we are also asking God: Why this coronavirus? Why have you allowed this disease and death to descend on our world?”
“We know that Jesus on the cross is the only answer,” Gomez said, in a homily he preached both in English and Spanish, while at least 10,000 people tuned in to a livestreamed broadcast of a liturgy of the Word, and a moment of prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ.
“In the heart of Christ — wounded by the soldier’s spear, pierced by our sins — we see how much God loves the world. We see how precious we are in our Father’s eyes,” Gomez said.
“Jesus has opened his heart for us. He has given his life out of love for us. Now he calls us to entrust our lives to him — our whole heart, our whole mind; all our feelings and thoughts, our words and actions.”
“In this moment, Jesus is inviting every one of us in the Church to take up our cross and to follow him along the path of humble love, the path of reverence for God and service to our neighbors,” the archbishop added.
After his homily, Gomez led a litany, in which Catholics expressed their faith in the mercy of God. “Jesus, I trust in you,” Archbishop Gomez repeated, “¡Sagrado Corazón de Jesús, en ti confío!”
In Wilmington, Delaware, Colin Stapleton-Bradley, 26, was consoled by the archbishop’s words.
“I thought that the litany helped me deal with the uncertainty of suffering, especially in light of the coronavirus, why it happens, and how we can use our own suffering to, in some small way, relate to Christ’s passion,” he told CNA.
Robert and Jess Nayden watched the archbishop’s litany while their children, ages 3 and 1, ate lunch in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
“I really appreciated that Archbishop Gomez organized this. It was simple and prayerful, and his homily about trusting the Sacred Heart of Jesus spoke to a lot of what I’ve been praying about recently,” Robert told CNA.
“We’ve also struggled to get into live-streamed liturgies these past few weeks, but this was a moment where I felt united in prayer with people across the country,” he added.
Seminarian Ryan Mau of San Jose expressed a similar sentiment.
“I was very happy to join other American Catholics in this,” he told CNA.
“I haven’t been able to attend Mass since I was sent home from the seminary so to join in on a service like this reminds me how much I miss community and we can still be unified by prayer, even though most of us are not physically able to,” Mau said.
The seminarian mentioned gratitude for the witness of Gomez.
“I felt a sense of leadership and the guidance that really only a father can give me. I felt like he has been a great example especially in this odd time that we are all currently experiencing.”
Of a liturgy that switched between English and Spanish, Mau expressed support. “We need to reach out to all of God’s children and need to be able to speak the languages necessary to do it,” he said.
Bo Bonner of Des Moines, Iowa watched the litany with his five children. He said he had a bit of difficulty with the livestream, and he wasn’t sure what he needed to do to obtain the plenary indulgence attached to the litany. But, he said, “I thought the recitation by the archbishop was good and that is most important, and his words were timely and appreciated.”
While he said he appreciated more the optics of the Urbi et Orbi blessing offered by Pope Francis March 27 than those of LA’s cathedral, “I am very glad we did it as a nation.”
“I appreciate the opportunity to earn an indulgence during such a singular Good Friday,” he added.
Claire Breux of Washington, DC, also watched online. Family members in Louisiana and Salt Lake City alo tuned in, while they met together in a Zoom meeting to pray as a family, along with the archbishop.
Breux said praying with her family over Zoom has been edifying in a time of difficulty.
“We’ve done night prayer together this way a couple times already. We all agree it gives the prayers an added richness- we feel closer to each other and more united and encouraged in growing in holiness while we are apart,” she told CNA.
“My whole prayer through this weird time has been for an outpouring of grace for holiness, that we see how much we need God- which of course is easier to miss when life is good- and that [God] has already provided everything we need.”
“Certainly on Good Friday I look at the cross and see that it’s all been accomplished for us,” she added.
In LA, Gomez, too, looked to the cross.
“Let us love one another, joining our sufferings to the heart of Christ, open for us on the cross. Let us sacrifice for one another, take care of one another, forgive one another,” the archbishop said at the conclusion of his homily.
“May our Blessed Mother Mary intercede for us in her sorrows today.”
“May she help us to be meek and humble of heart, and to persevere in this Good Friday of disease and death, to hasten to the Easter morning of the resurrection.”
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According to the report, the settlements will be funded through the diocese’s self-insurance program, a loan, and “contributions from other religious orders, where appropriate.”
“The settlements will not come from parish or school assets, the annual diocesan appeal, donor restricted contributions, or restricted endowments, the report states.”
With all the “confession, reconciliation, and repair” going on in the Diocese of Richmond, it seems that transparency and simple honesty did not make the list. The Diocese’s “self-insurance program” is a fancy way of saying it is funded by, wait for it, the unrestricted contributions of parishioners. The “loan” will be paid, principal and interest by, wait for it, yes, that’s right, the unrestricted contributions of parishioners. Why will the payments not come from “parish or school assets, the annual diocesan appeal, donor restricted contributions, or restricted endowments”? Because these assets don’t belong to the Diocese but to the separate civil and/or canonical legal entities involved.
The Diocese’s verbal legerdemain leaves me very skeptical that it is going to “meet victim survivors with support and compassion”. If that were the case, there never would have been 50+ rape or sexual abuse victims to begin with. I have had significant experience, professional and personal, with Catholic dioceses throughout the U.S. for over 35 years on sexual abuse matters. The experience has been a bitter one, with “support and compassion” present primarily in public relations releases like the one here that are intended to manipulate the credulity and trust of the victims and anesthetize the laity into believing the problem has been solved. It hasn’t. The Catholic Church in this country is massively corrupt and has been for decades and even today is heavily infiltrated by homosexuals at all levels up to and including the highest.
Look closely at the inscription on the architrave shown in this photograph:
https://travel.sygic.com/en/poi/cathedral-of-the-sacred-heart-poi:15150519
The Gilded Age New York millionaire Thomas Fortune Ryan who built this cathedral single-handedly knew what was most important. Sadly, the interior of this magnificent building has been vandalized by Vatican II liturgical Nazi’s and bears little resemblance to its original conception and design, a paradigm of the Catholic Church in Richmond and this country, if not the world.
Charles Flynn,
Exactly. Thank you for sharing that link.
In the end, money that could have been spent on worthwhile endeavors gets spent on attempting to fix injustices that should never have happened, and in many cases, most likely did not happen. The way these things are often described, it almost sounds as though they printed the money. The bottom line is that it has to come from somewhere, and it doesn’t matter if it comes from one’s front pocket, back pocket, left pocket, or right pocket.
Yes, I agree with you that the squandering of $4 billion by U.S. Catholic bishops, let alone the ravaged lives of innumerable Catholics, victims and loved ones, is a sordid tragedy of horrendous proportions, regardless of who pays for it. The even uglier reality is that the Satanic evil that underlies it has not diminished; in fact, it has metastasized. For over 35 years I have said that stories like this will continue as long as the priesthood continues to be a safe harbor for homosexuals and other psycho-sexual deviates. Make no mistake, they make up the predominant share of priests in today’s ape-Church.