An article on Perpetual Adoration with a nice photo of the chapel at St. Agnes parish.
And Fr. Groeschel Attracts 1,000 to Blessed Sacrament Parish.
All the above from the Arlington Catholic Heretic Herald.
And some non-Arlington news: Vatican not impressed with threat to sue over access to archives from CNS.
How can anyone utter such discouraging words about the fine diocesan newspaper of our neighbors to the north?
Just move a hundred yards south of Fredericksburg … you’ll never hear the words “Adoration” or “Groeschel” again.
Ah, but didn’t Bishop Di Lorenzo have Fr. Groeschel in to conduct a retreat for his priests? (Or was he scheduled so to do before the accident?)
At any rate, we erstwhile southern Virginians have naught but high hopes for the continued recovery of the diocese.
I think Fr. Groeschel may have done a parish retreat in Staunton a few years back, but I haven’t heard anything about a retreat for priests. It couldn’t have been pre-accident, since that also would have been pre-Bp. DiLorenzo.
Maybe it was at the 2004 “Octoberfest” for priests?
We current southern Virginians hope that Bp. DiLorenzo recovers the momentum he seemed to have when he arrived. Of late, the recovery seems to have bogged down, and as a practical matter very little (if anything) has changed at the parish level.
I’ve only been here in Richmond Diocese for 7 months (arriving at about the same time as the Bishop). I haven’t noticed any decrease in the petty liturgical abuses at my parish (mainly the flagon and the army of “Eucharistic Ministers”). The parish up the road appears to take pride in perpetrating every abuse mentioned in Redemptionis Sacramentum. I wonder if they read it just to get some more ideas.
Anyway, I though “Octoberfest” was billed as the time when the Bishop was going to lay down the law about R.S.
A friend who purports to be “in the know” told me that this year’s October meeting (not technically an “Oktoberfest” — that’s every other year) was supposed to be a “come to Jesus” session with regard to liturgical abuses. If so, it doesn’t seem to have worked.
I have one fun story, though. I occasionally go to daily Mass at lunchtime at a parish near my job. The priest there has never, ever used one of the Eucharistic Prayers from the Sacramentary — instead, it’s always sort of a rambling paraphrase. (Being charitable, I always assumed he had bad eyesight and a worse memory, and was doing the best he could).
But when I attended Mass there for the Immaculate Conception in December, he suddenly had mastered the art of reading a prayer correctly from the book. Perhaps he got new glasses — or perhaps it had something to do with the fact that Fr. Smith, our new Diocesan Theologian, was his concelebrant that day…. Next time I go up there, I’ll check whether he’s actually changed, or whether this was a one-time event for Fr. Smith’s benefit.
For that matter, I also need to stop by the Cathedral someday and see if they’ve been reminded of how to kneel. (“Your legs actually DO bend at the knee, folks. Just try it, it’s good exercise!”)