A Word From Bishop Medley

After the Nashville school shooting of a few weeks ago that saw six people, including three nine-year-olds, die, I began to consider writing my next article for The Western Kentucky Catholic on the subject of gun violence. I had done some research and begun to organize the article in my mind. As I sat at my desk to write on Easter Monday morning, my phone alerted me to the first reports of a mass shooting at a workplace in downtown Louisville.

As April begins we are within sight of the last days and hours of Lent. Palm Sunday is April 2, so Holy Week is here and Easter but days away. The heart of our observance of Holy Week is the Sacred Triduum, when the Church “solemnly celebrates the greatest mysteries of our redemption, keeping by means of special celebrations the memorial of her Lord, crucified, buried, and risen.” (From the Roman Missal)

When it comes to the Church’s liturgy and practice, most of us associate the month of March with Lent. Ash Wednesday has usually fallen in February, so by March we are well-practiced in our pledges of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. And, after all, apart from our religious life, March usually begins to show us some sustaining glimpses of winter’s end and spring’s beginning.

February 2nd is the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord.

We often speak of some very good things as “well-kept secrets,” meaning some things very positively notable are not well known or observed at all. Perhaps we might even say the Gospel of Jesus Christ in its fullness is too often a well-kept secret.

On the night of Dec. 10, 2021, I was not watching television and was not aware of the reports of tornado warnings across western Kentucky. Storms were never severe in Owensboro where I was that night, so I slept well. When I awoke on the morning of the 11th I checked into my regular news apps, and I began to learn of the devastation across our diocese.

In our Catholic tradition we observe the month of November as a time of special commemoration of all the faithful departed. November 2 is celebrated each year as the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls Day), but the entire month is a time of consciousness and prayer for all those “who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith.”

On June 24, 2022 the prayers of those who support the dignity and worth of all human life were answered when the United States Supreme Court struck down the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973.

In June of this year the Catholic Church of the United States initiated a three-year Eucharistic Revival.  Most dioceses marked this event by highlighting the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi). I joined the parishioners of St. Joseph in Mayfield in a Corpus Christi procession around their church grounds.

Every year most of us know one or several students graduating from college, high school, or middle school. We might even observe a kindergarten graduation. It is my honor to attend four graduations every year, at Brescia University, Trinity High School in Whitesville, St. Mary High School in Paducah, and Owensboro Catholic High School.