Dear Friends in Christ,

“The corporal works of mercy consist especially in feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned, and burying the dead.” (Para 2447, Catechism of the Catholic Church)

So, burying the dead is a corporal work of mercy. All faithful Catholics certainly deserve a proper Catholic funeral Mass and burial. All too often, in my short time here, I see that faithful Catholics are not offered a funeral Mass. I don’t know all the reasons for why that happens, but I do know that a Catholic funeral Mass is the highest form of prayer that can be offered for a deceased loved one. Why would a person not want that for someone they love?

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Dear Friends in Christ,

This weekend our secular world reminds us to honor, love and pay proper respect to our fathers. They, along with our mothers of course, gave us life. We look to them to help us in life, to teach us how to work, how to be a good citizen, how to love our country and most importantly, how to love our God and those who surround us.

My dad, Woodrow Charles Wilson was born on June 25th. He died on May 11, 1977, but if he were alive today, he would be 110 years old on the 25th. My father was not overly affectionate, but we always knew that he loved us…all nine of us. We grew up poor, but we were never hungry. I learned many things from my father. He taught me to be honest in word and in deed. He always emphasized that we should not be prejudiced against people of a different race and treat them equally. My father did not practice his Seventh Day Adventist faith, but he always would take us to our church, Bethany Lutheran Church and he never spoke against the faith.

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Dear Friends in Christ,

June is known as the month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus principally because the solemnity of the Sacred Heart is celebrated during this month. This year, the solemnity falls on June 16. The date changes each year because it is celebrated on the Friday after the Corpus Christi octave, or the Friday after the second Sunday after Pentecost. The feast dates back to 1673, when a French nun who belonged to the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary (Visitandines) in eastern France began to receive visions about the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

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Dear Friends in Christ,

As I write this, I am attending the 50th Anniversary of my graduation from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. I must tell you that it’s hard to believe that it’s been 50 years, but I don’t think that both my driver’s license and my birth certificate are incorrect!

I don’t know the exact number, but we have over 550 classmates that are back for our reunion out of about 944 that graduated in 1973. Thank God for nametags or otherwise we would not recognize one another. In our lives, a lot of water has gone “under the bridge” or “over the dam” as they say. 115 of our classmates have died and we will have a special memorial service for those who died within the past year. I will have the privilege of praying the benediction at that service.

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