We wish you all a relaxing Labor Day weekend. We plan to sit in the back yard and watch the Cardinals flying in and out of our birch tree. We may stir from time to time but not much.
Disappointment from Montgomery
We were disappointed that the godless wonders won out in Montgomery, and that the monument to the Ten Commandments has been removed from the rotunda of the Judicial Building. But there is still symbolism in having a big square empty hole in the floor, which more aptly symbolizes what has happened in America of late. In the Courts for the most part the Ten Commandments mean nothing.
We greatly admire Judge Roy Moore and appreciate all those good people like Troy Newman and Pat Mahoney who went down to defend the Ten Commandments in the rotunda. They did much to focus on the issue. They helped keep the battle alive.
There is a bill in Congress dealing with similar cases, and a case before the Supreme Court. The battle for keeping the Law of God as the basis of all laws goes on, and even the Montgomery battle is by no means lost, despite the gaping hold there in the Rotunda.of the Judicial building, as a symbol of our court systems, until the day that belief in the Ten Commandments returns to the Courts. But as writer Marvin Olasky says in the August 30 issue of World Magazine, the High Court might allow perhaps a two-pound plaque to hang on the wall, or perhaps allow a series of large monuments to various codes creating a kind of modern Stonehenge inside the rotunda.
Farewell, Brother Mike
Some sad news to report out of St. Paul MN, from Pro Life Activist Brian Gibson who called Friday to announce the death of Brother Mike Gowarski, long time pro-life activist. Br. Mike, together with Br. Paul O’Donnell, started an order of pro-life brothers about fifteen years ago and we encouraged the move. On May 16, I saw Mike briefly before talking to a pro-life gathering at Holy Childhood. Paul and Mike’s community has grown and occupies a beautiful former convent-turned-monastery.
Mike had been bedridden for the past-twelve-and-a-half years and finally succumbed to a bout of pneumonia. He died surrounded by his community. The wake is at St. Columba Catholic Church in St. Paul, 3 to 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 4, and the funeral is Friday, Sept. 5, at the Cathedral in St. Paul at 10 a.m.
Consolation from St. Ambrose
To know Mike in his heyday was to know a fun-loving, inventive, clever dedicated tireless human being totally given to the work of God. Remembering Bro. Mike, and others who have died recently, I pulled out a sermon by St. Ambrose on the death of his brother. The sermon was sent to me by a Mother who had lost her son in an automobile accident. Here’s a part of what St. Ambrose said at the funeral of his brother:
We have brought here my brother Satyrus. But why should I weep; for you, my most loving brother? You were taken from me only that you might belong to all. I have not lost you, but only changed the form of my communion with you.
Formerly we were inseparable in bodily companionship, now we are undivided in affection. For you remain with me and ever will remain. You are present, and always before me, and with my whole mind and soul I embrace you whether in the quiet of the night or in the light of day, when you visit and console me in my sorrow. The very night that denied us the power to look on each other has become sweet because night restores you to me.
What is death, my brother? You are not separated from me for a single moment, but are now present with me everywhere. The enjoyment of each other we could not have always in this life is now everywhere and always ours. Death does not tear you from me.
St. Ambrose labored over this sermon, and it has been a great consolation for many who have lost dear ones. There is a truth in it that takes faith and time to absorb. But it is true.
