12/29/2020 Letter from Father Jenkins
December 29, 2020
My dear Faithful,
I pray this message finds you all well for this Christmas Season and coming New Year.
I now write to you concerning the church schedule for the next few days and, also, about a remarkable proclamation by President Donald Trump.
On Thursday (December 31), there will be the regular HOLY HOUR at 8:00 PM. There will be NO HOLY HOUR at 11:00 PM that night. Although there was a request for an 11:00 PM Holy Hour for Thursday, it seems prudent to hold the Holy Hour at 8:00 PM due to the fact that the following day is First Friday AND the holy day of obligation, with Masses at 7:00, 9:00 and 11:00 AM, as on a Sunday.
On Friday (January 1), the Feast of the Circumcision and New Year’s Day, there will be no evening Mass, but All-Night Adoration will begin at 7:00 PM with Benediction/Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. We will need all of our scheduled Adorers to faithfully fulfill their hourly commitments throughout the night, and will need at least 12 people present at 7:00 PM for the beginning of Exposition.
On Saturday (January 2). First Saturday, Benediction to close Exposition will begin at 8:00 AM, followed by confessions.
On Sunday (January 3), the Feast Day of the Most Holy Name of Jesus, there will be three Masses offered at usual at 7:00, 9:00 and 11:00 AM. There will also be a public ROSARY prayed at the Hamilton County Courthouse beginning at 2:00 PM, to beseech God’s mercy for our country in light of the momentous decision to be made by joint session of the Senate and the House of the United States on January 6, the Feast Day of the Epiphany. There will be, we pray, voices raised to successfully oppose the fraud rampant in the recent election. This is the moment of truth.
In connection with that crucial confrontation, of great importance is yesterday’s Proclamation by the President of the United States, entitled: Proclamation on the 850th Anniversary of the Martyrdom of Saint Thomas Becket / The White House. The text of the Proclamation follows below:
It would be difficult to exaggerate the significance of this statement, coming as it does at a time of severe national stress and anxiety. Saint Thomas á Becket was born in the early 1100’s, a time when the kings presumed the right to name bishops and even give them the symbols of their spiritual office. This practice, known as “lay investiture,” caused great damage to the church and injury to the people, when kings would choose their friends, political and military supporters, as bishops who could be counted on to favor the fortunes of the Crown rather than the Cross, a earthly king rather than Christ the King. Thus, worldly and venal opportunists were intruded into the highest office of the church (sound familiar?). When King Henry succeeded in foisting upon the Church his friend Thomas as the Archbishop of Canterbury, he must have congratulated himself for gaining complete dominion over the State of England and the Church in England. But God had other plans.
No sooner had Thomas received the priesthood of Christ and the Archbishopric of Canterbury, than he manifested a resolve to be faithful to Christ’s priesthood and the Church it served. The more Henry tried to first use, then abuse, his former drinking buddy in order to seize power and revenue from the Church and to impose his rapacious will over the clergy and the faithful, the more resolutely did Thomas resist him. Thomas placed himself in great danger by doing so, but he would be faithful to his charge at all costs. He proved himself to be a true shepherd. He would not betray his allegiance to Christ or His Church to appease the tyrannical rage of the royal power of the realm of England.
No doubt, Thomas foresaw the outcome and embraced it. After Henry muttered within their hearing his wish that someone would “rid him of this troublesome priest,” several of his knights burst into the cathedral as the archbishop was assisting at Vespers on December 29, 1170. So vicious were they in their fury to serve the malice of the king that, it is said, they struck open the skull of St. Thomas and strewed his brains throughout the cathedral – the most worthy and heroic sacrifice of all the cathedral’s Christmas decoration.
Just when it seemed Henry’s victory was complete God gave the devil a great rebuke. King Henry himself ultimately was made to acknowledge the crime and was required to submit to public penance in July of 1174. In dying, Saint Thomas Becket conquered, and the Church began to reclaim her liberties and prerogatives to speak for Christ and to defend the people of England against the pretensions of tyrants. The people of England could soon give thanks at Saint Thomas’ tomb for the Magna Carta of 1215.
We must recall the days of Thomas Becket as a time when all appeared lost in the struggle of the
Church to function when worldly powers seemed to hold an unbreakable stranglehold over it. In our day, the Leftists of all stripes and of all designations – modernists, progressives, socialists,
communists, Democrats, etc. etc. – all chortle their glee at what they expect to be the death stroke for true liberty for faith and morality. They see the executioner’s ax raised and ready to fall to compete their decades of subversion and perversion and, finally, to consummate the electoral fraud they celebrate. But they fail to reckon with the mercy and the grace of God.
The conversion of Saint Thomas á Becket was truly a miracle to grace in the darkest of times. The Proclamation of President Donald Trump calling upon the schools and the churches of America to recall, to honor and to emulate Saint Thomas of Canterbury may well be a point of reckoning for future generations to resolve upon fidelity to God and resistance to all who would attempt to usurp His Sovereignty.
I expect to see you on Sunday, January 3, Rosary in hand, at 2:00 PM outside the Hamilton County Courthouse to plead our cause not before the court of man but the Court of Heaven.
May God bless you all! Faithfully in Christ,
Father Jenkins
