Dear Parishioners,

Governor Hogan outlined his recovery plan for Maryland today. He defines three categories of activities. In the low risk category are limited attendance outdoor religious events. Indoor religious events are defined as medium risk. To get to the stage where low risk events are allowed we will need to have 14 days of reduced covid cases and hospitalizations. The problem is that Maryland is ramping up testing. The number of cases jumped again yesterday, partly because of increased testing. We have a ways to go before we even begin to reduce our numbers. Your can find Governor Hogan’s plan here: https://governor.maryland.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/MD_Strong.pdf

In the meantime, we will continue to have outdoor Adoration. Today, we will have two sessions: Noon to 1:00 pm and 2:00 pm to 3:00. We will aim for Sundays but we need to consider the weather.

Today is the Feast of St. Mark. Here is the reading from the Office or Readings for St. Mark:

From the Treatise Against Heresies by Saint Irenaeus, Bishop

Preaching truth

The Church, which has spread everywhere, even to the ends of the earth, received the faith from the apostles and their disciples. By faith, we believe in one God, the almighty Father “who made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them.” We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became man for our salvation. And we believe in the Holy Spirit who through the prophets foretold God’s plan: the coming of our beloved Lord Jesus Christ, his birth from the Virgin, his passion, his resurrection from the dead, his ascension into heaven, and his final coming from heaven in the glory of his Father, to “recapitulate all things” and to raise all men from the dead, so that, by the decree of his invisible Father, he may make a just judgement in all things and so that “every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth” to Jesus Christ our Lord and our God, our Saviour and our King, and “every tongue confess him.”

The Church, spread throughout the whole world, received this preaching and this faith and now preserves it carefully, dwelling as it were in one house. Having one soul and one heart, the Church holds this faith, preaches and teaches it consistently as though by a single voice. For though there are different languages, there is but one tradition.

The faith and the tradition of the churches founded in Germany are no different from those founded among the Spanish and the Celts, in the East, in Egypt, in Libya and elsewhere in the Mediterranean world. Just as God’s creature, the sun, is one and the same the world over, so also does the Church’s preaching shine everywhere to enlighten all men who want to come to a knowledge of the truth.

Now of those who speak with authority in the churches, no preacher however forceful will utter anything different – for no one is above the Master – nor will a less forceful preacher diminish what has been handed down. Since our faith is everywhere the same, no one who can say more augments it, nor can anyone who says less diminish it.