+Bishop Robert Fidelis McKenna, O.P., R.I.P.
I
was informed of the death of the last Dominican bishop on the face of
this earth, the Most Reverend Robert Fidelis McKenna, O.P., around 5:00
p.m., Eastern Standard Time, on Wednesday afternoon, December 16, 2015,
the Feast of Saint Eusebius and the Commemoration of Ember Wednesday in
Advent,nearly four hours after His Excellency had died at the age of
eighty-eight years, five months, seven days.
We
were privileged to know and to be served by Bishop McKenna, who was one
of the most truly humble, self-effacing men we have ever met, a true
son of Saint Dominic de Guzman, the founder of the Order of Preachers to
whom Our Lady gave her Most Holy Rosary. Indeed, Bishop McKenna
preached often on the Holy Rosary and its efficacy, explaining that Our
Lady’s Most Holy Rosary was her sword and her Brown Scapular was her
shield. His love of Our Lady and his devotion to her Most Holy Rosary
permeated everything he did as a priest of the Order of Preachers even
well before he became the founding pastor of Our Lady of the Rosary
Chapel in Monroe, Connecticut, offering the very first Mass in the
former Stepney Methodist Church that had been purchased by Father
Francis Fenton for the Orthodox Roman Catholic Movement on Sunday,
January 21, 1973, a fact we learned on that date in 2008 when the Bishop
talked about the milestone of the chapel’s thirty-fifth anniversary in
his sermon at Holy Mass.
Mere
words can never do justice to describe Bishop McKenna’s great and
tireless zeal for souls nor to fully communicate the true humility that
he exhibited as he, a Successor of the Apostles who was consecrated by
Bishop Guerard des Lauriers in Raveau, France, on August 22, 1986, the
Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, went about such chores as taking
out the garbage or vacuuming the floor of his very small office. He made
the following remark when I was startled by the fact that I had
happened upon him in his office as he was vacuuming: “Doctor Tom, don’t
make a virtue out of necessity.” He cracked just the slightest smile as
he looked up at me and said this.
Each
sermon that His Excellency gave was a catechism lesson in the Faith,
helping to fortify the souls of those who drove many, many miles to
assist at Holy Mass offered in the unreformed Dominican Rite. Bishop
Robert Fidelis McKenna never once relented in his zeal for souls. Saint
Fidelis of Sigmaringen, who was put to death by Calvinists on April 24,
1622, must have been praying for his namesake from the time of his
ordination on June 5, 1958, the Feast of Saint Boniface, by Amleto
Giovanni Cicgonani, who was the Apostolic Delegate to the United States
of America from March 17, 1933, to November 14, 1959, to the time of his
death yesterday, Wednesday, December 16, 2015, on the Feast of Saint
Eusebius, who gave up his life to fight Arianism just as Bishop McKenna
had given up everything he had despite intense personal sufferings from
various ailments and afflictions to fight the Modernism of the “Second”
Vatican Council and the “magisterium” of the postconciliar “popes.”
Although
I am under doctor’s orders to get rest as he says that my body still
has another month or so to heal from hernia repair surgery seventeen
days ago, I do want to relate two brief stories about the Bishop.
The
first is not so much a story as it is a remembrance of one of his
favorite ways to describe the false ecclesiology of the Society of Saint
Pius X: “The SSPX wants to have their pope and eat him, too.”
The
second is a story he himself told from the pulpit on Sunday, February
14, 2010, and it is worth repeating again even though I had included it
on this site over seventy months ago now.
Bishop
McKenna began his story by saying that it had been fifty years ago that
very day, February 14, that a Dominican priest in residence at Saint
Catherine of Siena Priory on the East Side of Manhattan was awakened
around 4:00 a.m. by explosions that sounded to him as though the
Russians were bombing the City of New York. He got up and then knelt by
his bedside to pray, thinking that the end was near.
The
priest got up from prayer to look out of his window to see that a
nearby building was on fire. Flames were shooting from the top of the
building. The priest then got dressed to go out to see if he was needed
to administer the sacraments to anyone who might have been injured in
the explosions, which he learned at the scene had been caused by
exploding propane tanks on the top of what turned out to be a building
under construction and thus unoccupied. The tanks were being shot up
into the air before landing in the East River. After finding that his
brother Dominican priests were already on the scene and that no one had
been injured, the priest returned to sleep for a few hours.
It
was later in the evening of that day, at a time when it was pitch dark
out and following a good deal of snow, that the priest, who was dressed
in black, decided to walk a few blocks to another Dominican parish to go
to confession to a priest there. The sidewalk was very slippery.
The
priest, then in his thirty-third year of life, noticed as he was in the
middle of crossing a street that a car was coming out of nowhere and
turning the corner, heading directly at him at a good clip of speed. The
street itself was very slippery. The priest believed that he was going
to be killed, figuring that he would be hit by the car and thrown
against the wall of a building across the street.
Instinctively,
therefore, the priest reached out his arm to brace himself against the
impact of the car. At the mere touch of his fingers on the car, however,
the vehicle, which was moving rapidly, stopped without skidding on the
snow and ice. The priest was stunned as he looked at the driver, who was
also stunned. Shaken up by the event, the priest immediately returned
to Saint Catherine of Siena Priory to go to confession there.
Bishop McKenna then stunned us when he asked us to join him in a prayer of thanksgiving to God for sparing his
life fifty years before, that is, on February 14, 1960, the Feast of
Saint Valentine. Bishop McKenna said that he had been living on what he
called "borrowed time" ever since.
Please
join us in giving thanks to God that Bishop McKenna's life was spared
on that day in 1960 so that he could add honor and glory to God at the
altar and add grace to the world every time he offered the Holy
Sacrifice of the Mass. We thank Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ and His Most Blessed Mother for being able to know, if only for a
relatively short time, four years between January of 2007 and March of
2011, in comparison to those who knew him and worked with him for four
decades, and to be taught by the Most Reverend Robert Fidelis McKenna,
O.P., as we express our deep condolences to those who cared for him in
his final years and to all those who considered him their spiritual
father, a man who helped countless numbers of people to accept the true
state of the Church Militant in this time of apostasy and betrayal.
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon Him.
May his soul and all of the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
Amen.
Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for +Bishop Robert Fidelis McKenna, O.P., R.I.P.
(The
photograph below was taken by Sharon on Wednesday, October 17, 2007,
the Feast of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque in His Excellency’s office
after he had received a Catholic woman, now living in Ohio, into the
Catholic Church a few years after she had been received by a true
priest, since deceased, who had used the worthless conciliar rite of
confirmation, in the conciliar structures):
May he rest in peace. Amen.
December 18, 2015, Postscript: Ember Friday in Advent and the Commemoration of the Expectation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
As
there are many hundreds of people with stories to relate about the late
+Bishop Robert Fidelis McKenna, O.P., I have decided that the very
brief reflection that was posted about twenty-four hours ago is
sufficient for the moment. Words really cannot express the zeal that
Bishop McKenna had for the salvation of souls or his deep and abiding
life of prayer, which began early in the morning and would end rather
late at night. Those who were privileged to know him, even for the short
span of four years that we did, never ceased to be inspired by his
tirelessness in the face of illness and vexation.
There
was one time in 2010 that we saw His Excellency just before he was to
have oral surgery. The Bishop explained that he was going to have seven
teeth pulled at the same time, partly the result of the lack of moisture
his mouth. I managed to mutter something about the heavy cross he would
be enduring by having so many teeth pulled at the same time. Bishop
McKenna would have none of it, saying, “Seven is the perfect number,
Doctor Tom.”
One
thing, however, that I do want to relate is the fact that we started
praying for His Excellency as soon as I received word that he was near
death, which was about an hour before he died on Wednesday, December 16,
2015, the Feast of Saint Eusebius and the Commemoration of Ember
Wednesday in Advent. It was around twenty minutes before His Excellency
died that we started to pray two sets of prayers for the dying from The
Servite Manual of Prayers, Behold Thy Mother, intending to join those
prayers with the clergy and religious who must have been gathered around
his bedside while he was in his final agony. We finished those prayers
at 1:10 p.m., Eastern Standard Time, five minutes before His Excellency
died.
Thus
it is that I think that the best use of my limited time is provide you
with the text of these prayers and to urge every reader of this site to
purchase The Servite Manual: BEHOLD THY MOTHER: A Collection of Devotions Chiefly in Honor of OUR LADY OF SORROWS, published originally in 1947 by the Servite Fathers and republished by Refuge of Sinners Publishing, whose
republication, with the permission of the Servite Fathers, by the
Sentman and Gauvin families has been an important contribution to the
interior lives of many people thus far.
Mrs.
Beth Sentman wrote to me last evening to ask if I knew of anyone who
had a copy of a letter that Bishop McKenna wrote to his family members
thirty-five years ago to explain the true state of the Church Militant
on earth in this time of apostasy and betrayal. Any reader who has this
letter and should send it to Mrs. Sentman and/or to me so that it can be
widely circulated at a time when my families, ours not excluded, are
divided needlessly over the simple fact that heretics are not members of
the Catholic Church and cannot exercise her magisterial powers
legitimately. In this regard, it should be noted also that Mr. Steven
Speray has written a very good summary of why a new anti-sedevacantist
book is based on a false ecclesiology that turns Catholic doctrine on
its very head. Please read: The Gates of Hell and the Gates of the Church (The Best Defense for Sedevacantism.)
Please
continue to pray for the repose of the soul of the late +Bishop Robert
Fidelis McKenna, O.P., and for all those who knew and worked closely
with him, both clergy, religious and members of the laity, over the
course of the past forty years.
Thank you.
Prayers for the Dying
I.
O most holy Virgin, by the sorrow which transfixed they heart, when
holy Simeon foretold the affliction thou wast to endure at the death of
thy Divine Son, intercede for this person, now at the point of death,
that his (her) heart may be pierced with true contrition.
Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory be to the Father.
II.
O most gracious Virgin, by the sorrow thou didst endure, to save thy
Son Jesu from the persecution of Herod, thou wast forced to fly with Him
into Egypt, deliver this soul from the snares of the infernal foe.
Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory be to the Father
III.
O most afflicted Virgin, by the sorrow thou didst feel at losing thy
Son Jesus, beg that this soul may not be lost, but may dwell for ever
with Him in heaven.
Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory be to the Father.
IV.
O most distressed Virgin, by the sorrow thou didst feel at seeing thy
Son Jesus carrying on His bruised shoulders His heavy cross, obtain for
this departing soul grace to bear patiently, for the love for the love
of thy dear Son, the cross of his (her) sufferings.
Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory be to the Father.
V.
O inconsolable Virgin, by the unspeakable sorrow thou didst experience
at seeing thy Son Jesus crucified between two thieves, pray for this
soul that sorrow for his (her) sins may pierce his (her) heart, as the
nails pierced the hands and feet of our divine Lord, and the spear His
sacred side.
Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory be.
VI.
O most desolate Virgin, by the sorrow thou didst feel in receiving into
thine arms the dead body of thy Son Jesus, pray that this departing
soul may be received into the eternal glory of heaven.
Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory be.
VII.
O Virgin most sorrowful, by the desolation thou didst feel, when,
having accompanied thy Son to the sepulcher, thou hadst to part with
Him, have pity on this soul, and accompany it in the great journey to
eternity.
Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory be to the Father.
Pray for him (her), most sorrowful Virgin.
That he (she) may be worthy of the promises of Christ.
Let us pray
GRANT,
we beseech thee, O Lord Jesus Christ, that the most blessed Virgin Mary
thy Mother, whose most holy soul was pierced with the sword of sorrow
in the hour of Thy Passion, may intercede before the throne of Thy mercy
for this Thy servant, now and the hour of his (her) death. Who livest
and reignest, world without end. Amen.
V. May the sorrowful Virgin Mary.
R Bless us with her loving Child. (The Servite Manual: BEHOLD THY MOTHER: A Collection of Devotions Chiefly in Honor of OUR LADY OF SORROWS ,pp. 290-291.)
For the Faithful in Their Last Agony
I.
O most holy Mary, by that fear and trembling which overwhelmed thine
heart, when thou didst hear that thy beloved Son and our Lord Jesus
Christ had been taken His enemies, abandoned by His disciples, and led
to Caiaphas and Pilate, help, we implore thee, the soul of this person
in its struggle, that he (she) may have a true sorrow and contrition for
his (her) past sins. Comfort and strengthen him (her), that he (she)
may not fear the coming of the common enemy, nor tremble at the sight of
his (her) severe Judge, angry for his (her) sins, but may rather see
Him, appeased by thy powerful prayers, show him (her) a merciful
countenance. Amen.
Hail Mary.
II.
O most sweet Virgin Mary, Mother of God, by the cruel anguish which
tortured thine heart, when the Jews cried out, “Crucify Him! crucify
Him!” and Pilate delivered thy Son Jesus Christ to them to be crucified;
hasten we entreat thee, to help this poor creature of God in this his
(her) last struggle, because his (her) body is tormented with pains, and
his (her) soul is in in distress on the one side through the attacks of
the devils, and on the other through the dread of the strict account to
be given to the Judge. Assist him (her), we beseech thee, most sweet
Lady, that he (she) may not hear the sentence of eternal death
pronounced against him (her), nor be delivered to the eternal flames,
but may through thy intercession, obtain the joys of everlasting
happiness. Amen.
Hail Mary.
III.
O most merciful Virgin, Mother of God, by that sword of sorrow which
pierced thy most holy soul, when thou didst see thy Soon Jesus Christ
our Lord raised upon the cross, pierced with nails, and covered with His
own Blood; deign, O most holy Mother, to assist this creature of God,
and show him (her) thy glorious countenance in his (her) last necessity;
defend him (her) against the infernal serpent and all the snares of the
evil spirits, and disperse all his (her) enemies in the holy name of
thy Son Jesus Christ and by the power of His cross, that he (she) may,
with thee and the blessed spirits, sing eternally the praises of his
(her) Lord God, and render Him eternal thanks. Amen.
Hail Mary. (The Servite Manual: BEHOLD THY MOTHER: A Collection of Devotions Chiefly in Honor of OUR LADY OF SORROWS
,pp. 291-292. The republished books, which are very beautifully printed
with a larger print size than the original while retaining the same
pagination, are available for $10.00 plus shipping from: msgauvin@icloud.com. Although not listed on the Refuge of Sinners Publishing, inquiries may be made of this firm at Joyful Catholic,
as to how to order copies, which I am informed cost $15.99 plus
shipping. Please do pray for the Sentman and Gauvin families who took
the initiative to have this great spiritual treasure republished.)
His
Excellency Bishop Robert F. McKenna, O.P., winding up on June 6, 2008,
to throw a ball at a target that would "dunk" a high school graduate.
His Excellency, who used to pitch for his seminary baseball team (he
talked about getting a bloop single off of a former pitcher for the New
York Giants who was in the Dominican seminary), threw a perfect pitch to
dunk the graduate of Saint Dominic Academy in Monroe, Connecticut. Not
bad for a priest who had, 2008 observed his fiftieth anniversary of
priestly ordination on June 5, 2008, the night before the graduation
cermeony and celebration.
Mgr.George Papathanasiou OSB
Archbishop ORCC-SO
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