June 8, 2025

Happy Pentecost! This is truly the day the Lord has made. Do you realize Pentecost is the third most important day of our Catholic calendar? Easter, Christmas and Pentecost lead the way into our eternal salvation. That first Pentecost was a troubled day. The Apostles were holed up (again) after Jesus’ Ascension into heaven. Clouded by fear, they sought safety when in fact, their greatest work was yet to be.

The Holy Spirit blesses us with gifts that guide us along our Christian way: Wisdom (the ability to judge and direct human activities by divine truth); Understanding (the ability to see God at work in the world; Counsel (opens a person to God’s grace); Fortitude (the strength of conviction to follow God’s Way); Knowledge (the ability to judge things in keeping with God’s calling); Piety (to revere God and His presence in every person as a Child of God); Fear of the Lord (the strong desire to never be separated from God’s grace out of love, as opposed to fear in the usual sense).

What do you think? Which of these do you find yourself using most effectively? Which have you possibly forgotten or neglected? The Gifts of the Spirit are valuable and need to be used often and with gusto!

This past week, the Catholics of the Archdiocese of Chicago lost a giant among us. He was Bishop John Gorman. He was a south side boy, raised in Visitation Parish on Garfield Boulevard. He was ordained a priest in 1956. In 1956, he was given the responsibility of bringing Mundelein Seminary into the age of Vatican II. He emphasized service as well as individual holiness. He came to our area when he became pastor of Saint Michael in Orland Park in 1973 and turned it into a dynamic parish.

Bishop Gorman was ordained a bishop in 1988 and served as an auxiliary bishop to Cardinal Bernardin and later, Cardinal George. He retired in 2003. At the invitation of then-pastor Father Michael O’Connell, he resided for the rest of his life at Our Lady of the Woods. Father O’Connell saw him the week before he died and said the bishop was reading a theological article on his computer when he came by. Bishop Gorman was 99 years old. He remained intellectually curious right to the end.

Father Elliot Dees, current pastor of Our Lady of the Woods said Bishop Gorman died in his own home, in his own bed, in his sleep, which was exactly how he prayed it would happen. God bless Bishop John Gorman, a towering figure, and a priest’s priest.