Last week, I was visited by the provincial of the Marists, Father Ted Keating. He is a good friend and was in town, so he came to visit me.

We have served together on many different committees over the years and the Marists have had a very long-standing presence in the Archdiocese of Boston.

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Also last week, we went to the house of the Sister Disciples of the Divine Master for vespers and dinner.

We are very blessed to have the Sister Disciples working at the Pastoral Center in a number of capacities as well as at our Regina Cleri residence for retired priests and at their center on West Street in Boston.

During the evening, they showed me the exhibit they have at the entrance to their house and we talked about the upcoming centennial celebration of the Pauline family.

As I mentioned in my post last week, I will be celebrating a special Mass for the members of the Pauline family in Boston in June.

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Last Friday I went to St. Paul’s Church in Harvard Square to celebrate a mass with the young adult community for “Jesus in Harvard Square,” part of the “Jesus in the City” series run by our Office of Lifelong Faith Formation and Parish Support.  These young adult masses are most often celebrated in St. Leonard’s Church in the North End but occasionally they also go to Harvard square, which is another area where there are many young people.

Friday was, of course, Halloween but we were celebrating the Mass for All Saints Day. There was one of the Capuchin brothers there, Brother Andrew, and I told him, “We have the same costume!”

We had a full church and it was a very beautiful celebration.

The choir from St. Paul’s Choir School sang for us during the Mass. They did just a spectacular job.

We are very grateful to the parish for hosting us.

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Saturday, we had the annual Mass and Investiture Ceremony for the Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem at the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help (Mission Church).

The chapel in the Redemptorist residence

There was a very large number of new members inducted, including a number of priests, one of whom was Bishop Robert Deeley.

When it was founded hundreds of years ago, the order was a military organization, charged with protecting the sacred sites in the Holy Land. Today, the order maintains that tradition by supporting the works of the Church there, such as schools, clinics, hospitals, and churches. The symbolic role as protectors of the Holy Land is also carried out in other ways. For example, at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, the members of the order are the ones who take care of the important relics from the Holy Land such as the Crown of Thorns. Members of the order also join us for our celebration of Good Friday at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, where we have a relic of the True Cross.

The speaker for the weekend’s installation events was Msgr. John Kozar, who is the president of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association. He addressed them about the situation of Christians and the Church in the Middle East. We were very glad to have him with us.

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Sunday was All Souls Day and it is my custom to celebrate three Masses on that day.

One of them was here at the Cathedral and at that Mass we prayed in a particular way for former Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, who had passed away on Thursday.

I’d like to share my homily at the Mass with you here:

Monday, of course, was the Funeral Mass for Mayor Menino at Most Precious Blood Church in Hyde Park, the church where he was baptized. His pastor at St. John Chrysostom Parish, Father John Connolly, celebrated and preached at the Funeral Mass.

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Tuesday I met with Roy Peterson, the new president of the American Bible Society, and his board of directors in New York.

We spoke about their plans to open a national Bible Museum in Washington D.C. and also their desire to work closely with the Catholic Church on a number of projects.

With my friend Mario Paredes and Roy Peterson

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Wednesday, we had a Mass at the Cathedral to celebrate the Campaign for Catholic Schools. The Mass marked the fact that they have raised the $8 million necessary to renovate the Lower Mills Campus of St. John Paul II Catholic Academy. Father Vin Daily, the pastor of St. Gregory’s, concelebrated the Mass with me.

Many of the children from the school were with us and made a wonderful contribution to the Mass —singing in the choir, in the handbell choir and even serving the Mass.

Mickey and Bob Atchinson who, with Jack Sebastian, co-chaired this campaign

Afterwards, we had a reception to thank those who helped make reaching this goal possible.

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Thursday, we were visited by the Capuchin provincial of Eritrea, Father Amanuel Mesgun. He was visiting his sister, Olga, who is a parishioner here at the Cathedral. In fact, a number of the parishioners here have relatives who are Capuchins in Ethiopia and Eritrea.

With Father Amanuel, his sister Olga and his nephew Noe

Our community is very numerous there and are involved in many different social and educational outreach initiatives. For example he told me the capuchins want to build a new secondary school in southern Eritrea.

Until next week,

Cardinal Seán