… at a church named Church of the Immaculate Conception in the small town of Dublin, Georgia, a friend will be consecrated as a Virgin Living in the World by our Bishop of Savannah, Stephen Parkes.

I can’t attend because of the virus and I can’t see the ceremony because I don’t do Facebook, but it will be livestreamed on the church’s Facebook page. I sent flowers, and I prayed a novena to the Immaculate Conception for my friend. Of all the things I’ve missed this year because of isolation, this will be the most missed occasion of all, save Mass.

There are more than 5,000 Consecrated Virgins in the United States now. Their number increases as the number of nuns decreases. With apologies to Yeats, it isn’t entirely true that “… everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned.”

It’s a day for rejoicing, even in isolation.