It’s so good to see you children who are about to receive Holy Communion for the first time, all dressed up and excited. I’m sure you parents are thrilled to see them dressed up; that doesn’t happen very often. I’m delighted that so many members of your family are here, as well, and I hope you know that all of us – everyone here at Mass – is praying for you as you take this important step in being even more a part of our worshiping community. On this Mother’s […]
CONGRATULATIONS FIRST COMMUNION CLASS!
Last weekend and this weekend, (at the 5:00pm and 9:30am Masses), 86 of our young parishioners received our Lord in Holy Communion for the first time! This is a very important event in their faith lives as they now join with the rest of the believing community in participating fully in the Celebration of the Eucharist. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains so well:
The Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life.” The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of […]
It’s so good to see you children who are about to receive Holy Communion for the first time, all dressed up and excited. I’m delighted that so many members of your family are here, as well, and I hope you know that all of us – everyone here at Mass – is praying for you as you take this important step in being even more a part of our worshiping community. We have this wonderful tradition here in our parish of celebrating First Holy Communion at the regularly scheduled Sunday […]
THE MONTH OF MARY
It’s hard to believe that it’s already May, but here it is! As you surely know, this month is traditionally dedicated to Mary, the Mother of God and the Mother of the Church. As Pope Paul VI expressed so well in his encyclical entitled the Month of May, this is the “month which the piety of the faithful has especially dedicated to Our Blessed Lady,” and it is the occasion for a “moving tribute of faith and love which Catholics in every part of the […]
“Peace be with you.” Three times in today’s Gospel, we hear the risen Lord assure his disciples with these comforting words: “Peace be with you.” And, although this greeting of peace, “Shalom,” was a common expression among the Jewish people of his day – as it still is today – it had taken on a much deeper meaning for the followers of Jesus who had just gone through three days filled with anything but peace. It made them think of our Lord’s words of encouragement to them just a few […]
Once again, Happy Easter! It is so good to see so many of you here in person! And, I greet, as well, those of you who, for a variety of reasons, are still joining us virtually. As we come out of the 40-day liturgical Lenten Season, I think we can all agree that it has felt like a two yearlong Lent, ever since everything shut down in the face of the coronavirus. Let’s pray that we don’t have to do it again. We have all had our crosses to bear, […]
We are, once again, experiencing a great deal of turmoil in the world: the horrific war in Ukraine, the terrorist attack in the New York subway, frequent shootings right down the street in Philadelphia. So much turmoil, death and destruction. This turmoil offers us an insight into the turmoil in Israel in the time of Jesus, as the Jewish people struggled to survive under the oppressive rule of the Romans and the common Jew suffered from the misuse of power by many of their own leaders. And, we need simply […]