HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY AND FIRST COMMUNION
Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers of the parish and the mothers of all our parishioners! We all know how important our mothers have been to us as we grew up and so we join with our nation in honoring them today. And, during this ongoing coronavirus pandemic, we become even more aware of the essential role mothers play in our homes in ways that we may have taken for granted in the past.
Mother’s Day has a very long history; allow me to offer a little background. The earliest tributes […]
FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
I hope you have all been enjoying this lovely weather this weekend. I imagine some of you have been out in your yards and gardens sprucing everything up. I invite you to picture the master gardener, whistling, wearing a floppy hat, pruning shears in hand, smiling as he cleans up his garden, snipping away the dead branches on all the vegetation he has so carefully planted in his garden. God is at work. From the moment God placed Adam and Eve in his garden, he has been pruning his most […]
GOOD SHEPERD SUNDAY WORLD DAY OF PRAYER FOR VOCATIONS
The Fourth Sunday of Easter is also called Good Shepherd Sunday since the gospel every year focuses on Jesus, the Good Shepherd. For the past 58 years, the Church has called us to observe a World Day of Prayer for Vocations on the Fourth Sunday of Easter. Specifically, this day calls us to pray for an increase in vocations to the priesthood, diaconate, consecrated or religious life. The purpose of World Day of Prayer for Vocations is to publicly fulfill our Lord’s instruction to, “Pray the Lord of the harvest to send […]
THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER
It’s hard to believe that our current pope, Francis, has been pope for eight years already. I thought of that earlier this week when I happened to drive past the Malvern Retreat House because I had been there with some 200 fellow priests for our annual priests workshop eight years ago and we had all crowded around a television that been set up because the consistory was taking place – the election of the next pope – and news had just broken of the white smoke, indicating that the pope […]
SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER
“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 remember our Lord’s words of encouragement to them just a few days […]
DIVINE MERCY SUNDAY
HAPPY EASTER! As we bring the Octave of Easter to its conclusion, know that I have kept you in my prayers all week, that you may experience the joy of the Resurrection! Today is also Divine Mercy Sunday. Heeding the call that our risen Lord gave to St. Marie Faustina Kowalska in the 1930’s, the Church decreed on 23 May 2000 that “throughout the world, the Second Sunday of Easter will receive the name Divine Mercy Sunday, a perennial invitation to the Christian world to face, with confidence in divine […]
EASTER
Once again, Happy Easter! How different today is from Easter last year! 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 yearlong Lent, ever since everything shut down in the face of the coronavirus last March. We have all had our crosses to bear, struggling […]