INTERESTING DETAILS ABOUT OUR CHURCH MADE MORE EVIDENT THROUGHT LIVE STREAMING
I hope you are staying healthy – physically, mentally and spiritually – during these ongoing stressful times as we all try to weather the coronavirus pandemic. I’m delighted that so many of our parishioners are watching the live streamed Masses; it’s a very important way for us to stay together as a faith community. Over the past several weeks, I’ve had a number of parishioners ask about some of the details of our church that they hadn’t noticed before but now see on the live streamed Masses. They have asked [...]
THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER (Year A)
Luke 24:13 - 35 Welcome to my annotated commentary of Sunday’s readings. The purpose of my commentary is to give you the background for each reading, a little better understanding of its message and the message that all of the Sunday readings provide us. Although this is the year when our Sunday Masses will ordinarily feature the Gospel of Matthew, we hear almost exclusively from a John’s Gospel throughout the Easter Season, since this Gospel contains the most material on the Resurrection of our Lord. However, on the [...]
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 [...]
SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER – DIVINE MERCY SUNDAY (Year A)
John 20:19 - 31 Welcome to my annotated commentary of Sunday’s readings. The purpose of my commentary is to give you the background for each reading, a little better understanding of its message and the message that all of the Sunday readings provide us. In this Sunday’s Gospel passage, we hear the presentation of two of the risen Lord’s appearances to the apostles, first on Easter Sunday and then on the next Sunday. These appearances to the disciples have parallels in Mark 16:14-18, Luke 24:36-43 and 1 Corinthians 15:3 [...]
EASTER GREETINGS
Alleluia! Our Lord is risen and offers us new life! We certainly need to hear this message this year as we find ourselves surrounded by suffering and death. The Paschal mystery proclaims that Jesus, truly man - the son of Mary - really died on the cross and then overcame death as he rose on Easter. The resurrection of the body, the central mystery of Easter, is an essential Christian doctrine. As the apostle Paul declares so clearly: “[I]f the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ [...]