From Our Pastor

I love our church building.  It is both a handsome structure and a wonderful place to worship.  The mica schist walls, with their crystals that glisten in the light, are both strong and lively, and our stunning stained glass windows depict Salvation History so well, from the first moment of creation to the Church of today.  Our granite altars – with their two pedestals that remind me of both the two tablets of the Ten Commandments and Christ’s two-fold law of love of God and neighbor – are extraordinarily worthy [...]

  Eleven years ago, our parish joined with all other parishes throughout the Archdiocese in the Heritage of Faith – Vision of Hope Capital Campaign.  Cardinal Justin Rigali, who was our Ordinary at that time, launched this Campaign in 2008 to assist parishes and Catholic schools that were struggling financially, provide much-needed repairs to Ss. Peter and Paul Cathedral and St. Charles Seminary and minister to the needy throughout the Archdiocese.  This campaign raised around $125 million.  Our parish contributed almost $1.7 million – that’s 1.36% of the total funds [...]

After a crazy winter, with wide temperature swings and some dangerous storms, I imagine you’re ready for spring; I know I am!  Who knows what Mother Nature will bring us over the next few weeks but liturgically, Lent – which means “spring” – is almost here; it begins this week with Ash Wednesday.  Just as the natural world is reawakened and renewed every spring, each year, the Church, in her wisdom, offers us this liturgical Season of Lent, a season for reconciliation and renewal.   This Wednesday - Ash Wednesday [...]

            As your pastor, I am constantly impressed and edified by the love I see expressed in the families of this great parish.  As I’m sure you realize, families are the backbone of this parish, indeed, of any parish and of the Church.  As far back as Tertullian, a 3rd century Christian author, the family has been seen as the domestic Church.  Yet, as the Universal Church is today struggling with the tragic clergy sex abuse scandal, families are struggling with the tragedy of pornography due to easy access through [...]

This Sunday, we hear the “Sermon on the Mount” as presented in the Gospel of St. Luke.  This great sermon, found in an even more expanded version in the Gospel of St. Matthew, provides us all with the foundation of our lived faith.  Recognizing our poverty before God and hungering for union with the only One who can satisfy our deepest longing, we strive to follow the Way His Son, Jesus, taught us back to God. All of us are called to follow this Way.  And, we priests are called [...]

 “Come, you who are blessed by my Father.  Inherit the kingdom prepared for you.  For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me. …As often as you did it for one of my least brothers, you did it for me” (Mt 25:34-36, 40).   For the past 61 years, Catholic Charities Appeal has provided assistance for over 10 million [...]