My Dear Friends, Holy Week is here! The most important week of the year. And so I present you with a very simple question: how do you intend to spend this week? We cannot go about the activities of the next seven days as if it were just another week. The events of Holy Week …
Continue reading “April 13th – Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord”
My Dear Friends, As we begin Passiontide and are confronted with the stark visual of our statues being covered as we approach Easter, I urge all of you to make a good Lenten confession,if you have not already done so, before Holy Thursday. Elsewhere in this bulletin, you will find the Holy Week Schedule plus …
My Dear Friends, “…because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost, and has been found.’ Then the celebration began.” (Luke 15:24) Every time I have to preach on this gospel of The Prodigal Son, I spend most of my week staring at Rembrandt’s painting that hangs in …
My Dear Friends, As we continue to journey through Lent, I would like to share with you this reflection that our neighbor, Father Richard Vigoa, pastor of St. Augustine, wrote recently to members of the clergy on the liturgy. Father Vigoa not only is the pastor of our neighboring parish but is also the …
My Dear Friends, “[The Lord Jesus Christ] will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself.” (Phil 3:21) The end of yesterday’s gospel from the first Saturday of Lent flows beautiful into today’s gospel of the Transfiguration because …
My Dear Friends, “Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert…” (Luke 4:1) Listen…….pause for 30 seconds….don’t read any further and just listen…to silence…. That sound is so rare. Many of us avoid silence. I know there have been times in my life that I have avoided …
My Dear Friends, This Wednesday we begin the season of Lent which I always describe as a “season of opportunity.” It is an opportunity to start anew, to reset our relationship with Christ, to cast off the things that obstruct our path to holiness. We tend to forget that holiness is our calling! We should …
My Dear Friends, As I write this column early in the week, our Holy Father, Pope Francis, is in the hospital in Rome with a respiratory infection. Every day at the Mass, we pray for the pope, but today we pray for his health and for a prompt recovery. During this Holy Year of jubilee, …
Continue reading “February 23rd – VII Sunday in Ordinary Time”
My Dear Friends, This year is a Jubilee Year. To better understand what a Jubilee means, it is useful to go back to the Jewish roots of our faith. A Jubilee is a special year of repentance, conversion, and forgiveness. Conversion as a remedy for sin was part of the providential plan of God since …
Continue reading “February 16th – VI Sunday in Ordinary Time”