My Dear Friends,
With school beginning this week, I want to welcome many of you back from summer vacation. It is good that we are all gathered in the house of the Lord again to celebrate the Sunday Eucharist. With school getting under way, parish life begins to pick up even though the majority of our ministries kept meeting over the summer.
This weekend, we are accompanied by a statue of Our Lady of Fatima next to our pulpit. Before Father Omar was transferred in early June, I asked him to inquire during his summer pilgrimage to Fatima about purchasing an image of Our Lady for our parish. Father Omar kept sending me pictures from Fatima of different statues he was seeing in the shops around town, but there was something about the face of this particular image that called out to me and the few people I shared it with. Father had the statue shipped from Portugal to our office and last month it arrived very carefully packed. It took us a good 5-10 minutes to slowly undue all the packing materials, but when we finally saw the radiant face of Our Lady, we were awestruck as I pray you will be too. I invite you to approach the altar rail after Mass and behold the image for yourselves. The crown and the rosary came packed separately and are magnificently crafted. Our Lady will be on the altar throughout this weekend and for tomorrow’s celebration of the Assumption of our Blessed Mother. Whenever we have a big Marian feast, she will be present by the pulpit. I know how devoted many of our parishioners are to Our Lady of Fatima which is why we decided to acquire this precious image. Last week, I preached about spiritual battle and there is no one who protects us more in this battle than Our Lady of Fatima who St. John Paul II attributes to saving his life from an assassin’s bullet some 41 years ago.
There are many events that are coming up as we emerge from the haze of summer. Next Saturday, the Apostolate of Divine Mercy, led by our very own Deacon Rafael de los Reyes, will hold a day retreat in Spanish titled, “The Proclamation of the Graces of Pentecost and Divine Mercy.” The retreat will take place in Comber Hall from 9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
The “Talleres de Oración y Vida” in Spanish will begin their 15-week course on bettering our prayer life on Tuesday, August 23. Next month, the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius will also begin their 30-week session every Monday starting on September 12th.
On Monday, August 29, we will have our annual parish outing to Marlins Park to catch the Marlins take on Sister Rosalie’s favorite team: the Los Angeles Dodgers. We have 100 tickets set aside for our parishioners. More info later in the bulletin.
On Tuesday, August 30, our parish has been honored once again to host the first Mass of the Novena of Our Lady of Charity with a Mass at 8pm that evening at the National Shrine of La Ermita de La Caridad. We ask you to save the date so that we can pack the Shrine that evening with Little Flower parishioners as we begin to prepare for the birthday of Our Lady.
Finally, today will be the last day that we livestream Masses here from Little Flower. It was a necessity during the height of the pandemic, and we left the stream long after many parishes shut it down. It’s time for all of us to come home to our beautiful church and experience the Mass in person as it should be rightfully celebrated. The Sunday Mass that is produced specifically for the sick and homebound is still being produced by the Archdiocese and can be found every Sunday on the Archdiocesan website: miamiarch.org. Thank you to all the volunteers and tech staff who made the livestream possible.
God bless you all,
