Dear Brothers and Sisters:
Welcome to our parish's website!
I hope that you take advantage of the Lord's never-ending invitation to know Him and to worship Him in communion with others in this Christian community of faith.
I pray, too, that the words in the reflections below may help to bring you closer to Christ, and to His Church, which is always looking for you and me despite the noise and distractions of our present age.
Should you or any of your family members need to speak to a priest, or to receive particular attention regarding the sacraments of the Church, please call us at the rectory. We are here to serve you.
Peace to you -
Rev. Joseph Ferraro, K.H.S.
Pastor
11th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Dear Brothers & Sisters:
In Jesus’ first parable today, he tells us that just as seed grows without the knowledge or activity of the farmer who sowed it, so God’s kingdom will grow in the same unstoppable way. The seed has an inner dynamic to grow and to become a rich harvest. It is a wonderful expression of the power of God a work in our world, irrespective of human efforts to encourage to stop that growth. It conveys absolute trust in God’s power to achieve God’s purpose and realize God’s plan, which is the flourishing of the kingdom in all its fullness, that is a kingdom of love, justice, peace as well as freedom.
The parable contains a hope- filled a promise that the harvest will come. This image of reaping the harvest is drawn from the prophet Joel, who affirmed his absolute certainty that, no matter what, God’s plan will be accomplished.
Jesus’ second parable expresses a related truth about the kingdom. This time, Jesus draws imagery from the prophet Ezekiel, who spoke of God’s kingdom becoming like a mighty cedar tree towering above all others, offering protection and security to all peoples, represented by the birds of every kind which can rest in its shade. Jesus uses the example of the mustard seed: it has the potential of greatness within it and can become the biggest of all shrubs.
Peace;
Fr. Joe
Don’t forget to buy a raffle ticket for our Grand 50/50 Drawing which will take place on Father’s Day, June 20th, at 2PM. We will be having a Barbeque in our Parish Parking Lot. From 11am till 3:30PM. All are invited to join us. Food will be sold by Fred Dellano, the vendor who supplies foods for our September Festival. A great time for our Parish Family to come together to celebrate after our Pandemic Lockdown.
The Holy Trinity: May 30, 2021
My brothers and sisters in the Lord!
At the end of a novel Brideshead Revisited, the elderly Lord Marchmain, who is dying, returns from his home in Italy to his home, Brideshead. A priest is called just before his death. As Lord Marchmain receives the words of absolution, he makes the sign of the cross with his hand in a slow and deliberate way. His two daughters Julia and Cordelia are present and smile with great joy. Their father, who had abandoned his pious wife and lived with a mistress in Italy, has returned home to the faith and professes his belief in God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the unity of the Trinity.
The simple but yet profound act of the sign of the cross is an action that accompanies us from the very beginning of life to eternal life. At baptism, the priest or deacon signs the child to be baptized with the sign of the cross: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”. Parents and godparents express their belief in God who is Love and Unity of three divine persons lived in relationship among Father, Son and Holy Spirit when they respond “Amen”. Parents often make the sign of the cross on their children’s foreheads before they go to sleep. Throughout our life, we begin our prayers with the sign of the cross. The final blessing over a dying person commends that person to heaven.
The mystery of the Holy Trinity is at the heart of our faith and is a mystery of love. It can never be fully grasped or understood. Rather we are invited to allow this mystery to penetrate our hearts just as we allow the mystery of love to surprise and move us. In our liturgy and our prayers, we are like swimmers in an environment full of the presence of God the Holy Trinity: the sign of the cross, the Glory be, the Gloria, the Creed, the Eucharistic Prayer, the endings of prayers and all blessings.
God the Father pours out his love into the gift of creation. The book of creation invites us to thank the Father and to praise him for his wonderful gifts. St. Francis of Assisi knew this when he spoke to the animals, praised the rabbit and made sure that he did not walk on earthworms but rather moved them to a place of safety away from a path. The first reading speaks of the closeness of God to the Jewish people and the invitation to listen and follow God’s commandments. God’s outpouring of love reaches a climax in the sending of the angel Gabriel to Our Lady who agrees to become the servant and Mother of God. The incarnation, passion, death, and resurrection of Christ is the mystery of love which saves us. In a further outpouring of love, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son to stir us to cry out, “Abba, Father!” St. John Paul II shed light on this when he said, “Our God in his deepest mystery is not solitude, but a family, for he has within himself fatherhood, sonship and the essence of the family, which is love. That love, in the divine family, is the Holy Spirit.”
The feast of the Most Holy Trinity invites us to deepen the understanding that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, a Unity and a Trinity. We can do this be giving more time and focus to the way in which we make the sign of the cross: not a rushed and sloppy gesture, but a full sign during which we think of each person of the Trinity.
God is love and each one of us is called to extend the love we have received to others. The Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, inspires and drives us to love and to reach out to others. Family Love is invited to mirror the love of the Trinity because relationships of love always include and seek the good of others. A Pope Francis has written, “The faithful relationship of husband and wife becomes an image for understanding and describing the mystery of God himself, for in Christian vision of the Trinity, God is contemplated as Father, Son and Spirit of love. The triune God is a communion of love, and the family is its living reflection. The family is thus not unrelated to God’s very being.” The life of the Holy Trinity and our family lives touch each other in a wonderful and mysterious way.
Peace;
Fr. Joe
Pentecost Sunday, May 23, 2021
My brothers and sisters in the Lord!
The Gospel today proclaims the promise that Jesus makes to send the Holy Spirit and Pentecost is the fulfillment of that promise. At Pentecost the Apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit and were able to proclaim the truth of Jesus. Jesus also teaches the connection between the gift of the Spirit and the truth. Without the divine inspiration that comes from God we are unable to fully express the richness of God’s being and love.
This giving of the Holy Spirit takes place on two levels, the collective and the personal. At the collective level the Spirit is given to the whole Church, starting with the Apostles. The Spirit empowered the apostles to speak different many different languages, and also to speak the truth about the love and goodness of God. They were able to convince people of the reality of the death and resurrection of Jesus. On an individual level we receive the Spirit at baptism, and we are given the gift of faith, hope and charity. As St. Paul puts it, we become temples of the Holy Spirit. We are empowered to know and love God and to bear witness to his saving truth.
At the Annunciation, the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary so she could give birth to the human body of Christ; at Pentecost the Holy Spirit hovers over the Church to give birth to the mystical body of Christ. At our baptism the Holy Spirit comes to us to empower us. This is the participation in the life of the Trinity.
We live the life of Pentecost primarily, through prayer and good works. The Holy Spirit works through each of the sacraments to heal and illuminate us, to help to live a life of community with God and with each other. The Holy Spirit gives us what are known as the seven gifts, to empower us to pray, to enter ever deeper into the life of the Trinity. In addition to the seven gifts of the Spirit there are also the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Today’s second reading gives us a beautiful list of these gifts, the results of living a life in the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control. The Holy Spirit dwelling in us does not make us puppets, but empowers us to be genuinely free and achieve our potential as children and co-workers of God.
There is one very concrete way in which we can bear witness to the truth of Jesus and Gospel: Guided by the Spirit, we can speak of the things of God, we can speak honestly, speaking the truth in love. This can go from explaining our faith to others, to saying kind and encouraging words to each other, the sort of words that build up, not those that destroy. So the Holy Spirit makes us children of God, but also helps us mature in Christ to the fullness of truth; as an ancient hymn puts it, the Holy Spirit is the Father’s promise, “teaching little ones to speak and understand”.
Peace;
Fr. Joe
ASCENSION OF THE LORD
(May 16th, 2021 because of COVID-19 today’s feast normally celebrated on Thursday, May 13th- was transferred to be celebrated today)
My brothers and sisters in the Lord!
“The Mission” is a 1986 film starring Robert de Niro, Jeremy Irons, and Liam Neeson. In the film is a group of Jesuit missionaries in the Amazon which tries to protect a group of indigenous people who are under attach. Fr. Daniel Berrigan is also listed as an actor in the film. It was a cameo performance where he only spoke one word throughout the film. The word was “NO”. In his obituary in the New York Times, though his film appearance is mentioned, it is his comment about peace making which is emphasized. He was often arrested for his actions. But he persisted, with the words: “The day after I am embalmed”, he said, “that’s when I will give up”.
In today’s Gospel, at Jesus’ Ascension, he tells the disciples to go out into the whole world and proclaim the “Good News”. They would have been stunned by the immensity of the mission which they were given. They wondered if the world would really listen and also if they would be able to find the right words.
This past year has been truly challenging for us, but thanks be to God we were able to celebrate a modified version of Easter as opposed to not celebrating last year. Easter begins in joy, but Eastertide with a hint of sadness. Just as Good Friday is the day of great sorrow, which makes way for the joy of Easter, so the feast of the Ascension of the Lord can bring a different sort of feeling of sadness, which makes way for the joy of Pentecost. The hint of sadness of the feast of Ascension of the Lord is something like that of first or last day in school, a change of job, or for some perhaps ordination to priesthood in the next few weeks or religious life. For all of us we have begun opening up and becoming a little liberated from this pandemic and hopefully sooner than later we with be able to once again interact with one another as the nicer weather arrives as we done in the past.
Our faith tells us that all is prepared. There are many days when we do not know what is to happen or what we are to do. We feel that, like the disciples did on the Day of Christ’s ascension, we are still standing on the road looking up at the sky where Jesus has ascended. We forget that Christ Himself is the road.
It is in his life that we live. So prayer is not just the way top receive instructions about what to do next. Prayer lets us go further down the road without needing to know where it will lead us. The priestly prayer of Christ as it is called, part of which we hear, is a conversation with the Father where Jesus explains that his leaving us is an act of love.
It is love because perfect love always means trusting the person we love. We might say that the Father knows this, but this prayer is an attempt to put into human terms the perfect conversation between the Father and Son, in which all things are given meaning, despite a sort of silence to our ear.
There is a silence which is saying nothing, but there is a silence which says everything. Sometimes we experience that in love. , where we are suddenly silent because we know that we are sharing great things. The infinite love of the Father and the Son is something like that. Yet we need this to be broken down into words, and this is what the Gospel of John does today. The words, as Peter says, are the words to eternal life.
Today we can reflect on our own mission. We wonder how we can proclaim the Gospel. We do not have to do it alone. But we are asked to do something to change the world for the better. As Pope Francis wrote in his encyclical “On the care for our common home”, “we must not think of that these efforts are not going to change the world. They benefit society, often unbeknownst to us, for they call forth a goodness which, albeit unseen, inevitably tends to spread”.
Peace -
Fr. Joe
6th Sunday in Easter
My brothers and sisters in the Lord!
The laying down of life for love is the theme of today’s Gospel. In these final weeks of Eastertide, we listen once again to the words of Jesus at the Last Supper. Jesus offers himself as the model of love, willing to go so far as to suffer danger and death to express love. The second reading today explains this move fully. John is writing to the early Christian community and tells them, “My dear people, let us love one another since love comes from God.” And in the first reading we learn that God loves everybody. Peter is hesitant to go into the home of Cornelius, because he is a Roman soldier, outside the Jewish faith community. But when he does, then suddenly the Holy Spirit is poured forth upon that home. The people receive the Spirit just as the first disciples did after Jesus rose from the dead. Peter says, “they have received the Holy Spirit just as much as we have.”
Loving as Jesus loves will require sacrifice. Love is not just a sentimental, warm, fuzzy feeling. It’s a conscious decision to share ourselves with others, to give of ourselves for the sake of another.
Probably, most of are not going to be challenged to lay down lives for another, but none of knows what lies ahead. From the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, doctors, nurses and healthcare workers risked their lives working of the front lines treating patients with Covid-19. In the UK, and in other countries, people, showed their appreciation with public displays of support groups, picking up shopping and delivering medicine to the most vulnerable people. Volunteers from four central London parishes brought food and water into Trafalgar Square each day to give out to homeless people, working alongside the Sikh community. There was an outpouring of solidarity and neighborliness in many areas.
As followers of Christ today, we are called to love ourselves and others outside or own circle. Following his own example, Jesus taught us to reach out to those who are poor, excluded and marginalized. Let us carry on breaking barriers to reach out to others. Jesus teaches us not just to love those who love us, but to love our enemies too. It takes a great deal of courage and conviction to understand that we must love on another as Jesus loved us. And there is a further dimension. Pope Francis taught us in his encyclical “Laudato Si” published six ago this month to “hear the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth.” We are called to care for the whole earth community, described by Pope Francis as “our common home”. We must remember that all things and all people are connected and united in God’s love.
Peace;
Fr. Joe
We congratulate our children who received Holy Communion for the first time this week. Our children from Good Shepherd Academy received on May 1st and Our Religious Education Students received on May 8th. May God bless them as they continue their sacramental journey. Please pray for them as well as all of our students!
5th Sunday of Easter
My brothers and sisters in the Lord!
When the COVID-19 virus struck our world, we had to learn a new way to be human. Things that we used to think as normal behavior or even polite behavior, became unacceptable – no more shaking hands, embracing or kissing outside of our own immediate circle. Social distancing became necessary to restrict the spread of the virus. New recommendations were promoted with ever-growing confusion in the instructions of people were given – like staying 6 feet apart, or maybe three feet would be okay if masks are worn at all times in public. We were also told to stay at home and meet with no one outside our own household, then the guidance changed so that we could meet with certain numbers of people, outside but not inside. For many it became increasingly confusing, not to mention the many elderly who were and continue to be in lockdown in nursing homes or hospitals.
As human beings we are social animals. We live in a society. We need other people. Our world only works because we live and work together. Social isolation, being cut off from one another, for most of us is a relative to death, and yet in the pandemic, social integration can indeed lead to death. In essence our world has been turned upside down.
Today, in the Gospel reading, Jesus teaches us a new way to life in a relationship with God. He uses the well-known image of the vine. In an agricultural society, people will understand how to get the best out of the vine. If grapes are to develop so that they can be turned into good wine, they need careful management. The energy of the plant has to be directed to the fruit through proper pruning. The vine cannot be left to do its own thing or it will simply produce lots of leaves and a poor quality of grapes There is an obvious connection between the root and the branch, leaf and fruit: they share the one life. Cut off from that life they shrivel-up and die.
This same inter-dependence Jesus describes for us as the relationship which gives us eternal life. We are one with him and with each other, sharing the one life, and in this way we can live with him and produce the fruits of his love. But Jesus does warn us. The vine cannot be left to its own devices; it needs a vine dresser to manage its growth and encourage its fruitfulness, and God is such a vinedresser. God knows us all and knows what part of us needs to be cut away and what needs encouragement. We are in partnership with God to produce the best version of ourselves, the best fruit and the best wine.
In the wake of this pandemic, we have to reevaluate our role. One thing we have learned from the pandemic is that human life is precious. It is worth putting the world on hold to preserve life. Those who save lives and help keep life safe are as valuable as those who produce wealth. The sanitizers, the care takers, those who keep our supply chains moving, who were once considered to be less important, are now recognized for the vital role they play in our lives.
We look at our world through the looking glass of our faith, and we see just how interconnected we really are. We are all created in the image and likeness of God, who is love. We are created for love, to love and to be loved, and this love is not restricted to our near and dearest alone. We belong together. We need each other, just as the various parts of the vine need to be connected to the entire plant. Roots, stem, branches, leaves and fruit are all bonded in a purposeful unity. But this is just a tiny example of the unity of the entire cosmos, from the great galaxies and planets, to the smallest particles of matter. All have their place, all work together.
As human beings in our little fragment of the entire universe, we have been graced by God with a particular responsibility and that is to show that love is the overriding force binding all things together. If COVID-19 has taught us this lesson, perhaps it will all have been worthwhile.
Peace;
Fr. Joe
4th Sunday of Easter
My brothers and sisters in the Lord!
In the time of Jesus, Shepherds did not “drive” their sheep; they instead walked with them, or went ahead of them especially when they noticed that the path was narrow. The Shepherds also knew each sheep by name and understood their needs. If a wolf would appear, the Shepherd would drive it away. The sheep also knew their shepherd and trusted that the shepherd was not trying to take away their freedom. On the contrary, the shepherd was expanding their horizons. Because the spring-time grass which carpeted the Judean hillsides soon would turn brown, so the shepherds needed to keep leading them to fresh pasture. The shepherds might even cut down leafy branches in order to feed their sheep. When it came time to move on, they would call to them and, hearing their names, the sheep came willingly. The shepherds would wait for the stragglers, and would again set off and wherever the shepherd went, the sheep would surely follow.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus describes himself as that kind of shepherd: leading us, his flock, to where he knows we will find nourishment and fulfillment. We are known to him as individuals. We can trust him, because he gave his life for us. No one made him do it; he did it because he loves us. This is the difference between a job and a vocation; the feeling of being called to something; and doing it because you care and not looking for a reward or any recognition but rather just wanting to give.
My brothers and sisters, self-gift is never a waste. Dedicated people in all walks of life find fulfillment in the giving of themselves. Doing a good job matters, people matter. For some, work is more than a livelihood, it is a calling, and “vocation” is a word we associate particularly with the priestly, religious, or consecrated life. Others may discover their vocation in the experience of parenthood, for example, or in the involvement with some worthwhile cause. It is certain that God calls each of us to some particular Christian service.
Many factors influence our choices in life and it is not always easy to recognize what or who might be calling us in any particular direction. However, if it feels as though you are being pushed or persuaded, it is unlikely the voice of Jesus. Jesus, our good shepherd, knows us as individuals, each with our own personality and gifts. Jesus does not force or manipulate; rather he invites us. And neither does he stand by during our life struggles; rather he accompanies us.
Occasionally he picks us up and carries us. And there will be days when God will call others to support us, instead of us caring for them; then we will have to learn a new way of being. None of us knows what will be there for us in the future but, as St. John tells us, we shall be like him. That is the primary vocation of all of us; to be like Jesus.
While we need aptitude and skills to be nurses, engineers, parents, priests or whatever service to which God calls us, it’s only our likeness to Jesus which makes us those good nurses, good engineers, good parents, or good shepherds.
Peace -
Fr. Joe
The Third Sunday of Easter, 2021
My dear brothers and sisters in the Lord!
There is a theory in psychology called “cognitive dissonance”. At its heart is the idea that if people try to hold together two contradictory ideas, attitudes or behaviors, then they experience psychological stress which they try to reduce or remove at all costs, to make their ideas, attitudes or beliefs consistent with each other. This means that when we do hold conflicting ideas or beliefs, something has to give, one of our beliefs, attitudes or behaviors has to be either abandoned or modified in some way to make it consistent with the other.
The theory was first proposed by an American psychologist called Leon Festinger, who in the 1950’s studied a religious cult which believed that the earth was going to be destroyed by a flood. Cult members brought into this idea wholeheartedly, giving up their jobs and their homes. When the flood didn’t happen, this set up cognitive dissonance: their belief was in conflict with the facts. But instead of simply acknowledging that their belief that the flood was wrong, some cult members still held on to it, but modified it. They said that they had been right all along about the flood, but they reinterpreted their belief, to say that the earth had been spared because of the faithfulness of the cult members. Festinger concluded that some people would resolve their psychological stress by blindly believing whatever they wanted to believe, rather than abandon their beliefs.
The theory has been applied by some people to the followers of Jesus. They believed that he was the Messiah, that he would set Israel free and establish God’s kingdom. But this was “proved to be wrong” when Jesus was crucified. According to this theory, Jesus’ disciples were unable to cope with the trauma of the crucifixion and so, rather than abandon their belief in Jesus, they came up with the idea of resurrection as a coping mechanism to help them deal with their psychological stress at his death.
Today’s Gospel is very unusual and it seems to be written as a rebuttal to any idea that the first disciples “invented” the resurrection as a “coping strategy”. Not only does Jesus appear to them, he asks them for something to eat. He is not a ghost or a figment of their imagination. And the sight of him is described as something terrifying, rather than wishful thinking. We look at the words used to describe the disciples experience: “alarm and fright”, “agitated” dumbfounded”, “they could not believe it “. Rather than welcoming Jesus with great joy, it is almost as if they have to be shaken out of their disbelief by Jesus. He says to them: “touch me”, and then he asks them for something to eat. Far from clutching at straws to explain the death of Jesus, they are so immersed in the brutal fact of his death that they are unable to process seeing him in the flesh. There is a stunned lack of understanding among those first disciples, even as they are overcome with joy.
Perhaps the greatest proof of the authenticity of their experience lies in their lived-out response to these events. Jesus tells them “you are witness to this,” witnesses that he is the Christ who suffered, died, and rose for the forgiveness of sins for all people. And that was precisely what so many of them did: they witnessed not simply by their words but by their actions, even to the point of giving their lives to share this astounding news with the whole human race.
Our faith must have the same elements we see in those disciples: the honesty of their struggle to accept the news of Jesus’ resurrection, so that it can also become real for us, so that we too, can “see for ourselves”; a genuine personal encounter with the risen Lord, with his love, his presence, and desire to do this by our lives, by giving of ourselves in a self-sacrificing way, so that others might find life. We are called to bear witness to the truth that Jesus’ cross is the way to life. This is no denial of the death of Jesus, but an affirmation that he shows us the way to life, precisely by his dying.
There are no shortcuts to that struggle for faith, or to that personal encounter with Jesus. And there can be no passing the buck to others to do the work. We are his witnesses today.
Peace;
Fr. Joe
2nd Sunday of Easter- 2020- B
My brothers and sisters in the Lord!
One of the most powerful and intimate gestures that we can share with another person is the gift of touch. It is such a deep aspect of being human that it is, of course the most powerful way of communicating love. At the start of the Covid19 pandemic, we had to learn to live with the pain of social distancing, by shielding and self-isolating from one another. . The gestures of handshaking, hugs and embraces became threats because of the danger of spreading the virus. Children learned to be like helicopters by stretching their arms out to measure the distance between them. We see how public buildings had to be reconfigured, and so these kinds of actions create distance rather than intimacy. Many throughout the world have suffered from social isolation and some people’s mental health issues have been exacerbated.
The sacraments became more difficult to receive because they rely on the touch and physical presence which mediate the presence of Jesus; for example with the washing water of Baptism, and the anointing with sacred Chrism at Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Orders. The anointing with the oil of the sick brings comfort and healing. The bread transformed into the body of Christ but still looks like bread. The wine becomes the blood of Christ but tastes like wine. The Church had to pause its gathering for Holy Mass. And last year we missed our Easter Season celebrations in our own churches, not same feeling with zooms or live streaming the celebrations. This Easter we continue to build up our new world which we slowly become accustomed to.
In today’s Gospel, the intimate scene of encounter between the risen Jesus and St. Thomas is remarkable. When Jesus appeared to his disciples after the resurrection, the one who was crucified stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you”. They saw the wounds in his hands, side and feet and believed that he had risen from the dead. We know the story of Thomas not being present and his reaction of not believing or accepting the words of the other disciples. He might have been skeptical or even too proud to accept this reality. And yet, Jesus continues to desire to speak to him in order to bring forth that belief. My brothers and sisters the mercy of Jesus is so powerful that he does not abandon Thomas but looks for another way to speak into his heart. Jesus will always keep trying to find a way into the hardened heart and never gives up on anyone. When he appears in front of Thomas, he invites him to touch his hands and with his finger to put his hand into his side. Such an intimate gesture is a sign of profound love. We hear Thomas’ profound profession of faith, when he says: “My Lord and My God”!
We must love God and allow God to touch us if we wish our faith to increase. God touches us in the Sacraments especially when we receive Holy Communion. We consume the body and blood of Christ and as an act of reverence that we can pray: “My Lord and MY God!” We grow in our Christian faith when we love our neighbor. The two commandments are deeply interrelated when we love God, and we love God’s children. When we love God’s children we bring forth the love of God. The appearance of the risen Lord to Thomas teaches us to touch the wounds of the body of Christ, then our faith is deepened. Our faith in Christ is not something abstract but rather is real in creation.
We touch the wounds of the body of Christ when we reach out to those who suffer, the sick child, the dying parent, those who are poor or abused, those who have to go hungry, those whose wounds are sore and hurting. There we faithfully live the commandment to love our neighbor and love God. We are invited to enter into the wounds of others and be the compassionate presence of Christ through his body, the Church. He is the head, the source, the one who provides the nourishment and power of this outreach of love. He is the energy so that his Church may live and witness to this love. We do this through the power of touch.
Living in our world at this time, has also made us become acutely aware that touch can be intrusive or abusive, the unwanted hug, embrace or kiss. To respect others we have to be keenly aware of what we are doing and act appropriately. Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, and we are invited to see the other person with wonder and respect. Teaching children this art is important for growth. We share in the mercy of God by loving and serving others. The power of touch is a God given gift to renew creation and God’s Holy people.
Peace,
Fr. Joe
Easter Vigil 2021
It’s hard to believe that 2 years have passed since we last celebrated the Lenten and Easter Seasons. Last year, losing the celebration of these important Seasons in our faith was truly difficult. The pandemic drove us into a spiral spin, crushing us and our faith, physically, spiritually and emotionally, something we could have never imagined happening in our world and especially in our country.
We have so many things to be grateful for especially God’s great love for us, each of the statues we have here in church or our favorite ones at home have a history of God’s love for us in the lives of the people or saints they represent. And most importantly celebrating Easter again .
Among all the wonderful icons of the orthodox Church, one of them most famous is the icon of the resurrection. It depicts a victorious Jesus triumphantly rising up from hell, with one strong arm pulling Adam out and the other raising up Eve as well. They are being dragged from the abode of the dead, from where sinful humanity had fallen, up to the life of the new creation where Christ is, surrounded by his saints.
This night, all over the world, thousands of people are being baptized into the Catholic Church. Some of these newly baptized people have always sought to do good in their lives; others have been drawn away from what they have come to see as the dissatisfying futility that can mark life in the world. People have their own stories to tell about their own personal journeys into faith and the reason for rejoicing in the church. St. Paul had a dramatic conversion from unbelief and sin, and he spoke of us being baptized so that “as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father’s glory, we too, might live a new life.”
In other places, St. Paul wrote: “for anyone who is in Christ, there is new creation; the old creation has gone.” But, despite his sudden conversion, Paul was far from thinking that he had become perfect. In Jesus’ company are to be found those who are troubled as well as tempted, strugglers and those just hanging in there, and the saints to; all of us upheld, not by our own strength but by the arms of Jesus himself.
And yet humans are made to rise very high, to the heights of holiness, heights of forgiveness and love , as well as heights of self-sacrifice and courage; there is no limit to the height to which human souls can rise. Through God’s grace, tonight we gladly renew our promises to reject sin and to believe in Christ, and we celebrate the resurrection of our savior, which is the reason for our hope of resurrection too!
We are invited to renew our baptismal commitment as disciples of Jesus. The character in the fourth Gospel called “the disciple Jesus loved” represents the individual disciple, whoever he or she may be. That person’s understanding of Jesus grows in the course of the story. Our understanding of Jesus and our love for him should continue to grow throughout our lives. This is where the idea of struggle comes in. Our faith is not something static , it has to develop and grow or it will die. It comes from those who experienced the risen Christ for themselves and pass it on to us. From time to time our present ideas will not be enough anymore and we will have to leave them for a deeper understanding.
I take this opportunity to thank you for your continued financial generosity. Many of our families have joined the online “PARISH GIVING” program. It has helped us greatly, many of our parishioners have joined making it so much easier. Remember you can use your credit card and receive points for travel, dinner etc. Also we thank all who have been using the parish “GO FUND ME “ program for extra parish gifts or donating in memory of a loved one. For more information please visit our parish we. Holyfamilynutley.org for more information. Religious Education Registration can also be done for classes beginning in September. We are also taking registrations for anyone who has not completed their sacraments of First Communion, of Confirmation, the R.C.I.A. Program. If you have not sign up for parish “Flock Notes” we encourage you to do so by updating your e-mail and phone numbers, many of our records are obsolete and need to be updated. Again, all information can be found on our Website.
Many thanks to all who donated for our Easter Flower fund, because of your generosity once again our Church looks beautiful for the Easter Celebration.
On behalf of Fr. Francesco, Fr. John, Fr. Jim & Fr. Bill we wish you all a blessed Easter Season.
Peace;
Fr. Joe
Palm Sunday B- 2021
My brothers and sisters in the Lord!
The Gospel story told by St. Mark, tells the story of Jesus, the just man, of his life journey and its culmination in arrest, unjust condemnation and death on the cross. Today we hear the story told again and we witness the injustice of it, the unfairness of it as well as the cruelty of it. The man who lives in daylight is arrested in the dark. The man who spoke openly sees his words twisted and used against him. The man who honored every person he met is brutally treated and taken out to die.
There is a powerful witness to this, a centurion, Roman soldier charged with executing this man, Jesus. He watches his junior soldiers have their fun with the prisoner, mocking him and knocking him about. He leads the procession through the streets of Jerusalem and observes the demeanor of this unfortunate man. At the place of execution, he organizes the process and forms the guard to contain proceedings, and then he stands there and watches the man slowly die. But as the sky darkens and the taunts of the crowd grow weaker, this Roman officer begins to realize that the man whose death he is charged to oversee in not any ordinary man. Though cruelly tormented and about to lose his life, the man on the cross is more alive than any person ever was. When he finally breathes his last breath, the soldier is forced to cry out, “in truth this man was a son of God”.
We tell this story and continue to tell this story because it is the story of every person in this world. It is the story of the just person who seeks to live an honorable life, who meets with suffering and with cruelty, with injustice as well as with flawed societies. It is the story of how the just person perseveres in goodness despite all the setbacks and opposition, and seeks the face of God. This is how life is in a fallen world.
The forces of darkness are very real. The darken sky over Calvary, where Jesus dies, tells us to prepare ourselves for difficult times, and the way Christ died teaches us how to live our daily lives today. Jesus did not reign himself to be taken to death. He told his friends, no one takes my life from me. I give it of my own free will. Jesus took a dark situation and he faced and remained true to his Father to the end. The centurion witnessed the power of a truly good man. Now in turn, by the Lord’s grace, we too follow this way of the crucified one. And we do this so that people may look at us and say: “In truth this person is truly a son, a daughter of God.”
Today we enter into Holy Week, there are many opportunities to spend time in prayer and celebrate this week. Tomorrow evening (Monday) the Chrism Mass will take place at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, unfortunately due to the Pandemic limited one person per parish will be allowed at the Mass. Fr. John will represent Holy Family Church and will pick up our Holy Oils.
Our Schedule for Holy Week is as follows: Today, Palm Sunday, our regular Sunday Mass schedule. 5:30 Saturday eve, Sunday, 8 and 10 AM and 12 Noon; please note Palms will be placed on tables outside the Church for you to pick up. We ask that you enter the Church through the main doors and use all doors when leaving church.
We remind you that there are no Masses Schedule in the mornings on Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday.
Morning Prayer will be prayed on those days at 9:00AM – The Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday will begin at 7:00PM; please note due to regulations concerning the pandemic, Washing of The Feet WILL NOT TAKE PLACE at Mass this year. Also, there will be NO PROCESSION with the Blessed Sacrament and side repository will not be set.
The Blessed Sacrament will remain in the main Tabernacle this year until 10PM. Good Friday, the Passion of our Lord Jesus and Holy Communion will take place at 3PM. There will be no Veneration or kissing of the wood of the Cross this year. Our Lady will be placed by the Baptismal Font for your personal prayer. Holy Saturday Vigil will begin at 8:15PM, there will be no lighting of the fire nor blessing with Holy water during this liturgy as well as during the Easter Season.
Easter Sunday remains the same 8 and 10 AM and 12 noon. We remind you to be socially distanced and to wear your mask at all times.
Peace;
Fr. Joe
5th Sunday in Lent B-2021
My brothers and sisters in the Lord!
Jeramiah’s passage begins with the words, “See the days are coming…” and the second reading of the letter to the Hebrews, speaks of how Jesus is looking beyond his life on earth, and in the Gospel, Jesus says “the hour has come”. When you think about it, we still live in that “hour”; it is still unfolding in our lives. Even though it is true that he has died and risen again already, to live in Christ is to live in his death as well as his rising to new life. Our lives are full of small deaths, and small resurrections. When we confess our sins, we join with Jesus in his Eucharist, we make sacrifices and take risks for his sake, then something in us dies and something new is born again. We can live many years without allowing this death and resurrection to take place in our lives. We may not choose to change, but sometimes it is outside circumstances which forces a change on us. This can be the grace of God for us, but only if we have faith and hope.
Each year we are called upon to live in a special way both Christ’s death and his resurrection, to prepare us for that paschal moment that will happen in every life. The seed has to stop being a seed if it is going to be what a seed is meant to be. If we live our lives in a perpetual winter, and all living memory had forgotten the spring, how shocked we would be when a new spring finally came. We would call it the death of winter, unable to imagine that this was not death but a newness of life. St. Paul tells us that we are to walk in the newness of life. Jesus walked in the greatest darkness possible, the rejection of salvation itself, yet he entered into that darkness and faced up to it with his human emotions, showing us that fear is to be overcome by hope and love.
The art of travel is knowing what to pack, but the experienced traveler will also know what to pack. We will gain more from Lent if we see it not just as a temporary giving up of things but rather training in letting go of everything that holds us up on the journey to the kingdom. Jesus teaches us to travel lightly. The more demanding the journey, the steeper the road, the more we have to unburden ourselves.
During the Lenten Season, we can learn about how demanding the journey to eternal happiness can be. It may not be the material things that we are called to let go of, but we may need to let go of the attitudes, emotional binds, compulsions, automatic responses to situations; in short the false sense of self that hides the true self which is being created in Christ. It is now in these last two weeks of Lent that we can consider the magnitude of the journey which Jesus has asked us to pursue. And yet it is not a journey we make on our own; if we look ahead, he is there, and we follow.
Peace;
Fr. Joe