Welcoming Newcomers to the Table

Beginning next Sunday - we will be welcoming children to the table at most masses throughout the Easter season.

This task of initiating members is the task of our whole Family of Faith.  We will ALL have a role to play! To welcome the many guests who will be visiting - to help them fully participate - even if they do not think they have to! 
Our Hospitality on these occasions shows our Christian Spirit, our generosity, and our commitment to encouraging them to stay connected.  
So even when someone is sitting where you might usually sit, or does not seem to know when to stand sit or kneel, please be kind, hospitable, and welcoming - then perhaps they will realize that we are not complete without their presence.

Peace

Easter - week

Christ is Risen - Risen Indeed! Alleluia

Sometimes words fail us.  This is how I feel this day.  In the wake of these three holy days - Three powerful and magnificent days - words pale in comparison to the rich symbols and gestures the Church offers her children!

In Fire and Word, in Water and Oil, in Bread and Wine, in Music and Song, in fabric & flowers the Wonder and Beauty of our God's providence was made manifest!

Easter 2015

Christ is Risen - Risen Indeed, Alleluia!

This is part of the text of the famous Easter Homily 
by St. John Chrysostom:

Come you all: enter into the joy of your Lord. You the first and you the last, receive alike your reward; you rich and you poor, dance together; you sober and you weaklings, celebrate the day; you who have kept the fast and you who have not, rejoice today. The table is richly loaded: enjoy its royal banquet. The calf is a fatted one: let no one go away hungry. All of you enjoy the banquet of faith; all of you receive the riches of his goodness. Let no one grieve over his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed; let no one weep over his sins, for pardon has shone from the grave; let no one fear death, for the death of our Saviour has set us free: He has destroyed it by enduring it, He has despoiled Hades by going down into its kingdom, He has angered it by allowing it to taste of his flesh.

Entering Holy Week

As we enter Holy Week I am pondering these questions:

If you had been there on that terrible and frightening evening in the garden, or in the courtyard of Pilate, or standing along way to the hill of crucifixion, or even looking on at Jesus, tortured, crowned, and pierced with nails as he strangled on cross, if you had been there, what would you have done? 

Would you have stood still while Judas kissed him?Would you have followed the mob who took Jesus into the courtyard?Would you have denied knowing him?What would you have yelled out?    Crucify…

If you saw Jesus fall three times,Would you have come forward to help carry his cross?

Would you have looked down or turned away,     lest you be dragged into helping this Jesus?

 Honestly, I wonder - what would I have done ???

Feast of St. Joseph

Today - on the Feast of St. Joseph - we celebrate the 2nd anniversary of the inauguration of Pope Francis' Petrine Ministry (His Official First Mass as Pope in 2013!)
St. Joseph is the patron Saint of Canada - along with the North American Martyrs. 

The Holy See also confirmed today that Pope Francis called Pope Emeritus Benedict - to wish him greetings on his name day.
Peace

Pope Francis Announces a Year of Mercy

Friday Evening - as he was celebrating a penitential service in St. Peter's Basilica - Pope Francis annonced a special Jubilee year of Mercy:

Dear brothers and sisters, I have often thought about how the Church might make clear its mission of being a witness to mercy. It is journey that begins with a spiritual conversion. For this reason, I have decided to call an extraordinary Jubilee that is to have the mercy of God at its center. It shall be a Holy Year of Mercy. We want to live this Year in the light of the Lord's words: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. (cf. Lk 6:36)”

This Holy Year will begin on this coming Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception and will end on November 20, 2016, the Sunday dedicated to Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe – and living face of the Father’s mercy. I entrust the organization of this Jubilee to the Pontifical Council for Promotion of the New Evangelization, that [the dicastery] might animate it as a new stage in the journey of the Church on its mission to bring to every person the Gospel of mercy.

I am convinced that the whole Church will find in this Jubilee the joy needed to rediscover and make fruitful the mercy of God, with which all of us are called to give consolation to every man and woman of our time. From this moment, we entrust this Holy Year to the Mother of Mercy, that she might turn her gaze upon us and watch over our journey.

We look forward to the resources that will be available to us as we continbue to proclaim the Mercy of the Lord.

3rd Sunday in Lent

Striking the the Rock.  

Trusting in the Providence 
of a God who comes among us.

Thirsting for the living water,
that heals all sin and division.

Realizing the one before you is:
Man
Prophet
Messiah.

Now worshipping at this Altar,
at the foot of the Cross,
in Spirit and in Truth.
Peace