Jesus is the face of the Father's Divine Mercy

Second Sunday of Easter  C  2019

Divine Mercy Sunday

On this the Second Sunday of Easter, on this Divine Mercy Sunday, as we gather to celebrate this Eucharistic mystery, we proclaim that Jesus is the face of the Father’s Divine Mercy.  In today’s Gospel, the Risen Jesus appeared to His disciples who were behind locked doors in a state of fear.  The first words that Jesus spoke:  “Peace be with you.”  Jesus then went on to speak of forgiveness:  “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven then.”

We clearly see the power of Divine Mercy as Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit on these afraid, grieving, doubting disciples who were huddled behind locked doors.  Jesus shared with his apostles the grace of the Divine Mercy of God.  As the recipients of the merciful love of Jesus, these original apostles were transformed into fearless disciples who were missioned to proclaim God’s mercy with one and all.

Today we pray the novena of the divine mercy chaplet; we seek the intercession of Sister Faustina who received apparitions from Jesus resulting in the familiar Divine Mercy image; but clearly the Sacrament of the Eucharist is the primary way we encounter the Father’s Divine Mercy.  Jesus is the face of the Father’s Mercy.  As we are nourished by the body and blood of Jesus, we are the generous recipients of the merciful love of Jesus.

I invite you to consider the faith journey of the apostle Thomas on this Divine Mercy Sunday.  Thomas is the recipient of the Father’s Divine Mercy.

The popular interpretation of Thomas is that he is doubting Thomas -- seen in a bit of a negative light.  I invite you to revisit this Easter Gospel and see Thomas as a model of faith.

I suggest Thomas is teaching the important lesson that we must not separate the resurrection from the cross.  We are the disciples of the crucified as well as the risen Lord.   We cannot live the life of grace authentically unless we bear in our bodies the wounds of the cross.  This means being conscious that we develop the capacity to love and be loved only by dying to ourselves.  Our wounds are also a constant reminder of our frailty, and that it is God’s grace that raises us up to new life.

Thank you Thomas for bringing honesty into our faith, for helping to acknowledge at times that there are areas in our life that Jesus is not yet Lord.  Thomas didn’t pretend that he was better than he was. He began by wanting proof and ended by being glad of faith.  He is the patron saint of transitions and steps in faith.  Faith is a journey.  The community was the place he found faith, having lost it when he tried to go it alone.  Then he came back to the community of faith and went on a journey of life that took him to martyrdom in India.

The Bible describes mercy as a gift of God, a gift that is to be given to those who need it.  Establishing the abiding faithfulness of God, we the Church of the Holy Spirit are to circulate mercy, to pay it forward irrespective of deservedness, inviting one and all to experience the merciful love of Jesus.

On this Divine Mercy Sunday, my hunch is that we who are gathered today come from all over the spiritual landscape.  There is a side of us that is a doubting Thomas and there is a side of us that is the believing Thomas.  Each one of us is unique.  This is not by accident.  It is by God’s design that there is no perfect cookie-cutter approach of the journey of faith for Catholics.  We need to dispense with the myth that there is one size that fits all for us as Catholic Christians.

The journey of faith of each one of us is unique.  But it is the plan of Jesus that we are better together as a parish community rather than as isolated individuals.  This was the experience of the apostle Thomas, and I suggest that in this community may you experience again the merciful love of Jesus in the love we have for each other as a parish community.

Thomas, “the twin,” has many brothers and sisters in today’s Church.  Most of us are doubters at some point in life.   When I’m out of sync in a significant relationship in my life, I can be out of sync in my relationship with the Lord.  Resurrection faith is crucial, but often we want to believe on our own terms. 

Jesus is the model leader and spiritual guide.  He is pleased to give Thomas the assurance he is looking for, and then challenges him to look forward to the day when he will believe without seeing – always in the Jesus who passes through death to resurrection.

The Risen Lord never gives up on us as He never gave up on Thomas.  The Lord encounters us in the circumstances of our life.  We seek to live a new life trusting in the Spirit of the Risen Lord.

Jesus on this Divine Mercy Sunday is pleased to give what you are looking for in your journey of faith.  Jesus does not want His Body, the Church, to remain in the tomb but always raise her up to new life.  Each of us is not to remain in the tomb of our doubts, of our fears, of our anxieties.

Lord, we thank you for friends, leaders and spiritual guides who challenge us as Jesus challenged Thomas.  But may we like Thomas know that we need to see the scars and the wounds for us also to believe in resurrection and new life.  Thomas professes the true faith of the church.  We too must insist that the Jesus we follow is the true Jesus, the one whose risen body bears the wounds of Calvary.

On this Divine Mercy Sunday, may live in a state of thanksgiving for God’s redemptive mercy that is shared with each and every one of us.  And may the Gospel we proclaim help us to recognize that scars are the pathway to our sharing in the Risen life of Christ.  This was the journey of the apostle Thomas.  It is the journey for each one of us.

Have a Blessed Day.

What will it take for you to be convicted of the Easter message that Jesus seeks to fill this world with His love?

Today is the day of Easter joy.   We proclaim the centerpiece of our Catholic Christian faith:  Jesus Christ is Risen from the dead.  Alleluia! Alleluia!  Today we celebrate the reason why we are a people of hope and new life.  Today we cast off fear and make a leap of faith.  Liturgically we light the Easter candle because we believe in the light that comes from the Risen Lord.  This Easter candle needs to be lit in the deep recesses of our hearts.

May we all be aware of how we encounter the Lord on this Easter day  -- as parents who bring their families to this Easter Eucharist, as Catholics who have participated in the other liturgies of Holy Week on Holy Thursday and Good Friday, as Catholics who may have not been in Church since Christmas day, as Catholics who are very distracted by the busyness of life, as Catholics who have recently experienced the death of one you  love or the pain of some significant brokenness in life, or as pilgrims who seek to come to the Lord more deeply in their lives. 

My hunch is that those of us who are gathered today come from all over the spiritual landscape.  Each one of us is unique.  This is not by accident.  It is by God’s design.  We need to dispense with the myth that there is one size that fits all for us as Catholic Christians.  May there always be considerable diversity in the ways each one of us encounters our loving God.  We are a big Church.  There is room for everyone.

In every way possible to say it, the Lord’s Easter message is that all are welcome; all are forgiven; all are invited to the Easter banquet.  Does this mean that anything goes, that our Church is a Church without rules or discipline?   Of course not.   It does mean that the Lord’s love and Risen Life is to be shared by all.  There is nothing we can do to stop God from loving us.  Yes, we do need to open ourselves to the forgiveness and reconciliation and love the Lord extends to us.  And as sure as the sun rises each day, when our hearts are touched by the love of Jesus, we are motivated to share this love with one and all.  

On this Easter day, I am grateful for all the resurrection moments I experience in the vibrant life of our parish community.

For me, I sense the presence of the Risen Lord when I hear crying in our Church.  This for me does not disturb my prayer, for I think there is no future to the Church if there is no crying.  Crying for me is a sign of family prayer as moms and dads are passing on the gift of faith to their children.  Thank you moms and dads for bringing your children to Church.

Another beautiful resurrection moment in our parish life is when our teens led us in prayer on the evening of Good Friday in the Seven Last Words Service.   For me, every Sunday at the 5:00 pm, our parish teens lift up their voices in the praise of God.  Their youthful faith is expressive of the presence of the Risen Lord in our parish community.  I am grateful for the faith of our parish teens.

I am grateful for all the young families in our parish who bring their children to be baptized, to make their First Communion, First Reconciliation, and then completing their Christian Initiation with the Sacrament of Confirmation.

In our Good Friday liturgy, I was inspired by the faith and hope of all who venerated the cross.  I saw the elderly – some with the help of a walker --approaching the cross; I saw a pregnant mom who also was carrying her daughter of 1/1/2 years to the cross of Jesus.

I am especially to all the single moms and dads of our faith commmunity;  your presence in our faith community is a resurrection moment for me.   I grateful for the divorced and separated who are a beautiful and most important part of our faith community; I am grateful to those who are straight and for those who are gay, and I am grateful for the all the ways people seek to discover the presence of our loving God in their sexuality.

 The Gospel is not merely a story in which we are offered the good example of a man who lived a life of love. It is much more, for it shows us that God has renewed the life of each one of us totally from within through the Spirit of the Risen Christ who now lives in us.  The Lord’s Easter proclamation is that I do not decide which lives have value and dignity; God does.

The love of the Risen Lord is meant for you, for the person sitting next to you, and for everyone.  What will it take for you to be convicted of the Easter message that Jesus seeks to fill this world with His love?  What will take for us to believe that God’s love will triumph over poverty, conflict, violence and war.

Lord, I pray, that in spite of our sinfulness, we will be signs of hope and love to each other and to the wider community as well.

Whenever and wherever we trust and hope in the light that comes from the risen Lord, our spiritual darkness fades away.   May you too be very much in touch with how the spirit of the Risen Lord lives in your family and in our parish family.

We cannot celebrate Easter in one day; we will not come to faith in one Mass.  AS God’s Easter people, we make the journey together over the course of a life time.  Whenever and wherever we trust and hope in the light that comes from the risen Lord, our spiritual darkness fades away.  As surely as the dark of night gives way to the dawn, the Lord’s gift of Easter joy awaits you.

Have a blessed day.  Today is our day of Easter joy.

The Easter candle, the Christ candle, needs to be lit in the deep recesses of our hearts.

EASTER VIGIL 2019

Leading up this holy night, the whole church has been keeping vigil.  At the Last Supper, Jesus gave us an example of how we are to transform the world.  Jesus got down on His knees and washed the feet of his disciples, and said we are to do likewise:  that is to say, we are to wash the feet of God’s poor.

On Good Friday, the crucified Jesus showed us that death is not a defeat.  Rather it is in dying that we are born into eternal life.  The fullness of Easter joy is experienced on the other side of the cross.

Now we celebrate the Easter Vigil, the mother of all vigils.

We began this solemn Easter Vigil with the lighting of the Easter Fire in the landscaped area at the front entrance of the Church.  From the Easter fire, we lit the Easter candle, the Christ candle – the light of the Risen Christ that overcomes the darkness’s of our lives. 

After lighting the Christ Candle, we enter the Church in darkness.  It is the darkness of the closed up tomb where Jesus’ body lay on Holy Saturday.  The stone has been rolled in front of it.  No light enters.  It is utterly dark.

It is the darkness of the loss of someone dear to us, whose absence we fear we will never be able to deal with. The darkness of a terrifying diagnosis. The darkness of not knowing where a child of ours is. The darkness of a shattering reality that we had no idea was coming our way.

The darkness of the Church at the beginning of our liturgy speaks most directly to the daily reality of our lives. After the shock of death or words that bring despair--words like cancer, divorce, terminal, downsizing--we find ourselves living with the "what next" of life--and we enter the dark void of unknowing. It is the darkness that the people of France experience in the burning of their cathedral.

This is where many of us live, from time to time. Yes, there are times when we live between death and resurrection. It is the valley of grief and unknowing--for us as well as for the first disciples. On Holy Saturday we, and they, don't know what the future will bring. Whether the cancer will be cured, or we will love again, or find a job that fulfills our calling. It is a time of dark uncertainty.

From the first Scripture reading, the creation account from the Book of Genesis, ”In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep..." In the beginning, all was a dark void. And in this empty tomb where Jesus was buried, we find the same reality--it is a dark void.  How many times will we find ourselves in that dark place? A place where any ray of hope is extinguished in the vacuum of fear, of not knowing, of total emptiness.

But in that place, somehow through the grace of God, we must be patient. We must wait for the wind of the Spirit, the "wind from God that sweeps over the face of the waters" to fan the dim embers of our faith.

"Then God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light.... God called the light Day and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day."

You see, both darkness and light are part of the first day. Darkness and light are halves of every day ever since that first day. Darkness and light are essential parts of our lives. And when we find ourselves in that dark lonely place, we must remind ourselves of this truth. There will always ultimately be light in the midst of the darkness.

Darkness is shorthand for anything that scares me--either because I am sure that I do not have the resources to survive it or because I do not want to find out.

The Exsultet, the beautiful hymn of praise that Jacob sang so powerfully, proclaims this rhythm of dark and light, of night and dawn, of death and resurrection: "This is the night...when you brought our ancestors, the children of Israel, out of bondage in Egypt....

"This is the night...when all who believe in Christ are delivered from the gloom of sin, and are restored to grace and holiness of life....

"This is the night...when Christ broke the bonds of death and hell and rose victorious from the grave....

"How blessed is this night, when earth and heaven are joined, and we are reconciled to God.

Liturgically we light the Easter Candle because we believe in the light that comes from the Risen Lord.  Indeed, in the light that comes from the Risen Lord, the darkness of fear and the darkness of sin is no more.  This Easter candle needs to be lit in the deep recesses of our hearts.

This night is a night of Easter Joy.  Alleluia, Alleluia.  We now welcome in the Sacraments of Initiation all of our chosen candidates into discipleship of our Risen Lord:  Jude Bowers, Thane Bowers, Elizabeth Bowers, Lynn Edgar, Stan Lehman, Cynthia Walker, Angel Benitez, Natalie Giunta, Audrey Huff, and Maya Michelucci.  Then the whole community will be invited to renew your baptismal vows and share in the mystery of the Eucharist in which we are fed and nourished at the Table of the Lord.

We cannot celebrate Easter in one day; we will not come to faith in one Mass.  As God’s Easter people, we make the journey together over the course of a lifetime.  Whenever and wherever we trust and hope in the light that comes from the Risen Lord, our spiritual darkness fades away.  As surely as the dark of night gives way to the dawn, the Lord’s gift of Easter joy awaits you.

Have a Blessed Easter night.  This night is filled with Easter joy!

Reflect on the love that God has for you and thank Him.

GOOD FRIDAY  2019

Good Friday came early for the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in that horrific fire on Monday of Holy Week. The cathedral’s iconic spire has fallen. The roof has collapsed. The fire massive. “There will be nothing left,” a spokesman for Notre-Dame told the inquiring media.

When we saw on the news again and again how the spire fell from the top of the Cathedral, we can draw a connection with the Good Friday crucifixion of the bloody, broken and dying Jesus to the all-consuming fire of this most beloved cathedral.

But please God, the cathedral will be rebuilt.  It will rise again – even if like Jesus, it bears the wounds of the past.

Good Friday brings us before the cross of Jesus from which so many cathedrals including Notre-Dame and our St. Joseph’s Church take their shape.  The cross upon which Jesus died stands ablaze with the love of God for all of us.

As we look the devastation of this iconic Cathedral, we ask the question:  Can  the Church be saved?

Not thinking of the Church as a building but as the People of God, that is also the Good Friday question:  Cant the Church be saved?

It is in the context of our grieving over the ruins of this great cathedral, we proclaim again the passion account of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The last words spoken by Jesus on the cross were:   “It is finished.”  Jesus then bowed and gave up His spirit.

When Jesus spoke those final words, he wasn’t just saying, "This is the end of me" as if there was nothing else to do but to give in to his enemies and die. His last words weren’t a final surrender to the power of Satan as if to say, "You have won. I’m done for". These words don’t tell us that Jesus was dead now and that’s all there is to it. He is finished and so is everything that he stood for and promised during his earthly life.

Rather, is it most important to understand that Jesus is saying his mission of saving the world has been completed.  He has finished the task that God has given Him to do, and nothing can be added to what has been done.

What is it that is finished when Jesus says, "It is finished"?

Jesus' announcement from the cross, "It is finished" is clear and simple. Jesus has completed his mission. The reason why he came as a human has been fulfilled. He came so that you and I can have forgiveness and salvation. He came to give us the victory. He came to ensure that we would enter his kingdom and live forever.

That’s why we call today "Good Friday". It certainly wasn’t a good day for Jesus. He endured pain, soul-wrenching agony, hanging by the nails in his hands for hours, death on a rough wooden cross, for our sakes. We call today "Good Friday" because the cross is proof of the powerful love that God has for each of us. No one, not even God, would do something like that unless he truly loved us. Here we see a love that was prepared to endure the ultimate in order to rescue us.

The Good Friday liturgy calls to mind what happened historically to Jesus so long ago.  May the Good Friday liturgy also help us to call to mind the ways Jesus still suffers in the hearts of so many refugees, so many people who are hungry for food for their bodies and the food of love for their spirits. 

Today’s celebration must help us realize that Christ continues to suffer in many of our brothers and sisters. There are too many people that suffer hunger, cold, solitude and discriminations. Perhaps, we do not take note of them. So, our Good Friday liturgy must help us see them.

Also, Christ is suffering and dying in each of us because we are still tied to many things that imprison us. We continue to be slaves of our sins, habits and weaknesses.  This Good Friday, Christ calls us from the cross to a total change, and to be generous with our lives as he was with his for the sake of our salvation.

God did all this for us. He did all this because of his love for us.  Paul writes, "God has shown us how much he loves us—it was while we were still sinners that Christ died for us! … We were God's enemies, but he made us his friends through the death of his Son.” That’s how much God loves us – Jesus died for us even though we don’t deserve it. His death has made us God's friends.

As we venerate the cross during our liturgy today, pray and ponder what Jesus has done for you through His death on the cross.  In our Good Friday prayer, we ask for the grace even to embrace the cross as we experience how we are called to be the followers of the crucified Christ.  How can we deal with the crosses and the sufferings of life?

We find meaning in the crosses of our life when we know in the depths of our hearts that the cross of Jesus is a symbol of love and a symbol of hope.   The cross brings to mind the sacrificial love of the one who hangs there. It is a clear proof of His love that He laid down His life for us and challenges to do the same for our brothers and sisters. 

As we venerate the cross during our liturgy today, pray and ponder about what Jesus has done for you through his death on the cross.  Think about the love that God has for you and thank him.

In the words of Tinamarie Stoltz, the lesson to be drawn from Jesus' washing of the feet, I do not decide which lives have value and dignity, God does.

HOLY THURSDAY  2019

With this solemn liturgy of the Lord’s Supper, we enter the heart and soul of the entire liturgical year.  We celebrate the paschal mystery – the dying and rising of Christ Jesus.  As the disciples of Jesus, we gather during the Triduum to celebrate the mystery of the ways we encounter the Lord.

Notice how we encounter the Lord in this liturgy of the Lord’s Supper.  Shockingly, the voice of God speaks to us through Jesus with a towel around his waist asking us to find the towel with our name on it: “As I have done for you, so you also must do.”

Service rooted in love is the example Jesus gives to his disciples.  It is a radical form of service because it is based on a radical form of love.

Where is your towel with your name on it?  

A profound truth of our Holy Thursday liturgy is that we will never perceive the Reality beneath the bread and wine unless we first understand the point of the basin and feet; we will never see Christ in the Eucharist we kneel to adore, if we do not first see Christ in those before whom we kneel to serve.

To say it again, we will never see Christ in the Eucharist we kneel to adore if we do not first see Christ in those before whom we kneel to serve.  Where is the towel with your name on it?  That towel is surely found in how you are to love and serve in your family, that towel is around your waist calling you to wash the feet of the person you don’t along with, that towel is to be found for you in one of the ministries of our parish life?

In today’s Gospel account, Jesus wraps a towel around his waist, takes a pitcher of water and, on the night before he dies, begins washing the feet of his disciples.  The disciples are stunned.  The washing of feet was usually done by a slave.   It was Jesus who was washing their feet.  Jesus is certainly acknowledging in gratitude the courage of his disciples in having walked with him for three years to this dark night.  He is surely proclaiming that in such walking, despite all that will happen on the next day, they have arrived nonetheless at the threshold of new life.  But most of all, Jesus is teaching them that this new life is gained not in presiding over multitudes from royal thrones; it is gained, however, in walking with the humble and in humbly serving this world’s walkers.  When he tells his disciples to do as he has done in washing their feet, he is commissioning them to walk as he has walked and to heal as he has healed.

The message of Holy Thursday is that his disciples are to change the world by getting down on their knees and washing the feet of God’s poor.

This is the authentic mark of the follower of Jesus Christ:  that he and she wash the feet of the beggar, the leper, the miserable sinner rejected by everyone else.  In the words of Tinamarie Stoltz, the lesson to be drawn from Jesus’ washing of the feet, I do not decide which lives have value and dignity, God does.

Jesus the teacher demonstrated his life-giving message:  foot washing.  He did not ask his friends to die for one another, but to live for one another.  Holy Thursday is a celebration of life, and life together as a people of God.

In our discipleship of Christ Jesus, may we hold onto a most important truth.  We are to allow the Lord to wash our feet and we are to wash the feet of one another.  We are to wash the feet of God’s poor.

In the Gospel account we find that Peter was uncomfortable with having Jesus wash his feet.  Peter, who was somewhat of an activist, would have preferred to see himself doing the washing, washing the feet of Jesus, and even of the other disciples.  Sometimes it is harder to remain passive and allow someone else to bathe us than it is to bathe someone else. 

Peter’s image of God was more of a king rather than a humble servant.  He was imprisoned by his image of who God is.  Jesus was giving Peter a different image of God and saying the only way to stay close to Jesus was to let him wash you.

The Lord washes our feet in the Sacraments of the Eucharist and of Reconciliation.   Sacramentally we are bathed in the mystery of God’s love for us.

In the mystery of the Church, we also stand in need of the love and the service of one another.  We are not meant to be alone.  We are to experience the mystery of God’s love in the love of others.  We need to allow ourselves to be loved and so experience the love of God.

  As Jesus said to Peter, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.  First, the Lord washes us clean so that we belong to the Lord.  Only then are we qualified and empowered to wash the feet of our sisters and brothers. When this truth dawned on Peter, he overcame his reluctance and cried out “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head.”  For this to happen all that the Lord needs from us is simply to be there, to present ourselves to him and to let him wash us.

The other side of the coin, which is equally important, is that after our feet have been washed by the Lord, we must go and wash the feet of others.  After Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, he said to them: “Do you know what I have done for you?  You call me Teacher and Lord – and rightly so, for that is what I am.  So, if I, your Lord and Master, wash your feet, you are to wash the feet of one another.  I have given you an example, what I have done, you are to do likewise.

On this holy night, we pledge once again to use our hands and feet for the work of forgiveness, for the work of loving each other.  We pledge to wash each other’s feet, to hand over our lives for each other for the sake of the world.  As we gather to celebrate the Eucharist on this Holy Night, we do this in the memory of the One who gave His life for us.

This week is holy not because of suffering, even the sufferings of Jesus. Rather it is holy because of love -- the reconciling love of God.

PALM SUNDAY C  2019

Today begins the most sacred week of the Church’s entire liturgical year.   We   will walk with Jesus through Holy Week in the pattern of his death and resurrection, to renew our baptismal commitment.  The week we call holy invites us to enter into the heart of our faith.

Traditionally during Holy Week we focus on the sufferings of Jesus.  We have prayed the Stations of the Cross each Friday of the Lenten season.  But it is not suffering, not even the sufferings of Jesus that makes this week holy.  Rather it is holy because of love -- the reconciling love of God who has come to live among us in the person of Jesus Christ.  God’s love is the only thing that stands between utter chaos and an attempt to stand whole and complete in the middle of crisis.  God’s love is the only thing that makes sense out of suffering, conflict and tragedy. God’s love does not do away with suffering; the very fact of the cross should teach us that.  God’s love makes it possible to hear it, to remember it, to share in it, and, yes, even to celebrate it.  God’s love brings meaning to this week of dueling emotions; God’s love is the essence of the story of salvation.

This week is holy because of love, but it is love misunderstood.  Jesus is a hero, but not in the traditional pattern of heroism.  He actually looks more like a victim.  He is not triumphant as we understand triumph.  Instead he appears to be a failure.  Judging by one set of standards, Jesus has not met our expectations.  But according to another standard – the standard of unconditional love –he has far surpassed our expectations.   At once regal and lowly, he brought healing and holiness to others through his own pain and brokenness.  He would claim victory by being defeated; he would establish his reign by serving and by dying.  His crown would be a weave of thorns.

Palm Sunday is not about ancient history.  It is about NOW.  Jesus still refuses to save the world by what we recognize as power.  He still does not use divine power to wipe out disease, poverty, crime, oppression, injustice or error.  He still tries to convert instead of control.  He still chooses to love rather than punish.  He still chooses meekness over might, simplicity over plenty, service over sovereignty and suffering over strong-arm tactics.

When our servant king returns, will he recognize in his Church the policies that he established so long ago?  Do the following questions resonate with the life and ministry of our parish community?  Are the members of our parish staff the

servants of all?  Will the poor be welcomed as honored guests at the banquet tables of the rich or will they still be the hired help who are relegated to the leftovers in the kitchen?  Will the sick and the elderly experience healing through the compassion and caring of others or will they languish alone and unattended?  Will Christ still find members of his body still willing to turn the other cheek, walk the extra mile and forgive seventy times seven times?  Will the followers of Jesus evoke from their contemporaries a comment like that was paid to their ancestors in faith, “See how they love one another.”?

Will we the parishioners of Holy Spirit, the disciples of Jesus, be recognized as witnesses of the unconditional love of Jesus?  Will you pastor be seen as the servant of all?  Will our parish community be a beacon of God’s merciful love in the community of Webster and Penfield?

Have a Blessed Holy Week.