Dear Family!

I continue to wish you Merry Christmas! Thank you for making the most of all the opportunities that were provided for you in as many Masses and community time created for you! There were so many people that I am grateful to those for making this year’s Christmas: Starting with our priests and deacons. Our Director for Music Lisa Sforza and the whole choir for their time put into preparing and helping us to have a great worshipping experience. We are grateful to the Decoration Committee headed by Diane and Duane Volk and all the volunteers in donating long hours in making our already beautiful church more beautiful. We thank all the liturgical ministers (Eucharistic Ministers, Lectors and Ushers) and all the altar servers for their role in making this year’s Christmas memorable.

Dear Family!

Reflection: Christmas for Christians is a day of gratitude. Gratitude leads us to prayer, where our hearts are filled with wonder and praise. Christmas leads us to the sense of wonder. God presents himself as tiny, fragile, vulnerable, and dependent. Compared to the strong, muscular, powerful, parenting and patronizing people we are in front of God.

Dear Family!

Reflection: We are celebrating ‘Gaudete Sunday’ (Laetare Sunday in Lent) as the Universal Church rejoices in the Lord because ‘the Lord is near’ echoing the Opening Prayer, “we who look forward to the birthday of Christ, experience the joy of salvation and celebrate that feast with love and thanksgiving.”

Dear Family!

Reflection: Pope Francis encouraged the world with his advent message in the following words: “Dear friends, it will be good for us today to ask ourselves how we can prepare a welcoming heart for the Lord. We can do so by approaching His forgiveness, His Word, His Table, finding space for prayer, welcoming those in need. Let us cultivate His expectation without letting ourselves be distracted by so many pointless things, and without complaining all the time, but keeping our hearts alert, that is, eager for Him, awake and ready, impatient to meet Him.” (12-3-2023)

Dear Family!

Reflection: There is no better ‘Good News’ than the advent of Our Lord Jesus Christ! Happy Advent to all of you! The greatest treasure of Advent is Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Vestments and decorations are expressed in purple for the season as the theme point to ‘Staying awake’. The way to stay awake is through penance, preparation and sacrifice. Also, it is important to distance ourselves from flashy decorations and nostalgic carols that can take us away from this ‘preparation’ - to focus our minds and hearts on getting our hearts ready for the ‘Child Jesus’.

Dear Family!

Reflection: This weekend the Universal Church celebrates the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. This marks the end of our Liturgical Year, and we welcome a New Liturgical year with the 1st Sunday of Advent. As Pope Benedict beautifully teaches us that Christ’s Kingship is not based on ‘human power’ but on loving and serving others. It reminds me of the wise saying of Carl Jung, “Where love rules, there is no will; and where power predominates, there love is lacking.”

Dear Family!

Reflection: As we are getting ready to celebrate Thanksgiving this year, let us be mindful of all God’s blessings for us. God has blessed our land with countless blessings: clean water, abundant food, opportunity, education, employment and the additional thousands of blessings which not many other countries are blessed with. Our blessings can be compared to the ‘Talents’ that the employer entrusts with his servants. We are blessed to receive the ‘Most’. As a country that has been blessed and entrusted with the responsibility, how we respond to that ‘vocation’ matters today and now.

Dear Family!

Reflection: This Sunday’s Gospel passage (Mt 25:1- 13) invites us to prolong the reflection on eternal life that we began on the occasion of the Feast of All Saints and the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed. Jesus recounts the parable of the ten virgins invited to a wedding feast, symbol of the Kingdom of Heaven. Christ is the Bridegroom, and we are like the virgins awaiting his return to begin the wedding feast of heaven.

Dear Family!

Reflection: We have just celebrated the Solemnity of All Saints and the Commemoration of All Souls day. I want to thank you for taking part in these beautiful liturgies especially praying for the dead and praying with the families who have lost their loved ones. The Bible teaches us that it is actually a holy thing to pray for the dead. Ecclesiastes 7:2 says, “it is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for that is the end of every mortal, and the living should take it to heart.”

Dear Family!

Reflection: People take up the subject on ‘Pro-Life’ mostly during the election time and use it for or against a presidential candidate. ‘Pro-Life’ must be understood in the context of our love and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ without whom we have no life let alone ‘Pro-Life’. How ‘Pro-Eucharist’ you are determines how ‘Pro-Life’ you are. Your love for the Eucharist, longing to receive the Body and Blood of Jesus through which we receive ‘Life’ in fulness, compels us to honor and respect our Godgiven, free gift of life.

Dear Family!

Reflection: On the 15th of October 2023, the Pope published another Apostolic Exhortation in honor of St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. In the 1st part the pope reflects on God’s merciful love and forgiveness. In the 2nd part he invites us to trust in God in moments of joy and also in difficulty. In the last part the pope invites us to share our trust in God with others.

Dear Family!

Reflection: The readings remind us of our duty to be partakers of the banquet of the Lord. Isaiah’s time has seen poverty of people who could not afford great banquets. Banquets were organized by the kings for political reasons or for victory over enemies. ‘Banquet’ like a wedding feast is the biblical image of the encounter of love between the Lord and Israel. ‘Banquet’ is also the symbol of happiness in the time of the Messiah. It is the ‘banquet’ that unites us with the Kingdom of God.

Dear Family!

Reflection: The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us, "The Church is a cultivated field, as tillage of God. On that land, the ancient olive tree grows whose holy roots were the prophets and in which the reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles has been brought about and will be brought about again. That land, like a choice vineyard, has been planted by the heavenly cultivator. Yet the true vine is Christ who gives life and fruitfulness to the branches, that is, to us, who through the Church remain in Christ, without whom we can do nothing" (CCC 755).

Dear Family!

Reflection: The readings this Sunday focus on repentance and humility. They are the sure ways of our salvation. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that Jesus' call to conversion and penance does not aim first at outward works, "sackcloth and ashes," fasting and mortification, but at the conversion of the heart, interior conversion. Interior repentance is a radical reorientation of our whole life, a return, a conversion to God with all our heart, an end of sin, a turning away from evil. At the same time, it entails the desire and resolution to change one's life, with hope in God's mercy and trust in the help of his grace. (CCC 1430)