News - August 2022 RSS Feed

During His time on earth, Jesus spent more time with His disciples than anyone else. They got to know His voice, thoughts, mannerisms, pet peeves and perhaps even His unique facial expressions. When He was crucified, they were devastated in ways to which few of us can relate. So, when He appeared to two of them on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-34), Jesus prevented them from recognizing Him at first, so He could learn their true passions and feelings about His death. But as Luke 24:29-31 points out, their eyes were opened to everything, including who He really was “when He broke the bread and gave it to them.”...

This weekend will enter into our own unique version of the 3-year Eucharistic Revival called by the US Bishops. Our journey at Divine Mercy Parish is entitled “Source and Summit.” It is my hope that this journey will spark a Eucharistic revitalization within our parish family. As we begin this journey together, we need to ask this fundamental question: What should be our response to Jesus’ self-gift in the Eucharist? It’s got to me more than having faith in this mysterium fidei, that we can pass the test so many sadly flunk today and affirm with conviction the Church’s teaching about the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the doctrine of transubstantiation, and the Real Presence of Christ, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. It’s got to be more than doing the minimum expected of us, coming to Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation and receiving Jesus in the state of grace at least once a year...

Let us take a moment to thank our Lord for the gift of hunger, which opens us up every day in humility and gratitude to taste and see His goodness. With providential love He never ceases to respond to our filial prayer to give us each day our daily bread. He fills the hungry with good things and this bodily hunger continually reminds us how to yearn for every word that comes from His mouth, how to hunger and thirst for righteousness, how to make doing His will our food and drink, how to look with compassion on our brothers and sisters who are undernourished or malnourished in body or soul, and most of all how to crave the eternal wedding feast...

Twenty-seven years ago, on March 25, 1995, the Solemnity of the Annunciation, Saint Pope John Paul II issued his encyclical teaching entitled, Evangelium Vitae, The Gospel of Life. As the pastor of Divine Mercy Parish and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton School, I have been entrusted with the pastoral care of souls and their moral and spiritual formation. Given the great unrest in our society in these days, I offer this guidance regarding this challenge to live the Gospel of Life...