Dear Parishioners and Friends,

 I pray and hope that this Easter Sunday will be a time of prayer and gratitude to God for the presence of our Risen Savior, Jesus Christ both in our hearts and in our every day walk of faith.   

My letter and video message to you today is a commendation to which I have just spoken.  Most of you know well the admonition that I have placed before you on so many Sundays which is to form a simple prayer of thanksgiving every morning for the most important blessings that God has granted us.  We pray in a very special way for our spouse, our children, extended family and friends, the beauty of creation all around us and all people everywhere, especially in our present circumstance.
 
We have been powerfully reminded that we are ALL children of God.  The world faces a health emergency which does not recognize race, color or creed.  Since Easter Sunday is a reminder of the greatest blessing in our lives, which is of course the Risen Christ, as you gather sequestered in your homes, please pray together fervently in the way that I have always suggested.  Let everyone in your household add to the prayer each in their own way.  
 
Seek God’s blessing of health on Easter Sunday for an anxious world and let us pray and hope that at the end of this dark and difficult journey a new awareness of our own resilience and dependence on one another may emerge. 
 
My most sincere and best wishes for a blessed, holy and hope filled Easter day. 

Christ be with you,

Dear Parishioners and Friends,

This Sunday I will read the Gospel Passion story of Jesus’ final days in an empty church for the first, and I hope only time, in more than forty years as a priest. The palms that would normally be given out are resting in cardboard cartons in the church. The holy water that would normally be used to bless them is not present and the many supportive liturgical ministries will be mostly absent.

The Passion of Our Lord, Jesus Christ has never been a more appropriate marker for our present situation. Jesus knew where His life’s journey would take Him and He faced it with great faith and unbelievable courage. As Christians, we are all now contemplating our own life’s journey, hopefully with the same faith and courage which empowered Jesus to walk the path that led to Calvary. I personally know parishioners and friends who have contracted the virus which has raised my own awareness of the challenge that COVID19 poses to our mortality. It reminds me of the challenges that Jesus faced throughout His life.

We must remember, that in every town and village He visited, the sick and the handicapped came to Him because there was nowhere else to turn. He embraced and healed as many as he could and still more came. In the present moment, we turn to science and medicine for salvation from this virus, but we must never forget the words that Jesus spoke when he healed so many, “Go in peace, your faith has saved you”. I have always cherished that phrase because when one confronts their own mortality, and the realization that all life must end, it is faith that sustains us most importantly at the end of life’s journey.

The present time has brought that reality into sharper focus more now than at any time in living memory and it reminds us that how we face death is just as important as how we live life. They are not separate issues, but rather a reminder of the continuum that is every life on earth. And so my friends, this is not the kind of Palm Sunday letter that I have written in the past, but rather a very personal reflection on the passion and death of Our Lord, Jesus Christ and how it serves us not as a grim story of suffering and death, but rather as a “beacon of light” about how necessary our faith and courage is in our present situation.

Take care dear friends and may the celebration of holy week remind us of just how special we are as children of God that He would send One like us to inspire us on life’s journey never to give up hope and to know that through faith even in the face of uncertainty we find salvation.

Christ be with you,

My Dear Friends,

With our ongoing health crisis in mind, I have decided to write our bulletin letters for the foreseeable future. I greatly respect the wisdom of our staff members who, through the years, have shared their thoughts with you in many hundreds of bulletin letters which they have authored. However, in this time of crisis without being able to gather on Sunday morning, I’d like to share my thoughts with you as often as possible. Please note, that I will also share these same thoughts in live fashion on our website.

As I mentioned to you at the beginning of Lent, I wanted to explore the reality of fear in our lives as it is reflected in the lives of those people who populate our Lenten Gospels. The story of Lazarus, which is the gospel for the 5th Sunday in Lent, could not be more appropriate for the present time and the crisis we are living with. The story is simple and to the point. Lazarus is dying and Jesus cannot get there in time. At this very moment, people are suffering with COVID19 in our hospitals and their families cannot be at their side. Indeed, many of our families cannot be present to extended family members who might need them, but must refrain from visitation for their very safety. It is precisely in this situation that our faith is more important than ever. Nothing on earth could have raised Lazarus from death and likewise we find ourselves using all of our science and technology to save our brothers and sisters from a virus that challenges the very nature of modern medicine, but as I mentioned faith triumphs over all.

Faith in Christ by those around Him, who brought Lazarus back from the dead, was a triumphant expression of God’s mercy and healing power. Today that same faith as we experience it in and through the same Jesus Christ is our present-day hope and consolation in the midst of a difficult time. Essentially Jesus, and faith in Him, has been the salvation of the world in all of its darkest moments since God gifted us with the Christ. I am confident that medical science will triumph in the end, but for today and everyday our faith can provide us with a comfort zone and healing consolation like nothing else.

God Bless you my dear friends. My heart joins yours in prayer for the suffering of our brothers and sisters, for first responders, for nurses and doctors everywhere and for those engaged in research. We will get through this and worship together again!

 

Christ be with you,