Father's Notes

As this is our picnic weekend, I’m going to keep it short (and the people said, “Hooray!”). As you’ll undoubtedly hear me say at the picnic, a tremendous expression of gratitude is owed to the folks who did all the work of planning, preparing and executing this task. Wow! The idea came to us, after having heard from some of our parishioners, wishing that there could be more parish community events. The picnic idea specifically began in discussion with Tita (our Pastoral Assis

Years ago, a parishioner explained to me that she and her family had gone to Mass while on vacation in another state. She said that at some point in the Mass (perhaps the homily), the priest explained something like this: “I remind you, that if you are not in a state of grace (meaning, currently bearing the burden of mortal sin) that you are encouraged to not receive Holy Communion until you confess your sins and amend your life (meaning that you intend to stop committing tha

On July 19th, in my Pastor’s Note, I proposed some changes to our Works of Mercy collections. Having also directly consulted members of our parishes, we will go forward with the following: At both St. Thomas and at St. Philomena, we will have a second collection on the fourth weekend. We will do this every other month, starting in September, then November, then January, etc. The organizations we will support (and the distribution percentage) are as follows: St. Vincent de Pau

This year, I get to celebrate 5 weddings of friends! I always enjoy these events, it is special walking with the bride and groom in their journey towards marriage and family life. At these events, it’s fun reconnecting with old friends, making new ones and seeing all the unique ways couples celebrate their special day. There always comes a moment though, when I take a step back from the action and become reflective. During the reception, I like to take in the joy, heartfelt s

In last week’s Pastor’s Note, I wrote on the topic of love: the many (mis)understandings of the word and its meaning, and how love and sex are often equated with one another. I sought to offer some distinction between them. I’ll continue on this topic. Roughly 85% of the couples that come to us seeking marriage, are cohabitating. When I meet with couples, the question inevitably comes up. When I learn that they are, I tell them that while I don’t condemn that decision, I have

While in English we have the word love, and in Spanish, amor and querer, in Greek there are four different words. Better said, it’s love that takes four distinct forms: eros, philia, storge and agape. I’m compelled to say more about love as we commonly understand (or misunderstand) it. In our culture (though I don’t believe it’s unique to ours) the concept of love and sex are almost made to seem as though they are synonymous. We see this in the terms “having sex” and “making

Recently, someone asked me about the veils you sometimes see women wearing at church. What you sometimes see worn over their heads are referred to as chapel veils or mantillas (from the word manta, which means ‘cape’), and they come from an ancient tradition. If you ask women who wear them, why they do, you’ll hear varied reasons: “By covering her head with a veil (or mantilla) the woman is agreeing to her beautiful and unique feminine status”, “Veiling indicates sacredness a

I want to inform you that one of our parish staff employees, Lucy Giaccio, will be leaving us at the end of August. She’ll begin a master’s program in education, and needs to put her energies toward that. It’s great for Lucy, but a loss for us. She’s great to work with and will be missed. Lucy works about 10 hours weekly, as follows: 1) updating our social media platforms (Facebook and Instagram); 2) creating and sending the push notifications through our parish app; 3) creat

I was away this past week at a youth conference called Ignite Northwest and I unfortunately did not have much time to compose a bulletin column. I would however, like to share some wisdom from one of my favorite saints, St. Francis De Sales. Sit with one of these quotes and see which one speaks to you! “Have patience with all things but first with yourself. Never confuse your mistakes with your value as a human being. You are perfectly valuable, creative, worthwhile person si

It was back on January 11th, in my Pastor’s Note, that I proposed that there are five things a parish and its people should put their energies into doing well: 1) cultivating a prayerful environment and helping parishioners to grow in their life of prayer; 2) fostering community among parish members; 3) teaching the faith; 4) evangelization of the faith beyond our parish and parishioners; and 5) caring for and supporting those in need. In that communication, I announced that

As a priest, I can tell you that I greatly appreciate the Church’s teachings on marriage, and yet sometimes find them to be difficult. I’ll explain. I appreciate them because they hold firm to something we still believe important: the unchanging nature of sacraments and of their effects. In the sacraments, we believe that God actually does something within created matter—He transforms it into something new, something greater. Just as bread and wine become something different

Father Ben and I are blessed to be here at Priest Days, the annual convocation of priests, held here in Ocean Shores. Each priest is invited to choose a hotel, otherwise we can choose to organize as group, to rent a house together. I’m staying at a house with three of my good friends, brother priests. The presenter, speaking to us each day is Deacon Tim Lynch, M.S., from the St. John Vianney Center in Philadelphia, a behavioral health facility, functioning to help clergy and

I once had an old black-and-white photo of my great grandfather, Ray Banks, standing in a river somewhere in southern Indiana, up to his waist in the water. Behind him, on the bank were a number of onlookers, watching my great grandfather, who was a Baptist minister, as he baptized one of the faithful. It’s a captivating image. With both my mother and father coming from Baptist traditions, it was left to us, their children, to determine when we wanted to be baptiz

Did you know that the Holy Spirit has a special role when it comes to the bread and wine at Mass becoming the Body and Blood of Jesus? This may surprise some because we tend to think the Eucharist is all about Jesus. Yes, it is His Body and Blood, but it’s not like the other persons of the Trinity are absent. They are at work, albeit in different ways. This is what we see in a special part of the Mass called the epiclesis. This occurs when the priest (depending on the Euchari

This week, we celebrate the memorial of a saint that is beloved by many: St. Thomas More. In his youth he had considered a monastic vocation, but eventually realized he was being called to serve God in the world. At age 51 (1529) Thomas was appointed by King Henry VIII to be chancellor of England, though he had no desire for such a prestigious and influential role. King Henry had always admired More’s intellect and integrity. But his admiration ceased when Henry began to make

As an update regarding our parish website(s), as of now, there are no longer two separate websites for our parishes. Thanks to the generous assistance of a parishioner, we now have one website for both parishes. This is a great step for us as a parish family and will help us to communicate more effectively to our parishioners, and to everyone else. The fact is, so much of the content on the two previous websites is duplicated. As creating one bulletin for both parishes has pr

One of my seminary professors told me something I will never forget: “Matter matters.” What did he mean? God is not a detached reality, but knows that we live in a physical world. He did create it after all! And He desires to share Himself, to communicate on our level through what we experience, so as to be led to greater and more beautiful truths. That is why our sacraments, our religious items, our postures and movements at mass are all important. The visible communicates t

I’m pleased to announce that we will have two seminarians with us for part of the summer: Matthew Dion and Bradley Miller. You may recall that last year, Patrick Gitau was with us. It’s a great gift and sign of life to have seminarians present and among us. As Matthew and Bradley get settled, they’ll have the opportunity to fill in the details of which parish they’re from, what drew them to formally discern priesthood, where they go to seminary and how far along they are in t

Over the (nearly) two years that Father Ben and I have been here, we’ve worked to create consistency in how our liturgical ministers do things between St. Thomas and St. Philomena. Admittedly, some of the adjustments we made were simply a matter of adjusting to my preferences, from those of my predecessors. One ministry was our Altar Server program. I must say, I love working with Altar Servers: training them, interacting with them before Mass, and serving at the altar with t

Anointing of the Sick is a sacrament, commonly misunderstood. Perhaps a brief explanation is helpful. It’s rooted in Jesus’ ministry, Jesus, the divine healer. The Church upholds this sacrament for the purpose of strengthening those tried by illness. The priest anoints in the name and power of Christ himself. There are three principal ritual actions that take place: the prayer of faith (see James 5:15), laying on of hands (see Luke 4:40), and anointing with oil (see Mark 6:13