Father's Notes

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

By the time you read this, it will have been two weeks ago that I was away from the parish on vacation. The purpose was to attend and concelebrate as a priest, at a wedding of a young lady whom I have known for about fifteen years, and whose family is dear to me. When she was in college she studied in Madrid. It was there, having become involved in the young adult activities at the local parish, that she met a young man from Madrid. After college, she sought and found work in

As some of you know, May is dedicated to our Blessed Mother, Mary. It is sad that many do not understand nor see the need for the Blessed Mother. The truth is that while Jesus is the only One worthy of worship and adoration, Mary has a special part in our walk with her Son. How? Jesus desires to share His work with everyone, in a way that shows God’s goodness and glory. What He shared with Mary is a unique intercession based on relationship. It was Mary who bore, fed, protect

As you likely are aware, soon after we began publishing a shared bulletin for our two parishes, we began reevaluating how we report our finances. We wanted to include the same details for each parish, and to make it clear and concise. We believe we can still do better in how we report it to you. Those of you at St. Philomena may recall, back in the fall, I gave a financial update and specifically the woeful state of our parish savings. I explained that it's strongly advised t

Christus Resurrexit! Holy Week was wonderful, although I’m grateful that we’re not doing it again this week! I want to write to you about our communication channels. I meet weekly, with a team with the purpose of discerning what items we believe we need to communicate to our parishioners, but also, discerning which channels of communication (as opposed to communicating everything in every way). Currently, our channels of communication include the 1) Sunday Bulletin; 2) the S

This is my second Easter at St. Thomas and St. Philomena parishes. At long last, Easter has arrived. And I must admit, I am quite ready. As much as I love the arrival of Lent each year and benefit from it, I am happy to have climbed the holy mountain of Easter. As the great Easter Proclamation (the ancient Exsultet ), declares, proclaimed in the warm glow of candlelight, ”O truly blessed night, when things of heaven are wed to those of earth, and divine to the human”. As our

In a few weeks, the church celebrates a special feast called Divine Mercy Sunday. Perhaps you have seen the famous image of Jesus with the two rays emanating from His heart. The image comes from a series of revelation to a Polish nun, Faustina Kowalska. She would become a Saint and these encounters were eventually approved by the church and written in her diary called “Divine Mercy in My Soul”. Divine Mercy Sunday takes place on the Sunday after Easter, but why celebrate this

This is a hard reading to hear, not only because the narration is challenging to follow, but perhaps mostly because it’s about a subject that makes us uncomfortable—death of a loved one. It’s a story full of people who are upset. We’re told that Jesus took his time before going to Bethany and respond to the news of Lazarus’ illness. To them, and perhaps to us, it might seem like he is indifferent to a great concern. By the time he arrived, not only had Lazarus gone from sic

We are at the stage of Lent in which we have begun the three scrutinies to be undertaken by our brothers and sisters who are preparing to enter into the Church. First of all, what a great thing that we have a large group of people who will come into the Church this year through our parish. They move through the process called OCIA (Order of Christian Initiation for Adults) or OCIC (for children, age 7 or above), falling into two categories (though they receive formation toget

Soon approaching is one of the great American holidays: St. Patrick’s Day! I’m joking, because it is one of those holidays that has taken on a life of its own in our culture. As I understand it, a St. Patrick’s Day parade was celebrated in the United States before it took place in Ireland. I can’t imagine those who originally heralded Patrick’s legacy could ever have imagined St. Patrick’s legacy would ever result in the robust flow of beer and the requirement to wear gree

I want to alert you that starting the week after Easter (April 6th) we will make an adjustment to our parish office hours, at both St. Thomas and St. Philomena. Currently at St. Thomas, the hours are as follows: • Monday thru Thursday 9:00am to 2:00pm • Friday 9:00am to 12:00pm Currently at St. Philomena, the hours are as follows: • Monday thru Friday 8:00am to 4:00pm Starting after Easter, at both St. Thomas and St. Philomena, on Wednesdays our parish offices will open 1:00p

When someone walks into your home, do they know you are Catholic? Would they see crucifixes, statues and religious art publicly displayed? I find it interesting how some homes have every wall and shelf covered, while others have no faith representation at all. This is more than filling up space in our homes, as images express something important about our faith. How so? Externals such as statues and art remind us that our faith is not confined to the church. We must live it o

This past Sunday would have been the feast day date of one of my favorite saints: Josephine Bakhita. Despite being not being well known to most Catholics, her witness speaks to my heart, and I feel a certain friendship with her. She was born in Sudan in 1869, into a stable and loving family, one of seven children. At age nine she was kidnapped by Arab slave traders who forced her to convert to Islam. The kidnappers called her ‘Bakhita’, which ironically means “fortunate”. It’

On January 21st, I gathered with a team to discuss schedules for Ash Wednesday, as well as the Fridays of Lent. For the Ash Wednesday schedule (Feb. 18), we established the following schedule: Saint Thomas 9:00am Mass (English) 12:00pm Palabra y Cenizas (español) 5:30pm Misa (español) 7:30pm Mass (English) Saint Philomena 8:30am Mass with School (English) 3:30pm Palabra y Cenizas (español) 5:30pm Mass (English) 7:30pm Misa (español) You’ll notice that at our two parish sites,

This past weekend we were blessed to celebrate Catholic Schools week. But also, we had our first Works of Mercy collection (4th weekend of the month) at St. Philomena. Recently, I wrote about this, that at St. Thomas, we already have Works of Mercy initiatives underway (St. Vincent de Paul Society, the public garden). It was important that we got some things started at St. Philomena. I’ve heard from some St. Thomas parishioners, expressing interest in having a similar monthly

One of the key themes during my studies for priesthood was discernment. We learned that the etymology of the word means to sift or separate apart. An image that helps us understand this is to imagine someone searching for gold. Perhaps you have seen in Western movies or tv shows, this process which involves scooping muddy residue and swirling the contents around in a specialized pan. The water eventually separates from the sediment, which can yield precious and hidden gold. B

Soon (January 21st), we will celebrate the memorial of a saint, dear to my heart, St. Agnes (NOTE: my black labrador before Cosmas, was named Agnes). Also known as Agnes of Rome, little is known of her except that she was martyred very young (13 years old, 304 A.D.), during the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian (284-305). Tradition says she was born into a family of Roman nobility who were Christian. A man named Sempronius, an appointed official in Roman society, wished t