Acerca de

Dear friends,

As we continue to celebrate the resurrection of Christ during this Easter Season. This week, we got the sad news of the death of Pope Francis. Pope Francis has been a very gracious pope at a time of Great need. He taught us the value to servant leadership, humility, compassion, faith and hope at a time the world needed it the most. He called the world to hope by declaring this jubilee year a year of hope.  He valued hearing from the flock that why he called for the synod.
 
I thank all who came out on Monday to for adoration and for praying together the ‘Office of the Dead,’ a prayer from the divine office/breviary for the pope. Please keep praying for him. We gave out too a novena booklet for praying for his soul. I encourage you all to Pray the Our Father …. Hail Mary……,  and Glory Be…. today for him. May His Soul Rest in Eternal Peace.  
You will see that the main doors to our church are draped with Black Bunding. Symbolizing that we are all joining the universal church in mourning for the pope. In the church you will see a picture of the pope with a candle burning near it to remind us to pray for him.
 
This weekend we celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday reminding us of the Great love of God to sacrifice his Son to save us. A celebration that has a beautiful history and tradition. The world was in the midst of the Great Depression in 1931 and the memories of World War I were still very much alive in the minds of all when in Poland a sister of the Congregation of Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, Faustina Kowalska (1905-1938), is said to have been personally visited by Jesus.
 
According to her diary, which was listed on the Index of Forbidden Books for more than 20 years, an image was revealed to her of the risen Lord, from whose heart shone two rays, one red (representing blood) and the other “pale” (symbolizing water), with the words “Jesus, I trust in You” at the bottom. Faustina wrote in her diary that Jesus told her, “I promise that the soul that will venerate this image will not perish.” When she was canonized in 2000, Pope John Paul II, proclaimed that the Second Sunday of Easter be known as Divine Mercy Sunday, thereby widely promoting the devotional practices associated with Faustina’s visions, already popular in many communities.
 
St. Faustina kept a 600-page diary of the apparitions she claimed continued for years. Her entries focus on God’s mercy, the call to accept God’s mercy and to be merciful, the need for conversion, and the call to trust in Jesus. It had been Jesus’ own wish, she wrote, to establish a feast day: “I [Jesus] desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and shelter for all souls. I am giving them the last hope of salvation; that is, the Feast of My Mercy.” Among the practices associated with the devotion are its novena, the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy, the Hour of Great Mercy (a time of prayer traditionally at 3:00pm), and the plenary indulgence granted to those who receive the sacraments on Divine Mercy Sunday. The celebration of Divine Mercy Sunday is an opportunity to reflect on the theme of how God’s mercy can overcome sin through the divine benevolence.
 
Please join us following the Noon Mass (at St. Patrick) and following with 8:30am Mass (St. Joan of Arc) to pray together the Divine Mercy Chaplet before the blessed sacrament.
 
May you continue to flourish through this gracious Easter Season and may God bless you always.
 
Fr. Francis