Sunday April 27th, 2025 – Second Sunday of Easter
He is Risen! Alleluia! Alleluia!
We continue our Easter celebration with Divine Mercy Sunday and the conclusion of the Octave of Easter. The resurrection of the Lord is so important within our tradition that we turn it into eight days of celebrating Easter Sunday (ending today) and continue celebrating it for the next several weeks as well.
In 2000, on the 2nd Sunday of Easter, Pope John Paul II canonized St. Faustina Kowalska and designated the 2nd
Sunday of Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday. Through St. Faustina’s diary, we know that our Lord desires all people to trust in Divine Mercy. The image of Divine Mercy includes “Jesus, I trust in you.”
On this Sunday, we are encouraged to do a Holy Hour during the Hour of Mercy, which is 3:00 pm.
You are invited to the Cathedral Sunday afternoon to join our Divine Mercy Holy Hour starting at 3:00 pm. We will pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy as part of the Holy Hour.
The Lord desires to pour Mercy into our hearts; let us trust the Lord’s mercy.
Happy Easter! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Fr. Joseph
Sunday April 20th, 2025 – Easter Sunday
Happy Easter!
This is the most important day and season of the year for us, Christian Catholics. Jesus, who once was dead, is now alive and reigns and lives for all eternity. This is a great miracle to witness, and it does not end there. Jesus also wants to share his risen and divine life with each of us, so that we may live in him and he in us.
Jesus shares the gift of his risen life with each of us at Baptism and, ever since that day, we were made members of his risen body and partake in all that he is and has except for the times we are in mortal sin. What a wonderful and overwhelming gift of God’s love for us; not only does he want each of us to have life in abundance but he also gives us his own life so that we may truly live!
Today and throughout the Easter season, we will be sprinkled with Holy Water, the same kind of water that was poured over our heads the day of our Baptism. May this Easter Day and season be a time for us to praise God for the gift of our Baptism, the sacrament through which divine and risen life is given to us. We also give thanks to the Lord for the gift of the sacrament of Confession, also called a “laborious Baptism” in the Catechism, for it truly restores us to those graces received at Baptism.
On behalf of the Fathers Tim, Brian, Joseph and I and also all the parishes’ staff and volunteers, we pray you have a most wonderful Easter Day and season!
With my love,
Fr. Carlos
Sunday April 13th, 2025 – Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord
Dear Sisters & Brothers,
Today, we enter the holiest week of the year for Christians. Lent ends at sundown on Holy Thursday, and we will then enter the Sacred Triduum. The Triduum is a solemn feast celebrated over three days commemorating Jesus Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection. As disciples of Christ, we must make this week different from every other week of the year. With that in mind, I want to invite you and urge you to attend the solemn liturgies of the Triduum.
The Triduum begins on Holy Thursday evening with the Mass of the Lord’s Supper. At this liturgy, we remember what Jesus did at the Last Supper when he instituted the Eucharist. As they were at table, Jesus took the role of a servant and washed his disciples’ feet, telling them that what he had done for them, they were to do for one another. I like to think of the lesson he taught this way: the Eucharist isn’t simply something we receive; it is something we become. The Mass of the Lord’s Supper will be celebrated at both the Cathedral and St. Hedwig Church at 7:00pm.
On Good Friday, we remember the death of Jesus on the cross. The passion account from John’s gospel is proclaimed, we venerate the cross, and we offer prayers of intercession for the needs of the Church, the world, the Elect who will be baptized the next day, our Jewish brothers and sisters, those who do not believe in Christ, and our civil leaders. No Mass is celebrated on Good Friday, but we are permitted to receive Holy Communion consecrated the night before. There will be five celebrations of the Passion on Good Friday, including one in Spanish, in our five parishes. Please see the cover of the bulletin for times and locations.
It is very quiet on Holy Saturday as we remember the day Jesus lay in the tomb. The Office of Readings and Morning Prayer will be prayed at 8:30 a.m. at the Cathedral. At 1:30 pm, Easter foods will be blessed at St. Hedwig Church.
On Holy Saturday night, we celebrate the Easter Vigil, which commemorates and celebrates Christ’s resurrection. We gather around a fire, bless and light the new Paschal Candle representing Christ risen from the dead, and hear the Easter Proclamation of the Resurrection. We then trace God’s plan of salvation from the Hebrew Scriptures through the account of the resurrection in the Gospel of Luke. After his homily, Archbishop Grob will baptize our Elect and receive our Candidates into the full communion of the Catholic Church. Then, all who are already baptized will renew their baptismal promises. The Easter Vigil is the first Mass of Easter and, thus, does fulfill your obligation to attend Mass on Easter Sunday.
This year, we will celebrate one Easter Vigil for all members of the Family of Parishes, with Archbishop Jeffrey Grob presiding. The Easter Vigil will be celebrated at 8:00pm at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist. All parishioners, family members, and friends are encouraged and welcome to attend.
Fr. Brian
Sunday April 6th, 2025 – 5th Sunday of Lent
“Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, my entire will, all I have and call my own.
You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it.
Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me.”
(St. Ignatius of Loyola)
Dear Friends,
In a consumption-based culture, the value of surrendering oneself to something greater is seen as a sign of failure and weakness. Only acquisition is seen as victory, “The one who dies with the most stuff is the winner….” Or something along those lines.
As we prepare to remember the greatest surrender, when the Word made flesh, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, dies a rather violent and senseless death on a tree whose fruit seems to contain no satisfaction but misery, pain, and the ultimate void of death.
We are being asked to believe that ultimate surrender is ultimate victory.
And yet right at the moment of his surrender, Christ gives us the key to the door that surrender opens. It is the door of absolute dependence and the freedom that we don’t have to be in control all the time, the freedom to let someone else do the work. After the heavy work of the carrying the cross, Christ finally can say it is finished, into greater hand she commends his spirit and he can finally totally and irrevocably be free.
It is that freedom finally that the heavy weight of human living and burdensome, calculated choice become overwhelmingly light because we can finally let go. Our work of carrying any cross is over, and the one whose Name is Love takes over! And that sweet freedom, that amazing grace will finally take us home!
As Lent moves toward Holy Week, let’s continue to hold each other close in prayer and good works!
