My Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

As I am sure you noticed, confessions were cancelled multiple times two weeks ago. It was not something that I wanted to do, but something I had to do as I received news on Wednesday, October 2nd that our Parish will not be receiving a Parochial Vicar until July 2025.

Do you remember your own baptism? I wish I could; I was baptized as an infant, just a few days old. I envy the adults I have seen baptized at the Easter Vigil. Hopefully, they experience what St. Paul says in the epistle we hear at the Vigil. For Paul, Baptism is a sign of dying and rising to new life. Sounds like Easter to me. So when Jesus died, he rose from the dead. Is Paul telling us that we will rise from the dead, too?

This year, we hear the Passion from the gospel of Mark. One thing unique about this reading is the emphasis on Jesus being abandoned by his disciples. First, the leaders of the disciples, Peter, James, and John, cannot even support Jesus in his agony in the garden: They fall asleep, three times. Then there is Judas, who seeks out the chief priests to make a deal with them, Peter, who denies Jesus three times, and the disciples who flee when he is arrested. The crowds who cried, “Hosanna!” a few days before, now call for him to be crucified. Even Simon the Cyrenian had to be forced to help carry the cross.

Just before our first reading it says that “the word of the LORD was rare; there were not many visions.” (1Sam 3:1) I imagine most people today would think that was true. Haven’t you ever wished you lived in biblical times, to see some of the miracles you read about? Wouldn’t it be cool to hear the LORD speaking in a vision? Do you think God has stopped talking? People apparently felt that way in Samuel’s time. Let’s look at the reading to see what Samuel’s experience can teach us.

And the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us, and we saw His glory.

On Christmas, as we hear in my favorite Christmas song, O Holy Night, “the weary world rejoices.” God gave us a Savior. We did not deserve this gift. We sinned. We betrayed God. We knew His laws, but we did what we wanted anyway and pushed Him away. But, in His immense love, He looked at this world of human beings He created in His image and likeness and His heart was filled with love. And in this immense love, He sent His Son.

Last Sunday during the homily, Fr. David, invited the congregation to join him at the Becoming Catholic sessions, which he holds on Sunday afternoons. His summons included the opportunity for all to join him in asking questions about faith and, I am sure, through the answers, one would understand this was an inspiration from the Holy Spirit to live out our individual call to Universal Holiness by the Divine. The question one might be wondering is,

“What has this to do with me?” “I have received all my sacraments.” “I attend Mass regularly, why do I need extra formation?”

Dear Fellow Parishioners,

When our Parish of Prince of Peace was founded on May 1, 2021, our church had 855 registered families and a lot of ministries needed to start anew. There was no Catechetical Program, Knights of Columbus, St. Vincent de Paul, Pro-Life Ministry, Catering Team, or choir, and we had only a small Women’s Guild. In the two years since our founding, our Eucharistic Community now has: