The Visitation and Life

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  The gospel reading (Luke 1:39-56) for today tells the story of Mary going to visit Elizabeth.  In this story there are four living people taking part in the story (Zechariah, Elizabeth’s husband is also mentioned by name). The first of the four is, of …

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Why it is Important That We Reached Our CMA Goal

This weekend I had the pleasure of announcing at Mass that, for the first time in long as anyone remembers, our parish reached our Catholic Ministries Appeal (CMA) goal.  You can read the letter Bishop Matano wrote to our parish upon reaching our goal on our parish website. It was my pleasure to announce this …

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7th Sunday of Easter, Year A – Homily

7th Sunday of Easter, Year A Acts 1:12-14 Psalm 27:1, 4, 7-8 (13) 1 Peter 4:13-16 John 17:1-11a On Thursday we celebrated Jesus’ Ascension into Heaven.  This marked an important moment as the disciples saw him ascend on the cloud so that they (and us!) might all know Jesus has returned to his place in …

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Why Do We Celebrate the Ascension ‘Today’?

I’ve titled this article “Why Do We Celebrate the Ascension ‘Today’? but even the title needs a short explanation.  I put “today” in single quote marks because not everyone is celebrating the Ascension today.  Some dioceses move it to the following Sunday.  I’ll explain why it falls on today later in the article.  In the …

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6th Sunday of Easter, Year A – Homily

6th Sunday of Easter, Year A Acts 8:5-8, 14-17 Psalm 66:1-3, 4-5, 607, 16, 20 1 Peter 3:15-18 John 14:15-21 The Samaritan people were despised by the Jews but Samaria is where Philip to proclaimed Christ to the people in today’s reading.  Philip was not one of the Twelve Apostles but he shared (just like …

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5th Sunday of Easter, Year A – Homily

5th Sunday of Easter, Year A Acts 6:1-7 Psalm 33:1-2, 4-5, 18-19 (22) 1 Peter 2:4-9 John 14:1-12 Throughout our Easter season our first reading comes from the Acts of the Apostles.  Acts tells the story of the early church.  If you read the whole story, you hear how the early church faced persecution and …

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4th Sunday of Easter, Year A – Homily

4th Sunday of Easter, Year A Acts 2:14a, 36-41 Psalm 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6 1 Peter 2:20b-25 John 10:1-10 Today we celebrate the Fourth Sunday of Easter.  Each year on this Sunday we hear Jesus’ Good Shepherd discourse as found in chapter 10 of John’s Gospel.  Jesus identifies himself as the Good Shepherd who always …

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