A Message from the Pastor…………………….
WELCOME to all Easter worshippers at St. Monica: to our faithful parishioners, family and friends, and visitors joining us for this special feast. This year again, Easter comes at a glorious time of the earth’s rebirth. We can see trees budding, grass greening, perennial flowers coming
out into bloom. With this glorious backdrop, we again announce the joyful news:
Jesus Christ is Risen from the dead!
Our celebrations will look different this year than last, if you can remember back to that. There are no ribbons marking off every other pew, so we’ll experience great crowds. It’s a special joy this year to welcome worshippers back to the Triduum (Three Holy Days) services, culminating in the Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday. So let’s rejoice that this year, everyone who wants to can come to church and attend. And let’s celebrate that we’ve made a lot of progress together as a nation and world to open up more of the usual opportunities in our lives.
This is just my second Easter at St. Monica. I know I’ll again experience truly great music this weekend. And I’m happy to find that at our parish, signs of Easter hope and joy abound. We’re still increasing in the number of Baptisms of little babies and toddlers, which gives us joy and new life. Our youth in a vibrant school, and nearby schools and homes; and high school youth show enthusiasm for their faith. Senior parishioners lead the way with faith and strength. Parish leaders of all ages are moving us into new ministry areas, within the parish community and be- yond it. Our website invites people to look at the parish in new, fresh ways, which we’re working to update. We’re being renewed from inside by creative faith sharing, and in the always-strong prayer life of the parish, including daily Masses and Eucharistic Adoration. New members come each month, in fact we’re planning another welcoming session at Mass and after for the most re- cent ones. A special sign of hope and talent is our own strategic planning process, begun recently in our dynamic Visioning Day with over a hundred people. In the midst of the Archdiocesan planning going on, we’re not being passive, but strengthening and improving our parish on our own initiative.
Of course, there are times with any of us that we don’t feel this joy and hope. Neither did the
first apostles, even when they’d seen the Lord. But I look to the parish to be a center of redeemed people sharing their joy in the Lord, healing each other. So if we don’t feel the Resurrection, it reminds us that we have to take the joy inside. It’s our joy, and like the apostles, we have to make an act of faith. Then the signs of the Resurrection will become clearer, and eventually,
yes, we’ll feel it.
This year I’m struck by the CONTINUITY of life we have in Jesus. The Resurrection continues to ripple throughout history, and into our lives if we let it. If we do, we rise to a NEW LIFE.
Fr. Tim Foley and I thank you profoundly for the chance to be your priests, both at the Eucharist and in all the other moments of this amazing parish. Now we enter the longest, and least under- stood, season of the church year, the Easter Season, to unfold and unpack the many gifts in faith and love of the Easter event. May we go on together to be surprised at the new life God still has in store for us in countless ways.
Fr. Sebastian