Pastor’s Letter: June 26, 2022

Pastor’s Letter: June 26, 2022

27 Jun 2022 | Posted by: chadmin

The June 26 bulletin is now available online. 

Dear friend,

Several parishioners have recently asked me about the Seven Sisters Apostolate advertised in the last few bulletins. I first became aware of this mission from my mother who help organize the Seven Sisters at her home parish to pray for their priest. Information about the program can be found on their website, https://sevensistersapostolate.org/. The mission of the Seven Sisters is ensuring a Holy Hour is prayed for a priest or bishop every day. A group is formed with a minimum of seven women to agree to pray one Holy Hour in the Adoration Chapel once per week. A number of years ago Anne Cusack arranged a group of women to pray one hour each week. A couple of the women are unable to continue the commitment.  The bulletin announcement is an invitation for the women of the parish to agree to pray one Holy Hour each week for my ministry at St. Philomena Church. Thanks for the consideration.

The Gospel reading this weekend portrays Jesus and His disciples traveling through Samaria, a region in modern day Israel north of Jerusalem and south of the Galilean territory, where Jesus performed most of His ministry. The people in Samaria had extremely negative attitudes to Jews who traveled to pray in the Jerusalem Temple. Despite this truth, Jesus travels through the region and is rejected. The response of James and John was somewhat understandable. “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?” Jesus rebukes them for their reaction, but we can understand the temptation for self-preservation. People often use their resources to attack back at those that cause them harm. The rebuke of Jesus is similar to his encouragement to turn the other cheek to one who strikes you. Retaliation with anger to an offense is never the response of the Christian. This is the case with all violence, outside of just war, and especially to small offenses. It is amazing to look around our culture today and see the responses of people to inconveniences while driving, political disagreements, or to simple ignorance in the intellectual positions of others. Part of spiritual growth is allowing ourselves to experience the rebuke of Jesus when we improperly respond to an offense. May the Lord help us all grow in our ability to response with patience and love to any worldly challenge or offense.

God bless,

Father David