Happy Sunday! This weekend we are sad to say farewell to Fr. Michael. It has been a great joy to serve alongside him these past two years. His last Mass will be the Spanish Mass on Sunday. Please keep him in your prayers as he begins his new assignment as the parochial vicar at St. Anne parish in Gilbert. With his departure comes the arrival of the newly ordained Fr. Jeff Pooley. He will be joining us starting July 1. It is a great joy to welcome him and to have our parish be his first assignment as a priest. I certainly know how much of a gift it was to start my priestly ministry here in 2016 and I know Fr. Pooley will experience the same. Thank you for offering him such a warm welcome.

Jean Amery, a Holocaust survivor tortured by the Nazis, later wrote about the abyss of human evil. He described his reaction as an "indignant despair." Haven't we all, to some degree, felt that abyss opened beneath us? A sudden loss, a violent head- line, a moment of loneliness or panic, when the world feels fragile and meaning seems to collapse?

Happy Sunday! It's been a number of weeks since I've written a bulletin letter and so much has happened. We were blessed to have the ordination of four new priests for the diocese on June 6 and to host the first Mass for Fr. Nathan Blanchard last Sunday. Please continue to keep these new priests in prayer as they prepare to begin their priestly assignments in July.

When I was a young altar server, I once overheard two very different comments about the Eucharist. One person asked, "Is Father distributing the bread or the wine?" Later, another asked, "Can you go get Jesus from the tabernacle?" Same parish, same Mass, but two very different ways of speaking. I pondered: So, is it bread that we pretend is Jesus? Or is Jesus a tiny white thing in a box? I was utterly confused.

I was 16 years old on a youth group retreat in the mountains. One night, I opened my heart to the message being proclaimed: that God so loved the world that He sent His Son for us. Later, I lay under the pine trees and looked up at the countless stars. They seemed different. No longer cold, distant balls of chemical reactions, they appeared as an expression of God's love, as if He were giving those stars directly to me. The truth of God sending His Son changed how I saw the whole universe.

"He breathed on them and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained." (John 20:22-23)

For those of us who go to confession regularly, there is often a familiar frustration: "Why do I keep confessing the same sins?" It can feel like a loop, cleansed but unchanged.

Happy Sunday!

Fr. Michael leaves this weekend for the parish pilgrimage to Ireland. Please keep them in prayer for safe travels and a fruitful pilgrimage! This week, on Monday, our school will celebrate the 8th grade graduation. It's hard to believe that another school year is drawing to a close. On Thursday, we'll have our kindergarten promotion and the last day of school for everyone will be on Friday. I want to offer a special word of gratitude to our principal, Mrs. Thompson, and her incredible faculty and staff. This was Mrs. Thompson's first year as principal, and she did a wonderful job.

Happy Sunday!

This Sunday in our second reading we hear from the first letter of St. Peter, "Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence ... " This beautiful passage always strikes to the heart.

We generally approach life with the question, "What can this do for me?" We try a new workout, a low-carb diet, intermittent fasting, or a new career path, hoping it will make us healthier, stronger, happier. The assumption is that if I invest in this, I'll eventually reap some benefit, or I won't do it.

Happy Sunday!

This past weekend we celebrated the First Communion and Confirmation for a group of about 100 children and adults. Fr. Thielo Ramirez in Williams came to confer the Sacrament of Confirmation in his role as dean. I am so grateful to Cathy Carlsen and her amazing team who lead religious education for our children. Skyler Wilkie and Michael Vollmer prepared the teens and adults for Sacraments and I am grateful to them and their teams as well!

Happy Sunday!

As we continue the Easter season our parish prepares for our First Communion and Confirmation Mass this coming Saturday, April 25th. I am so grateful to Cathy Carlsen and her team in their preparations for this wonderful event. Of course it is not just an event, but has been two years of preparations, especially through Sunday Mass and catechism classes. We will also have some adults receiving their Sacraments this Saturday. Please keep candidates in prayer as they prepare for this special day.

Happy Divine Mercy Sunday!

Today is the last day of the Octave of Easter and Divine Mercy Sunday. St. John Paul II instituted this feast in 2000 at the canonization of St. Faustina Kowalska. Her diary, "Divine Mercy in My Soul" recounts her personal experiences of Jesus in prayer and his invitation to her to promote His mercy. She was given, by Jesus, the Chaplet of Divine Mercy to be spread throughout the world to encourage souls to trust in the mercy of God.

Our Collect prayer at the beginning of the Easter Mass prays thus, "O God, who on this day, through your Only Begotten Son, have conquered death and unlocked for us the path to eternity ... " The Easter celebration is a celebration of life and the victory over death. In 1 Corinthians 15 St. Paul famously wrote, "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."