Dear Friends,

In my previous article, I discussed prayer as an essential aspect of Stewardship. I emphasized the need to put prayer, especially the Eucharist, at the center of our activity recognizing that we are creations of a loving God (our Father) who gives Himself freely for us in the Eucharist; that all we are and all we have are gifts from Him. He entrusts these gifts to us for use, not only for ourselves but to help others to gain eternal life. Prayer also helps us build a personal relationship with God. For this relationship to exist and grow however, we need to give TIME for prayers.

Dear Friends,

I walked into a restaurant while still in Kampala (Uganda’s capital) last week and after going through the menu, I ordered some food and what I experienced there has tempted me to digress a little from my planned article on the Stewardship of Time. Instead, I will reflect some more on the Stewardship of Prayer from the perspective of the Mass.

Dear Friends,

Prayer is essentially our communication with God. The more we communicate with God, the deeper our relationship grows as it does in ordinary relationships and the more, we are blessed. This communication in the case of fostering our relationship with God, can take various forms. The most common and basic forms include prayers of praise, of petition, of gratitude, and of intercession. Whichever form it takes however, it is all meant to foster a deeper relationship between us and God.

Dear Friends,

I would like to state upfront that stewardship is not about asking for money as it has often been misunderstood to be. It is much more than that. But before I get into what it is, allow me to share something briefly about my African heritage.

Growing up in rural Northern Uganda, one of the memories that still come vividly to my mind and which I still cherish, was how young men in my village often came together to construct a hut for one of them who declared an intention to get married.

Dear friends,

As we come to the end of the year, I look back with profound gratitude to God for the many blessings we have received as individuals and as a parish. I look forward to yet another wonderful year ahead. However, aware that it is often very easy to overlook the many good things we were gifted with and focus only on the negatives, I invite you to take a moment to honestly audit the year and be grateful to God for all the gifts you too have received. While I leave it to you to individually count your own blessings and thank God for them, I invite you to look forward with greater optimism and gratitude to God for the many more gifts and blessings yet to come this new year.

Dear Friends,

It is another great year and a special opportunity for me to wish you my dear beloved family of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel a Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year 2024, as your Pastor. As we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior today and throughout this season, I want to thank God for the many blessings He has bestowed upon us individually and as a community since our last Christmas celebration. As a community, I am sure, these blessings are numerous to count.

Dear Friends,

As we have heard several times already, Advent is a time of preparation for the coming of the Lord: His coming to us sacramentally at Christmas, His coming to us individually at the end of our lives and His coming to us collectively at the end of time. But He comes to us all the time. He is among us. That is why in the First Sunday of Advent, we talked about preparation by being watchful, being alert, because we do not know when Christ will come again; in other words, the key word in this First Sunday of Advent called us to Watch.

Dear Friends,

In my last article, I emphasized the reality and certainty of Jesus’ coming and the need for us to be always watchful and alert. In this article, I want to emphasize the need to be prepared for His coming especially by being found doing good when He comes. Allow me to share part of an article I read sometime back that highlights the same theme of being always prepared and being found doing the right thing.

Dear Friends,

The term Advent comes from two Latin words Ad-ventus or ad-venire, which simply means “to arrive” or “to come” respectively. It marks the beginning of the Church’s liturgical calendar. It is a four-week period leading up to Christmas.

For us Christians, and Catholics in particular, it means a time of expectation and preparation for the Lord’s birth. So, the prophecy of John the Baptist: “a voice of one calling in the desert, prepare a way for the Lord …” (Mk 1, 3), echoes loudly to us this season.

Dear Friends,

This weekend, we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King which also officially marks the end of the liturgical year A. Next weekend, we begin the season of Advent to prepare for the birth of this great King. Yes, don’t we all admire a great leader? Particularly here in the United States I often hear people insisting on having strong leaders; leaders who can lead us to the common good, to prosperity, to peace and stability, to achieving our “American Dream”.

Dear Friends,

Two weeks ago I was blessed to go on a pilgrimage of sorts with the teens of our parish through our Life Teen program. It wasn’t a pilgrimage to the tomb of an obscure saint or the site of a Marian apparition. Instead we journeyed to California, to the thrilling amusement park known as Six Flags where we joined over two thousand teens in celebrating our faith. The experience proved to be a unique combination of theme park thrills and profound encounters with Jesus Christ. In a way the event inspired a realization that the Lord is always present to us, sometimes in the most unlikely of places, and that we are always invited into a profound and personal relationship with Him through the Eucharist.

Dear Friends,

Recently, I had an interesting experience, which happens to me quite often. It is that experience which inspired the title and content of this article. Please, read on.

On that day, I had an appointment at a certain huge parish in our Diocese with the Pastor. At the time of making the appointment, I had introduced myself and proceeded to have a great conversation on the phone with the sweetest sounding receptionist. So, on the day of the appointment, being my day off, I went dressed casually and arrived two minutes earlier at the office.

Dear Friends,

As I was away the other week “wasting time in the presence of God”, as Bishop Dolan described retreat to be, I had a lot of time to reflect in that serene environment. Suddenly while there, what seemed to be ordinary encounters and normal interactions began to take on new meanings as I meditated upon them. The retreat center offered just a perfect opportunity for me to do that. For instance, one morning as I took a walk in the quiet desert surrounding of the Center, before my morning prayer, I came across what looked like a wolf which scared the hell out of me.