Advent, from the Latin “ad-venire” meaning “to come to,” is a time of preparation and anticipation for the remembrance of our Lord’s birth and His eventual Second Coming. Additionally, the Church calls us to conversion and a repentance of the heart during Advent to prepare our souls to receive our newborn King and the heavenly Kingdom to come. In essence, this season allows us to look back on the hope for the Savior of the World, experience anew the joy of his arrival and also his reign in the present through his Church, and to prepare ourselves for his glorious return at his Second Coming.

Dear Friends, “For as in one body we have many parts, and all the parts do not have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually parts of one another.” (Romans 12:4-5)

Our parish community at Mount Carmel reflects the Catholic Church in miniature. I observe this in the way that our ministries seek to serve each other and the people outside of our community. I see this in the various prayers offered through mass intentions and devotions for both the living and the deceased souls in purgatory. I recognize this in the celebration of the saints who have gone before us and won the crown of salvation as victors in Christ. In all this we reflect what our Church wisely calls Communion of Saints.

A wise, elderly priest once celebrated an early morning Mass. Later that day, someone asked him, “How many attended Mass this morning?” and he answered, “There were thousands there—but I only saw three of them.” In other words, in addition to the three early birds in attendance, the priest included the thousands of souls from purgatory allowed by God to be present at this Mass, along with a multitude of invisible but very real angels and saints, “especially Our Lady, St. Joseph, and St. Michael the Archangel. We don’t see everything that’s going on at Mass, and we would be overwhelmed and amazed if we could. Many deceased persons being cleansed and healed in purgatory are allowed to be present, especially if the Mass is being offered for them and especially if they had a great devotion to the Eucharist during their lives.

Dear Friends,

We have just gone through an election peacefully, for which we must be grateful to God. However, it is not an exaggeration to say that the period preceding the election and the election day itself were full of fears and anxieties at many different levels. Almost two weeks after the election, fear of the unknown about the future of our country may still be lingering among some of us, while others may be very optimistic. In this article, I want to dwell briefly on the power of trust in God over fear in an attempt to make some sense of our situation.

It is important that we, as Catholics, know not only what the Catholic Church does but why we do it, when it comes to our funeral rites. Like all liturgical rites, funerals have a specific function in the life of the Church. Catholic funeral rites actually consist of three liturgies, each serving a distinctive purpose in ministering to the bereaved and commemorating the deceased.

The first is the vigil, which takes place prior to the funeral mass, typically the preceding evening. The service consists of a Liturgy of the Word and intercessory prayer. It is typically celebrated at the funeral home but may also be celebrated at the church. It is a time for mourners to express their grief and to receive consolation. At the vigil, God’s word in Scripture is offered “as light and life in the face of darkness and death.” The vigil liturgy is the most appropriate time for a friend or family member of the deceased to offer a eulogy in their remembrance.

Dear Friends,

Last weekend, I gave you my state of the parish address, reflecting on my past year as your Pastor and laying out my plans for our parish going forward. I pointed out how excited and blessed I am to be your pastor. I reminded myself, too, as I often do, how grateful I must always be to God and to the several people that God brought into my own life over the years. That now includes you! It is this sense of gratitude that always brings a bright smile to my face, if you are wondering!

Many Catholics aren’t fully sure what Purgatory is or why it exists; perhaps you may be in that boat, too. Hopefully, this can help illuminate the role of Purgatory in the life of a Christian and how we can participate in helping souls get to Heaven through the prayers of the mass.

Dear Friends,

Since this weekend, my focus is on addressing the state of our parish at all Masses, so I decided to give a brief reflection on the liturgy of this 31st Sunday of Year B. Whereas the readings of this weekend focus primarily on Love: Love of God and Love of neighbor, my mind was drawn to the title of this article. I think this is for a good reason: who or what we love greatly influences our worship. Who and what do we worship in our society today?

During the month of November, the Church ponders The Last Things, that is, the end of our earthly lives and our life after death. We begin by celebrating All Saints’ Day on November 1st, a Holy Day of Obligation. On this day, we rejoice with all the Saints, known and unknown, who, through the mercy and grace of God and aligning their will with His, have attained entry to our Lord’s Heavenly Kingdom. The next day, November 2nd, is All Souls’ Day, where we pray for all those souls, remembered and forgotten, who have passed on from this world and are in Purgatory awaiting entry to Heaven.

Dear Friends,

“By itself, faith accomplishes nothing. For even the devils believe and shudder. No, faith must be joined to an active love of God which is expressed in good works.”
—St. Maximus the Confessor

These words from Saint Maximus may remind us of the reading from the letter of Saint James we heard a few Sundays ago when he said, “Faith apart from works is dead.” Saint Maximus even goes so far as to say that even the devils have a technical faith as they know who God is and believe in his power. We see this in the various episodes of exorcism in the gospels, where Jesus casts out evil spirits.

You may have noticed the altar servers are wearing different colors now from what you may be used to. This is one of the most outwardly visible signs of the reforms happening with our Altar Server ministry. The ministry is in the process of being transformed into a full-fledged formative program with the vision of planting and cultivating seeds to inspire and raise up the next generation of vocations to Religious Life and the Priesthood.

Dear Friends,

I would like to express my profound gratitude for your active participation in a number of activities our parish has been involved in the last couple of months. Among others, we began by doing a census, which was followed by a survey to determine the size and needs of our parish. Even though the participation was not as we had hoped, it gave us some idea of the direction our parish desires to go.

Dear Friends,

This month of October is usually known as Respect Life Month in our Catholic Church. And so, in this article, I am going to ask all of you to do everything in your power to respect life. One way I am asking you to do this is by voting NO to Proposition 139, as the Bishops are asking us to do. This is because, as you know by now, this proposition opens the door to enshrining a constitutional right to abortion in Arizona, including even removing safeguards for girls and women currently in place at abortion clinics.

Concluding our series on the sacrifice all of creation offers in worship to God the Almighty Father, we now look at how all of creation is united together through our work, our own sacrifice that we offer in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

The sacrifices of creation can only be offered to God through our cultivation and work of the items to render them in service of worship. We form and carve the beeswax into candles; we make bread for the Eucharist from the wheat of the earth, and the wine from crushing grapes. We press olives to extract their oil for Chrism and melt and cast gold into chalices to contain our Lord’s blood. Through these actions, we fulfill one of the primordial commands God gave to us in Genesis, to “Fill the earth and subdue it.” (Gen. 1:28). We participate in the work of God by creating new things from what He has given us, and we in turn offer it back to Him.

Dear Friends,

For the last five weekends of September, our reflections centered on stewardship, covering its three pillars of time, talent, and treasure. This weekend, as members of our parish community, it is our time to commit. As a community, we want to reaffirm our resolve and commitment to faithful stewardship to the support of our parish. As we do so, let us keep in mind that this is a sacred moment for us to reflect on our relationship with God and our role as stewards of His resources.

All of God’s created world offers a part of themselves for the offering of the Holy Mass. So far, we have seen how animals and plants give their fruits and even their very selves to worship God. Let us now see how the earth and all the non-living but purposefully created bodies and objects within our universe make an offering to God.