Dear OLMC,

As I come to the middle of my summer assignment here at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish, I have had the opportunity to reflect on my experiences, which I would like to share with you in this short article.

Under the mentorship of Father Robert Aliunzi, our Pastor, it has been so far a grace-filled time of learning how Jesus reveals His pastoral heart in a living, vibrant parish community, and I have enjoyed every bit of it.

When we hear the word ordinary, we often think of terms like typical, routine, or even boring. So why would the Church set aside an entire season called Ordinary Time?

In the context of the church’s Liturgical Year, ordinary doesn't imply dullness or lack of significance. Instead, it comes from the word ordinal, meaning numbered or sequential. That’s why we hear references such as the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, and so on. (Interestingly, there’s no First Sunday in Ordinary Time—it's replaced by the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord.) Ordinary Time isn’t about ranking importance but simply refers to the sequence of Sundays that fall outside the Church’s major liturgical seasons: Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter.

“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness…” 249 years ago, these words were inscribed in our Declaration of Independence from Great Britain.

Dear Friends,

The month of June (dedicated to the two hearts: The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary) is coming to an end, but God's Love has no end! May the Heart of Jesus, formed in the womb of the Virgin Mother by the Holy Ghost, have mercy on us.

The heart is one of the symbols that is to be found throughout the world. It is a symbol of love.