November is a great month of remembering. We begin with All Saints and All Souls Days later we of course will celebrate Remembrance Day on November 11th. St. Ephrem, the Syrian, first mentions the practice of remembering the unknown martyrs at the beginning of November in a homily in 373. It was Pope Gregory III who first proclaimed All Saints Day on November 1st when he consecrated a chapel in St. Peter’s Basilica to all the unknown martyrs in Rome. Gregory IV made All Saints Day and All Souls Day a universal feast day in 831. I mention all this because it has become fashionable to proclaim that Halloween is some ancient pagan feast that the Church wished to suppress with All Saints Day. This is simply not true on so many levels. Read more: The Ancient Irish Get Far Too Much Credit for Halloween | Ancient Origins. Halloween is just a product of empty secular spiritualism. On the other hand, All Saints Day, All Souls Day and the practice of praying for the dead are foundational to our faith. We all have a sense that our deceased loved ones still live in our thoughts and memories, yet we realize this is only partial and fleeting. How much more does a person live on in the love of God, who knew and loved that person perfectly? Yet, sin gets in the way of God’s love. The dead, particularly those close to us, need our prayers to help them receive forgiveness so that they can become more and more open to God’s love. When we remember someone in our thoughts we bind them to our memories. More wonderfully, when we remember someone at mass or in our prayers we bind them to God’s heart. Those most open to God are the saints who continue to participate in the ministry of God’s love in the Church. As members of Christ’s Church, our religious remembering binds us together as a grace-filled member of Christ’s Body. I commend you to pray for all the members of the Church… both living and dead… so that we may all live in Christ.

September 22, 2024 – Welcome Back to Church Event October 27, 2024 – Autumn/Thanksgiving Event December 1, 2024 – First Sunday of Advent Event March 30, 2025 – Lent Event April 27, 2025 – Second Sunday of Easter Event June 22, 2025 – Strawberry Social Event

Even though the new life of spring is in the air, there still the winter debris everywhere. This echoes our spiritual life during lent. The debris that gets covered up with the dark times of our life becomes more evident with the spiritual springtime of Easter Renewal. It is a time to look at the habits and clutter in our lives to make way for the newness of life. It is times to take stock and recognize the things we have been wandering around, or even tripping over that hinder our spiritual progress.  Read More

There will be a Polish Lenten Mission (in Polish) on March 9th at 7pm with a small social to follow. and also Easter Basket blessings Holy Saturday.

I am excited to announce that the first meeting of our Pastoral Council was very encouraging for me.  We have a diversity of people from across our family of parishes.  We will meet monthly to pray, discern and plan to coordinate the great work of all our parishes.

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