Dear Parishioners, It’s Monday of Holy Week as I’m writing this letter; so I’m meditating on today’s Gospel, John 12:1-11. Jesus has just raised Lazarus from the dead, and Mary and Martha are throwing a banquet for Jesus. This occurs six days before Jesus’ Good Friday death.
Read more →Archive for the Pastor’s Corner Category
Dear Parishioners, As we are getting closer to Holy Week, Easter and Divine Mercy Sunday, we are also approaching the weekend for First Communion celebrations. First Communion will happen the weekend of April 18th. I am starting to get questions about First Communion, so I guess it’s
Read more →Dear Parishioners, I have wanted since my arrival to communicate something about Communion services. Before my arrival, Communion services were a regular occurrence in our parish. After I arrived they stopped. Why not Communion services? In the post-Vatican II years, with the decline in the number of
Read more →Dear Parishioners, First of all I want to thank everybody who has already donated to the Bishop’s Annual Catholic Appeal. As of the writing of this letter we are only $6,000 below our goal. That is pretty impressive. I am impressed by the generosity of our parishioners.
Read more →Dear Parishioners, As I stated last weekend in my homilies, I’ve decided to lead any parishioners who want to make the pilgrimage to Philadelphia to see the Pope for the World Meeting of Families. In conversation with a couple of parishioners, I became convinced that this can
Read more →Dear Parishioners, On Thursday, February 19, we had another pastoral council meeting. The following is a brief summary: -All the money for the Paulding air-conditioning project has been collected, thanks to very generous donors. The Diocese has given the final approval for the replacement of the old
Read more →Dear Parishioners, This last couple weeks we had the kick-off of the Diocesan Annual Catholic Appeal. I have been told that every household has received a mailing by now. I encourage everybody to give something, no matter how small the gift. Together I’m sure we can reach
Read more →Dear Parishioners, As further follow-up to my beginning marriage preparation in our parish, I want to explain why cohabitation is something unacceptable. Forbidding cohabitation is not primarily a “no”; it is, rather, a huge “yes” to the beauty of married love and the truth of the body
Read more →Dear Parishioners, Because I recently began marriage preparation with two couples, I thought it was necessary in the last bulletin to present the marriage preparation program that we will be using. Because that program includes Natural Family Planning, I want to explain NFP a little bit more
Read more →Dear Parishioners, One of the many strange weaknesses of seminary training in the decades following Vatican II was the lack of concrete instruction on how to do marriage preparation. Thankfully, Pope Saint John Paul II’s famous encyclical Familiaris Consortio, “On the Christian Meaning of Family”, published in my
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