Sometimes we all find someone or something in life that causes us stress and anxiety. Sometimes there are things that other people do or say that drive us crazy or that leave us shaking our heads, wondering what’s going on. Sometimes there are things that other people do or say that we look at and wonder why. And, if we’re honest, sometimes there are times where others wonder or say those things about us.

Hi there, everyone! It’s Fr. John’s “Boss” Angel again! My dad told me that many people enjoyed when I helped him with his column for Palm Sunday, so he asked me if I would be willing to help him by writing a column once a month. I told him that for a few extra treats a day, I’d be willing. My dad agreed, so here we are with the second installment of Angel’s Angle’s (I came up with the name all by myself, don’t let my dad tell you any different and take any of the credit).

This weekend, allow me to wish all of our mothers & grandmothers a Happy & Blessed Mother’s Day! There are not enough words to describe all that a mother does & no amount of pay would be enough for what she truly deserves. This weekend we offer special prayers for all of our mother’s living & deceased.

If I were to invite us to name a Saint, my guess is that there are a number of Saints that would be named quite frequently. Saints such as St. Francis of Assisi, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Patrick, and St. Vincent de Paul, for example, would probably rank high up there in the number of ,mentions. But, while there are many Saints that are well known and well loved, there are also many “lesser known” Saints. Saints whom we may have never heard of or Saints who, the only thing tat we know about them is their name. With the Church’s wide array of the Communion of Saints, I thought it might be interesting to, once a month in my column, give us a brief introduction to one of those Saints who we might not know as much about.

Happy Easter! As we celebrate this octave day of Easter, we celebrate what has become known in the Church as Divine Mercy Sunday. St. Faustina, who in many ways could be considered a “Missionary of Mercy” wrote, "For there are three ways of performing an act of mercy: the merciful word, by forgiving and by comforting; secondly, if you can offer no word, then pray - that too is mercy; and thirdly, deeds of mercy."

Happy Easter! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! He is risen! As we gather together to celebrate this joyous day, please know of my prayers and best wishes on this most holy day! Thank you to all those who have helped to make today’s celebration possible! And a special thank you to all of you for coming together to celebrate & rejoice in Jesus’ resurrection!

Hi parish family! It’s Angel, Fr. John’s companion &, as I like to think about it, his “boss.” ;) My dad’s been a bit busy working with everyone to make sure that everything is ready for this week, so I told him that I would put together a little something for this week’s bulletin to help him out.

Next week we begin Holy Week. In Holy Week, we enter into the holiest week of the Church. Our Lenten journey culminates in the events that we celebrate & remember this week, the passion, death, & resurrection of our Lord. I invite & encourage all of us to make this week a holy week in both name & action.

How has your Lent been so far? As we celebrate the 4th Sunday of Lent this week, roughly the halfway point of our Lenten journey, it’s a good time for us to pause and reflect on how much we have dared to be different. Have we been faithful to our promises of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving? Or have we faltered? If we have, there’s still time to pick up and begin again so that when we get to Easter we might renew our Baptismal Promises with great vigor.

One of the major questions that we get and issues that we deal with at the Parish Office centers around requests for Sponsor Certificates. People who have been asked to be godmothers or godfathers for Baptism call up to the office requesting the Sponsor Certificate. While sometimes these are pretty easy to take care of, there are also times and situations where challenges arise. So, I wanted to take a moment to discuss the requirements to be a godparent and what makes someone a good godparent.

DARE TO BE DIFFERENT! That’s the call that Jesus placed upon my heart as we enter into this Lenten season. DARE TO BE DIFFERENT! Being different really is something we have to dare to do because being different can often be one of the most costliest things that we do in our lives. More costly than buying a house or a car, more costly than any other purchase that we might make, being different costs us, and oftentimes being different costs us dearly.

As I went about scheduling that appointment, I thought that it might be a very beneficial process to look at doing something similar in terms of our parish. So, I’d like to invite you to consider joining me for our parish “physical.” These “physicals” won’t involve blood pressure cuffs & there won’t be any needles involved (I promise).

“Repent & believe in the Gospel.” This Wednesday we’ll be invited to God’s continuous call to conversion & change as we enter into the season of Lent. Our Masses on Ash Wednesday will be celebrated at 9:00 am & 7:00 pm . Join us as we are signed with the sign of the cross, an outward sign of our call & hopefully our desire for an inward conversion more & more towards Christ. In case you’re wondering, we’re back, this year, to inscribing the ashes in the way we’ve been used to, on the forehead.

This is somewhat of a shorter column as this past Tuesday (the day bulletin articles are due) I returned from a very restful & relaxing week away. I didn’t really do anything fancy while I was away…no work was done, including writing bulletin columns ahead of time ;). I just spent some time relaxing, reading (you may remember the homily I gave about my challenge to read 50 books this year…

Have you ever found yourself getting distracted when you pray? For me, the answer to both of those questions is a resounding yes, & I would assume that it’s the same answer for you. Prayer is an essential & necessary part of our lives as Catholics & with that prayer often comes distractions.

There’s a good chance that as we hear/heard (depending upon when you’re reading this), our 2nd Reading this weekend at Mass we felt like we were at a Wedding. Though it is certainly not the ONLY 2nd reading that I’ve ever heard proclaimed at a Wedding, it is, by far, the most common. St. Paul presents to us, in this reading, a wonderful description of love, a quality that is so needed in our world today.

In 2019, on the memorial of St. Jerome, September 30th, Pope Francis called the Church to celebrate the Sunday of the Word of God on the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time. In the Preamble of the Introduction to the Lectionary for Mass we are reminded, “the word of God proclaimed in the celebration of God’s mysteries does not only address present conditions but looks back to past events and forward to what is yet to come.

In our second reading today, St. Paul writes to the people of Corinth, “To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.” (1 Cor. 12:7). The Spirit is given, not to some, not to a few, not to a majority, but to each individual, but to each & every individual for the benefit, not just of the individual themselves, but for the benefit of all. The manifestation of the Spirit is not the same in each individual & our call, our challenge, is to put that manifestation to use.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year! On January 1st, though due to its falling on a Saturday it was not a Holy Day of Obligation this year, we celebrated the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God. How is Mary the Mother of God, we might ask? After all, if God has existed since the very beginning & will always exist, how can we say that Mary is His mother?

"Heavenly Father, you have given us the model of life in the Holy Family of Nazareth. Help us, O Loving Father, to make our family another Nazareth where love, peace and joy reign. May it be deeply contemplative, intensely Eucharistic, and revived with joy..."