On Sunday, April 30, 2000, in celebration of the New Millennium, St. John Paul II canonized Bl. Faustina is a saint of mercy for the world. He also established by proclamation the Feast of Divine Mercy Sunday. St. John Paul II lived his priesthood in hope of The Divine Mercy, well before he became Pope, and dedicated his papacy to the Divine Mercy as well. Much of his love of the mercy of God was inspired by the belief found in the heart of Jesus, with which the suffrage of humanity at the hands of Nazi control over Poland could find divine relief. St. John Paul II lived the mercy of God as a remedy because he knew first-hand what the evils of communism and oppression could do.

Dear Parish Family,

We have arrived once again in the holy season of Easter. We have not just one day, but 50 days of Easter to celebrate. How important it is to remember that we have these days to commemorate the heights of the liturgical year. We do so with the greatest of reverence, hope, love, and joy knowing that Jesus is triumphant over the grave! Eastertime brings out the joy of the Lord in our hearts, as we contemplate the profound meaning of the Resurrection, and our desire to seek only the things of heaven.

Dear Parish Family,

We have now entered the most cherished and sacred time of the year, as we as Church commemorate Passiontide. It is here that the stark reality of the Lord’s Passion is encountered through the lens of Holy Week. News Flash! This is not just another ordinary week. Stop yourself dead, before beginning it as such! We must echo the question of Jesus “Will you be my disciple? “Will You! It's not a rhetorical question, it never was! It’s not a redirect for the faint of heart, nor the one that lives a compartmentalized life. It’s the life of the cross, a life filled with convictions and deep conversion. This is the life of a Christian, not one caught up in petty incidentals.

To know where we are going, we must know where we have been. This is the plight of embracing this Fifth Sunday of Lent, knowing full well we began in the cross marked upon our heads by the ashes that remind us of our human nature and our mortality. Lent causes us to think about the grim realities of our fate, that we are going to spend eternity somewhere. Lent is the reminder of our call to conversion by way of confession and penance.

This Fourth Sunday of Lent brings us to the silver- lining, as we return to the liturgical color rose for the simplicity of the joy that is in our midst. It is through the paschal mystery in sharing in the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ that we know that joy is truly present in our midst, and as a result we rejoice in it. Rejoice in the Lord always again I say Rejoice! Who among us could not manage a sprinkle of joy, because we know we are turning the corner toward the most joyful and glorious event for which Jesus conquers sin and death, by overcoming the grave. We now can see what is ahead of us on the horizon, the sun is rising and upon us is the dawning of a new day!

Now in this third week of Lent, we connect at the beginning of our journey with the cross of ash we received upon our heads, in recognizing the invitation from Jesus we receive, and how Esther we are to be marked by him and for him.

1. We have been invited to bear the cross of the Lord, and to bear it boldly. We say yes in a radical way to his call, "will you be my disciple" It is by the cross that we identify with Christ, and his cross as a device of torture, shame, and execution, but his cross becomes our gateway to redemption and eternal life.

In these first Sundays of Lent since Ash Wednesday, we have come from being marked in the cross, accepting our mortality, and deciding to be the disciple Christ is calling us to be, and following him. Today there is a shift, as we enter the transfiguration, and we ascend the mountain to witness the Lord in all his glory. Scripture has a way of skipping us through these aspects of Christ's life, not concerned so much about chronological order, but the order of illumination of how such parts of the Gospel coincide with the context of the season of faith we are in, and how they illuminate in us the message of redemption.