Very First Holy Thursday

My Dear Parishioners,

I would like to begin by thanking everyone for your continued support and generosity to our monthly food and diaper drives. Many families are regularly helped by your generosity. These monthly collections are charity in action and a beautiful response to Our Blessed Savior’s command to love our neighbors as ourselves.

I would also like to thank everyone for your continued generosity to the poor box. The poor box money is now being kept by the St. Vincent de Paul Society and is being used for caring for those with various needs. I encourage you to consider joining the St. Vincent de Paul Society and helping, in a “hands on” way, those who need it. The office can provide you with the contact information to join.

We remember this week the greatest act of Love in the History of the World: Our Blessed Savior’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection. We remember that Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ came into this world and mounted the wood of the Cross so that we might have life and have life to the fullest.

We also remember that, in His Love for us, He left us a way to Sacramentally participate in His perfect Sacrifice from that very first Good Friday. So, this week, we remember, in a special way, that He left us the Holy Eucharist as the way in which we may Sacramentally participate in that perfect Sacrifice of the Cross.

On that very first Holy Thursday, Jesus instituted the Holy Eucharist in the context of a Seder Meal. A Seder Meal is a highly ritualized recounting of the Passover. A Seder Meal is then a remembrance of when Israel was set free from slavery in Egypt by the blood of a lamb.

We also notice in the Gospels that the Blessed Apostles and Evangelists did not record everything about that meal that evening. They only recorded what was different about that meal. What was different was this: Then they went off and found everything exactly as he had told them, and there they prepared the Passover. When the hour came, he took his place at table with the apostles. He said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer, for, I tell you, I shall not eat it [again] until there is fulfillment in the kingdom of God.” Then he took a cup,^* gave thanks, and said, “Take this and share it among yourselves; for I tell you [that] from this time on I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” Then he took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me.” And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you. Luke 22: 13-20.

On that very first Holy Thursday, He gave us a Sacramental way to participate in His Perfect Sacrifice and the beautiful promise that comes with it: I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us [his] flesh to eat?”

Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats^* my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. John 6: 51-54. We call what Jesus left us Holy Mass.

In His Love for us and in His Infinite Wisdom, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ also instituted the Ministerial Priesthood that evening. Jesus gave us the gift of the priesthood so that we would have a real and concrete way of fulling His command to “do this in remembrance of me.” Jesus left us the priesthood so that we can have the possibility of Heaven.

In this newsletter I have included an instruction on the Sacred Priesthood by Servant of God, Fr. John Hardon, S.J.

My prayer for us all is that our observance of Holy Week will bring about an ever greater love for the Holy Eucharist, an ever greater love for the Ministerial Priesthood, and an ever great love for each other. Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever!!!!!!

St. Joseph, Patron of the Church and our Patron, pray for us! Fr. Michael J Pawelko, Pastor

What is a Catholic Priest?

Servant of God, Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

What is a Catholic priest? He is a man ordained by Christ to continue the Savior’s work of Redemption until the end of time. He is therefore a person specially chosen to proclaim the Gospel of salvation and lead the faithful to their final destiny. But he is mainly a person who receives unique powers at ordination to consecrate and sacrifice, and to reconcile a sinful people with their God.

As one who proclaims the Good News, a priest is given the grace not only to teach the truths of revelation but inspire his hearers to follow what he teaches. As a leader of believers, he is to be the primary former and sustainer of a Christian community.

What makes a Catholic priest most distinctive, however, and by divine will sets him apart from other men is the power that Christ gives him over the Holy Eucharist and over the sins of mankind.

No one but a priest can change bread and wine into the living Christ. At his words of consecration, what had been bread and wine cease to be bread and wine, so that only the appearances remain. What becomes present is Jesus, the Son of God who became the Son of Mary, now on earth in all the fullness of His divinity and humanity, and with all the qualities that make Jesus Christ who He is.

No one but a priest can offer the Sacrifice of the Mass, in which the same Jesus who surrendered Himself on Calvary now offers Himself in the Mass, through the hands of His priest.

No one but a priest can absolve sinners and restore them to friendship with the Creator whom they have offended.

No wonder the Church is so concerned that priests remain faithful to their high calling. In God’s ordinary Providence, their perseverance is a condition for the perseverance of the faithful. “Like priest like people” is not a clever phrase, but the verdict of almost 2000 years of the Church’s history.

But perseverance in the priesthood is impossible without the grace of God, made available through prayer. Only priests who pray can persevere. The people must also pray, in our day as never before, for the priests of the world. On their fidelity to Christ depends the salvation of more souls than we shall ever know, until eternity.