The Lord Is Risen!

My Dear Parishioners,

The Lord is Risen!!!!!!

I pray that everyone had a very Happy Easter and I still wish everyone a very Happy Easter, as we are just entering the Easter Season.

I also hope that the Easter bunny was good to our children. Many of the gifts found in our Easter baskets are really symbols of new life, such as our Easter eggs, and so are an important part of our celebration of Easter and a celebration of the new life that we have in Jesus Christ.

Of course, at the heart of our parish’s Easter Celebrations were our Easter Liturgies. The Easter Vigil was truly beautiful as we welcomed the true light of the world into our hearts and lit our new Paschal Candle for the first time. The beautiful liturgies continued throughout Easter Sunday with our uplifting music. We thank our cantors, musicians, choirs for aiding us as we gave thanks and praise for the most important discovery in the history of the world, the discovery of the empty tomb.

I truly thank everyone else who helped to contribute to our Easter celebrations, including those who helped to decorate the church, who helped to clean and maintain the church, who lectured, who ushered, who served Mass, and who helped to distribute Holy Communion. You have done so much to make the lives of so many better, and I thank you for that.

I would also like to thank everyone who came. This is important because Our Blessed Savior came to form a community of believers, a Church, and as such we are called to pray and worship together as a community, as a Church. So, it was so good to see everyone together to give praise and thanksgiving to God Our Father through Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I pray that we will continue to be together and to support each other on our Catholic Christian journey through this world to the world to come.

Our joyous Easter celebrations continue, as our children receive their First Holy Communions this weekend. Whenever we celebrate first sacraments, it brings back fond memories of my own first sacraments, and I hope this weekend’s celebrations will make beautiful memories for our children. Please join me in praying for them and their families; that they always remain faithful to their “Sunday obligation” to attend Holy Mass and to worthily share in the Blessed Sacrament.

We know beyond a doubt that Jesus is Really and Truly Present, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, in Holy Communion. We know this because at the Last Supper He took the bread and said: this is My Body, and He took the chalice and said: this is My Blood. Thus, we know beyond a doubt that He is Really and Truly Present in the Blessed Sacrament because He told us so in His own words.

“When the bee has gathered the dew of heaven and the earth’s sweetest nectar from the flowers, it turns it into honey, then hastens to its hive. In the same way, the priest, having taken from the altar the Son of God (who is as the dew from heaven, and true son of Mary, flower of our humanity), gives Him to you as delicious food.” (St. Francis de Sales).

We then have a real reason to rejoice whenever we approach the altar, for, we are approaching the very same Jesus Christ who walked on this earth some 2000 years ago. “Recognize in this bread what hung on the cross, and in this chalice what flowed from His side… whatever was in many and varied ways announced beforehand in the sacrifices of the Old Testament pertains to this one sacrifice which is revealed in the New Testament.” (St. Augustine).

We have a real reason to rejoice as we receive Him, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, in Holy Communion. What wonderful majesty! What stupendous condescension! O sublime humility! That the Lord of the whole universe, God and the Son of God, should humble Himself like this under the form of a little bread, for our salvation” (St. Francis of Assisi).

We are moreover sharing in that beautiful promise that He makes to those who faithfully share in the Most Holy Eucharist: he who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has My Life in Him, and I will raise him on the last day (John 6). May our First Holy Communion children really and truly receive Jesus in their hearts this weekend and faithfully throughout the rest of their lives.

Our joyous Easter celebrations will also continue as we observe Divine Mercy Sunday. Divine Mercy Sunday was established by St. John Paul II to spread the message of Divine Mercy. The message of Divine Mercy is not a new one, but Our Blessed Savior asked for a renewed devotion to His Divine Mercy through St. Faustina. The message of Divine Mercy is a message of hope, as the Marian Fathers teach: The message of God’s Love and Mercy is especially made known by the Gospels. The good news revealed through Jesus Christ is that God’s love for each person knows no bounds, and no sin or infidelity, no matter how horrible, will separate us from God and His love when we turn to Him in confidence, and seek his mercy. God’s will is our salvation. He has done all on our behalf, but since He made us free, He invites us to choose Him and partake of His divine life.

We become partakers of His divine life when we believe in His revealed truth and trust Him, when we love Him and remain true to His word, when we honor Him and seek His Kingdom, when we receive Him in Communion and turn away from sin; when we are mutually caring and forgiving. May our joyful celebration of Easter and the Easter

Season continue to give true joy to all, as together we pray the concluding prayer of the Chaplet of Divine Mercy:

Eternal God, in whom mercy is endless and the treasury of compassion — inexhaustible, look kindly upon us and increase Your mercy in us, that in difficult moments we might not despair nor become despondent, but with great confidence submit ourselves to Your holy will, which is Love and Mercy itself.

St. Joseph, Patron of the Church, and our patron, pray for us!

St. John Paul II, pray for us! St. Faustina, pray for us!

Fr. Michael J. Pawelko, Pastor