True Repentance Opens Up Our Hearts And Minds

My Dear Parishioners,

I hope that we are all renewed by our Forty Hours Devotions. The altar was beautifully decorated. The music was Heavenly. The homilies by Fr. Delacy on the parts of the Mass were very appropriate and thought provoking. I wish to thank everyone who helped to prepare for Forty Hours and who helped with bringing us closer to Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament. I am already looking forward to next year’s Forty Hours.

I also wish to thank all of you who took advantage of the opportunity to grow closer to Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament. It was so good to see so many of you in church throughout the day and also at the evening devotions. Your presence and support were very uplifting for me.

We are ordering a new cope and a new humeral veil to match our new vestments. The cope and humeral veil will both be white with gold accents. If anyone would like to donate the new cope or the new humeral veil in memory of a loved one, please let us know.

Copes and humeral veils are used for Eucharistic Adoration and Benediction.

The items are coming from France and from the same company as our other new vestments. The cope is costing us $1245.00 and the humeral veil is costing $745.00. Of course, these liturgical vestments will be used in our parish for many years to come.

If you decide to sponsor one in memory of a loved one, we will have a label added to the inside of the vestment with the inscription “In Memory of………….” Please let us know.

This weekend we hear a very frightening Gospel about destruction, wars, and persecutions. Fun stuff!

Yet Jesus ends His teaching on the “end times” with a very assuring message: but not a hair on your head will be destroyed. By your perseverance you will secure your lives.

Jesus makes this promise even as He warns us that we will face physical and emotional injury. Jesus then does not promise us a trouble-free life. In fact, He is warning us of the opposite. Yet, He is promising that as long as we stay with Him that He will stay with us. He will then fulfill the promise that “not a hair on your head will be destroyed” at the General Judgment and the Resurrection of the Dead. At the General Judgment, we will receive our Glorified Bodies with everything intact, including the hairs on our heads. (John Bergsma, the Year of the Lord, Year C).

As an unknown ancient author of the 2^nd Century taught, persevering with Jesus until the end requires true repentance: We should repent of our sins while we are still on earth. When a potter is making a vessel and it becomes misshapen or breaks in his hands, he shapes it again; but once placed in the oven, it is beyond repair.

Now the clay in the craftsman’s hands is an image of ourselves, and it teaches us that, while still in this world, we must wholeheartedly repent of sins committed in the body and make it possible for the Lord to save us while there is time.

When we have left this world, we shall no longer be able to repent and confess our sins. We must do the will of the Father, keep our bodies pure, and observe the commandments of the Lord, for this is the way to obtain eternal life. The Lord says in the gospel: If you have not been observant in small matters, who will entrust you with anything important? For I tell you that the man who is faithful in the smallest things is faithful in the greatest things as well. In other words, in order to obtain eternal life, we must remain pure and keep the seal of our baptism undefiled.

Nor must any of you say that our bodies will not share in the judgement, nor rise again. In what were you saved? In what did you receive your sight? Think for a moment. Was it not in this very body? Our bodies are the temple of God, and as such we must guard them, for even as we were called in the body, so shall we also be judged in the body. Since Christ, our Lord and Savior, who in the beginning was spirit, became flesh and in this way called us, it is in this flesh of ours that we shall also receive our reward.

Therefore, let us love one another, so that we may all attain to the kingdom of God. While we can still be healed, let us surrender ourselves into the hands of Our Divine Physician and give Him His recompense, the recompense of true sorrow for our sins. Since He who knows all things sees what is in our hearts, let us praise Him with our hearts as well as our lips. He will then receive us as His sons. The Lord himself has said: My brothers are those who do My Father’s will.

It is true repentance that opens up our hearts and minds to receive the Grace that Jesus wishes to bestow on us. His Grace, in turn, gives us the fortitude to do what we cannot do on our own, to stay with Him until the end. Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever!

Thankfully, we have many opportunities to confess our sins and receive a beautiful outpouring of Heavenly Grace. Our parish has Confessions Saturday mornings from 8:30-9:00 and Saturday afternoons from 3:00-3:45.

Let us continue to lay siege to Heaven for our nation, for our parish family, for our families, for the unborn, for the conversion of sinners, for our veterans, for our first responders, for our clergy and religious, for our seminarians, for a return to civility in our country.

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

Fr. Michael J Pawelko, Pastor