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From the Pastor's Desk | March 15
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Paschal Triduum and Easter Mass Times
Holy Week and Easter Mass can be found in the bulletin over the next couple of weeks. They are as follows:- Mass of the Lord’s Supper (Holy Thursday) - 7:00pm
- Good Friday - 3:00pm
- The Vigil in the Holy Night of Easter - 8:30pm
- Easter Sunday - 8:00am, 10:00am, 12:00 noon
Candidates and Catechumens
As we approach Easter, please keep in your prayers our candidates and catechumens who will be received into full communion with the Church this Easter! This year’s diocesan class is the largest in 21 years! Praise be to God!
Thank you to Deacon Jim, Ron and Joan Lenz, and everyone who helps lead our Order of Christian Initiation of Adults. They work extremely hard and very much behind the scenes. I am most grateful for their dedication, hard work, and faith in Jesus Christ!
Thank You!!
Thank you to Chris Patton, Beth Buiocchi, Jackie Rosalez and all the volunteers who baked cookies, served, and cleaned up as we hosted the regional Rite of Election and our Parish Mission. I cannot thank you enough for everything you do!
Disciple Maker Index (DMI)
Please do not forget that the DMI survey is open until March 31. If you have not completed a survey, please do so! It will be very helpful to both Bishop Boyea and myself.
Diocesan Services Appeal (DSA)
Please prayerfully consider what you might be able and willing to give to this year’s Diocesan Services Appeal. These funds go toward a myriad of services including seminarian formation, Catholic Charities, our cemeteries, evangelization, marriage and family life, youth ministry programming throughout the diocese, etc.
Our parish participation rate in DSA has been the lowest in the deanery for the last several years. This means that a minority of parishioners help us meet our goal each year. I would like to see our participation rate rise this year. I realize we ask a lot of you, but without you and your generosity, neither the parish nor the diocese could function and advance the mission of Jesus Christ.
Gospel Reflection
Personally, I believe that if we were to see our glorified selves in heaven, we probably would not recognize ourselves. Likewise, if we saw our glorified friends and family, we would probably not recognize them either. Why do I say this?
To enter heaven, we must become a new creation. This newness begins at baptism, when we die with Christ and rise with Him to new life. St. Paul exhorts us to “put off the old self” so that we can “put on the new” (Ephesians 4:22-24).
In today’s Gospel, Jesus and His disciples encounter a man who had been blind from birth. The disciples ask, “Who sinned, this man or his parents?” Jesus immediately rebukes their assumption, saying that neither he nor his parents sinned. Rather, God intends to use this man’s blindness to display His glory. Then Jesus does something that might strike us as strange; it’s even disgusting: He uses His own saliva to make mud or clay, spreads it on the man’s eyes, and tells him to wash in the Pool of Siloam.
Pause and reflect on that for a moment. Recall the creation of Adam and Eve. How does God form them? Out of clay. And through whom does the Father create? Through His Son - the Word. Through this act, Jesus is not only healing the man physically. He is restoring him to his original dignity - the image and likeness of God.
Notice what happens next: those who knew the blind man struggle to recognize him. Once his sight is restored, his neighbors begin to ask, “Isn’t this the one who used to sit and beg?” Some affirm it yet others hesitate: “No, he just looks like him.” The transformation is so profound that even those who knew him cannot recognize the man they once knew. The blind man can see clearly with both physical and spiritual insight. Yet, those who remain stuck cannot see clearly because their eyes are still clouded.
In Scripture, illness and disease often serve as a metaphor for sin. Here, Jesus clarifies that the man’s blindness is not a result of personal sin. Rather, it reflects the broader, more corporate fallen condition of the world. Original sin affects even the natural order. Yet through Christ, the man is made new, restored, and glorified.
Through Jesus, we too can become new creations. In fact, that is the pursuit of the spiritual life. As St. Paul says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). The more we unite ourselves to Jesus, the more we become transformed. We cease to be the people we once were and are gradually conformed to Christ Himself so that we can be like him.
My prayer - for myself and for all of us - is that we be invited into the Kingdom of Heaven. This invitation comes as we continually avail ourselves and respond to God’s grace, allowing ourselves to be united with Christ and transformed into His likeness. My hope is that our future glorified selves will be so renewed that even we may scarcely recognize them, reflecting fully the beauty and holiness of Jesus.
As we approach Easter, let us pray for this grace: that through Jesus, all things - and especially ourselves - may be made new (Revelation 21:5).
Know of my prayers for you all!
Fr. Ryan