From the Pastor's Desk | November 16, 2025

Thank You!!

Last week we gathered to celebrate this wonderful parish community at our annual fall fundraiser - An Evening of Faith and Future! I pray everyone who attended had fun. The live band was excellent! If you have not attended or have not participated in our annual fundraiser, please plan on doing so next year!   

Thank you to everyone who gave generously throughout this annual campaign and who continue to give generously to our parish and school! As parishioners and school families it is essential to support the parish with your financial generosity. As I write this, ahead of the bulletin deadline, we were at 106% of our goal of $155,000 with some donations still coming in!

I also owe a debt of gratitude to those who sacrificed their time and expertise to ensure that the campaign and event were both successful. Thank you to Cynthia Farnsworth, Kimberly Keefe, and Sue Jenkins who really took the reins of the campaign and event. And, without the help of Gregg Alchin, Andrew Brieschke, Amanda Konopaska, Ron Lenz, Illiana De Luna, Amanda Garber, Linda Cullamore, Claire Boomer, Elizabeth Pahl, Lilia Rampe, Emma Longfield, Jeff and Mio Cruz, and Katie Tippett and many others who helped set up, decorate, clean up, assist with check-in and drink ticket sales, the event would not have been the success that it was.

Annual Report and Giving

Last week we published the annual report for fiscal year 2024-2025. I hope you had a chance to read it and take a bulletin home to read it even more carefully. As always, last week’s bulletin is available online if you did not have a chance to see the annual report. 

As we continue to move into the second half of the current fiscal year (2025-2026), I want to encourage anyone who is not currently giving to the parish but have found a home here to please begin tithing to the parish. It is essential that we all be “all in” in our worship to God, our prayer, our sacrifices especially those that support the parish, our ministries, and support of our staff and faculty. 

For those that are currently giving, THANK YOU! As we move into the second half of this year I humbly ask that you consider increasing your gifts modestly, whatever that might look like, especially if you have not reviewed your giving level in some time. This can be easily overlooked when setting up online giving because we tend to forget about it. A modest annual increase to giving helps ensure that we can provide cost of living adjustments to our superb faculty and staff in addition to maintaining operations while keeping up with rising costs.   

Finally, for those still using envelopes or who have not registered as parishioners, I encourage you to first register as a parishioner so we know you and to consider transitioning to online giving. It is easier for you and it is easier for us to help plan our annual budget.

Gospel Reflection

As we continue through the month of November and the end of the liturgical year, the Church invites us to reflect on the end and the four “last things” - death, judgment, Heaven, and Hell. These realities are not intended to frighten us but rather awaken within us a sober reflection on the destiny we are each moving toward. 

These last remaining weeks of the liturgical year culminate in the great Solemnity of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. If you’ve ever visited the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., in the apse of the church is a huge foreboding mosaic called Christ in Majesty. As the title suggests, it is a depiction of Jesus Christ in his majesty as King of the Universe. It is a powerful and somewhat fearful depiction of Jesus reigning in glory. For me, it is a vivid representation of Christ’s justice. 

As we move into the end of the liturgical year, we get a sense of this fear in our readings. Our first reading, taken from the conclusion of the book of the prophet Malachi, speaks of a day that is yet to come blazing like an oven when the proud and evildoers will be set on fire. This is, of course, the final judgment. 

Malachi is the last of the prophets and wrote during the time after the exile which was marked by widespread spiritual laxity, corruption among priests of the Temple, and severe decline in social justice, all of which led to cynicism and unfaithfulness. Malachi is clear that the day of the Lord is coming when God’s justice will triumph and those who remained faithful will experience the healing rays of the Sun of Justice - an allusion or foreshadowing of Jesus Christ and his Resurrection.

Jesus’ tone in our Gospel is similar to that of Malachi. He is blunt and direct. He warns of impending deception, wars and insurrections, earthquakes, famines, and plagues. He warns of unjust persecutions of those who call themselves Christian (...because of His name). All of this will lead to a choice that we will inevitably have to make - either we will speak for him or against him (It will lead to your giving testimony). 

Our responsorial Psalm, taken from Psalm 98, echoes this theme of the end times in that The Lord comes to rule the earth with justice. But, note the more positive and uplifting words and tone. 

Sing praise to the Lord with the harp, 
With the harp and melodious song. 
With trumpets and the sound of the horn, 
Sing joyfully before the King. 
Let the sea and what fills it resound, 
The world and those who dwell in it;
Let the rivers clap their hands, 
The mountains shout with them for joy. 
Before the Lord, for he comes, 
He comes to rule the earth,
He will rule the world with justice, 
And the peoples with equity.

I think there are two key takeaways for us in our readings this weekend and as we ponder the end times - both personally and communally: 

The first is our understanding of God’s justice. God is both perfectly just and perfectly merciful. More often than not we think of justice as being synonymous with revenge, vengeance, retribution, or retaliation. God is anything but vengeful. God isn’t petty nor does he seek retaliation or retribution. The virtue of justice means to give someone their due. God’s justice means that he gives us what we’ve asked for based on the choices we’ve made, attitudes we’ve carried, idols that we allowed to well up in our hearts that have pushed God out. In other words, God respects our freedom and, in his justice, gives us what we’ve wanted based on how we have lived and what or whom we’ve followed.  

The second is Jesus’ last line in today’s Gospel, “By your perseverance you will secure your lives.” Perseverance in what? Perseverance in faith, hope, and love as we continue to move through this life, particularly in trials and when those three theological virtues are shaken and challenged. Faith in God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Hope in his Resurrection from the dead. Love of God and neighbor.  

If we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and persevere in our faithfulness toward him, his justice will be a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light. And, like the Psalmist of our Psalm today, we will sing joyfully when he comes in his justice.  

Know of my prayers for you all!    

Fr. Ryan