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We must Honor the Past, Live Today, and Build for Tomorrow.
It seems as if I arrived only yesterday, and at times, it seems as though I’ve been your pastor for long time.
The reality of course is that it has been two and one-half years. So short a time. Yet, so much has been accomplished in this period of time.
When I first arrived, I spoke at the parish welcoming about my commitment to building the body of Christ physically and spiritually.
I was repeatedly asked what my ‘vision’ was for the parish. “Building the Body of Christ” was my answer, and still it remains.
Our legacy, as a relatively new community, was already rich and filled with faith.
Today, together with our parish school, Bl. Pope John XXIII, we continue our growth and our ever-deepening desire for a ‘truly’ united community.
“True unity” always requires us to be united with the Eucharist as the center of our community and as the center of our family, as the center of our very own lives.
The establishment of our adoration chapel was more than a half-hearted attempt at bringing about our unity. Adoration has always meant, and will always mean, drawing our community and our family into deeper unity with Christ.
Adoration provides us an opportunity to encounter Christ in the most sublime of mysteries safeguarded and treasured by the Church.
Whether we are ‘gently-aging’ or bursting with the energy of a child, Christ to us: ‘rise, let us be on our way.’
Though our lives may be turbulent, especially today, Jesus reminds us to ‘be not afraid.’
Living today, as did yesterday, requires us to live lives worthy of the mystery and gift of life bestowed upon us at the time of our birth, this holds especially true for those baptized into Christ.
As the baptized, we live today as active participants in the mystery of salvation as we give public witness because through our baptism ‘it is no longer I who lives but Christ who lives in me.’
As the baptized, we live today as a ‘people set apart.‘ We become a new creation through baptism. And so, we look forward to the future with the ‘sure and certain hope,’ offered by Christ, in eternal life; the new and heavenly Jerusalem.
Jesus calls each of us to multiply and to evangelize; to share the message of God’s love.
Our facilities exist to accomplish this mission entrusted to us by Christ himself. Our facilities, wether we are speaking of the parish center, the school, the future gym, or our planned sanctuary, are meant to be a lived expression of Catholic Faith. They are an expression of our response to Christ call to ‘rise, let us be on our way.’
Fear often holds us back from planning for the future; today is filled with lots of opportunities for stress and challenges our faith.
But the storms of life often fill us with great stories of Christ’s enduring love- especially in hindsight.
Even though the future seems or is unsettling, we are stepping out ‘into the deep.’ We, with God’s blessing, and your generosity (hint, hint), will break ground this spring on the first of our planned expansion with the gymnasium.
We are deep into the process of identifying the architect for the design of our church facility also.
Hopefully, we will be able to announce the selection of the architectural firm that will assist us in the design of our church building sometime within the next couple of weeks.
I invite you to consider how you might ‘set out into the deep’ today so that together we might continue to ‘rise, and be on our way.’
In Christ,
Fr. Pete
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