Celebrations and Charity!

Dear Parishioners: With nearly two million people attending in Rome and millions more watching on TV, Pope Francis made history last Sunday when he canonized two of his predecessors, Saint John XXIII and Saint John Paul II. Pope Francis was joined by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, for the beautiful Mass of Canonization. I hope you were able to see it on TV as it was truly an inspirational and historic event.In his homily at the Mass, Pope Francis stated: “May these two new saints and shepherds of God’s people intercede for the Church... May both of them teach us not to be scandalized by the wounds of Christ and to enter ever more deeply into the mystery of divine mercy, which always hopes and always forgives, because it always loves.”   Saint John XXIII and Saint John Paul II, pray for us!

We are fully immersed into the Easter Season and now look forward to the parish celebration of First Communion. Next Saturday the Second Grade Students of the OLM Religious Education Program and OLM School celebrate their First Communion. I ask you to please keep them in your prayers as they continue to prepare for this joyous and faith-filled occasion in their lives.   First Communion is a great celebration in the life of our parish and a sign of the future for our Church. Next Sunday, we also celebrate Mother’s Day and our First Communion Class is to celebrate the May Crowning of the Blessed Mother at the 10:30AM Mass. It’s a wonderful way to celebrate Motherhood as we honor the Mother of God and of the Church. Also Fr. Connors and I offer Masses on Mother’s Day for all Mothers.   We hope spring weather arrives soon for First Communion and Mother’s Day!

Let’s not forget that May is for Mary! I invite you to join us on Monday evenings at 7:00PM during the Month of May for Marian Devotions. Each Monday in May we expose the Blessed Sacrament, pray the Rosary and receive Benediction. I can’t think of a better way to spend a half hour on Mondays, can you? See you at May Devotions!

While we continue to bask in the glory and joy of the Easter Season, let’s remember how we got here. We spent forty days during Lent praying, fasting and giving alms. I am happy to report that your generous alms giving to the OLM Outreach Office helped us provide financial support and material aid to many people and agencies in need.Over the winter months, the OLM Outreach Office has provided rental assistance and assistance with utilities to several local families. Also during Lent we collected $3,000 for Bishop Tobin’s Keep the Heat On Fund which helps those struggling to keep their heat in the winter. We also donated $500 each to McAuley House, Emmanuel House, Whitmarsh House and the RI Coalition for the Homeless.   We also provided hundreds of bags of healthcare and hygiene products to the residents of Emmanuel House for the Homeless, New Hope Shelter for Women, and Breadlines, the weekly food distribution program for the homeless at Cathedral Square. For Easter we provided nearly 50 Easter Baskets with food cards to area families in need. The Confirmation Class baked over 300 cupcakes for McAuley House’s Easter Dinner and the Outreach Office provided 200 candy filled eggs for the McAuley House Easter Egg Hunt. Almsgiving is alive and well at OLM! I’ve published in the bulletin this week some of the thank you letters we’ve received for our assistance.

All of these good works and financial assistance efforts are a direct result of your generous support of the Monthly OLM Outreach Collection.   Please know that all of the funds collected go directly to our OLM Outreach efforts locally and across the state.   In the name of the poor, the needy and the homeless who benefit from your almsgiving, I offer thanks and gratitude for your generous charity and bountiful support.Fr. Connors is back and this weekend we welcome him home from his well deserved vacation. Have a great week and pray the spring weather comes soon. Happy Easter! God Bless. Go Sox! Go Bruins!!

Celebrating Easter and Making Saints!

Dear Parishioners: Happy Easter! What a glorious celebration of Holy Week and Easter we had at Our Lady of Mercy. We saw large crowds at all the Liturgies of Holy Week and standing room only crowds on Easter Sunday. At the Easter Vigil Mass we baptized an adult into the Catholic Faith, received a convert into the Catholic Church and confirmed two adult Catholics in their faith. It was a joyful celebration of the Risen Lord and our Catholic faith. Such beauty and joy wouldn’t be possible without the hard work of so many good people.

We thank Cecilia Franzone and her dedicated troop of decorators for making our Church so beautiful for Lent, Palm Sunday, Holy Week and Easter. They did a tremendous job and we are grateful! We thank our musicians, Deirdre Donovan and Nick LaRoche, and our parish choirs for their great gift of beautiful and prayerful music. We thank our great Altar Servers who provided reverent service at all the Holy Week Liturgies and Easter Sunday. We also thank our Lectors and Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion for their faithful service during such a special time for our Church and Parish. And of course we thank our loyal Ushers for their welcoming and ushering of the many people who came to Church. It was truly a beautiful and faith-filled Holy Week and Easter at OLM and I am grateful to all who participated and helped to make it such a meaningful experience. With the Easter Season well underway, we continue to celebrate our faith with joy and hope.

The hymn of glory we sang at the Easter Vigil, the   Exsultet, declares: “Be glad, let earth be glad, as glory floods her, ablaze with light from her eternal King, let all corners of the earth be glad, knowing an end to gloom and darkness.”For the 50 days Easter we celebrate the Lord's resurrection from the dead, culminating in his Ascension to the Father and sending of the Holy Spirit upon the Church. We mark this season with hope and joy over the glorified life and the victory over death, expressed most fully in the great resounding cry of every Christian:  Alleluia! All faith flows from faith in the resurrection and it is as St. Paul said: "If Christ has not been raised, then empty is our preaching; empty, too, is your faith."

The word "Easter" comes from Old English, meaning simply the "East." The sun which rises in the East, bringing light, warmth and hope, is a symbol for the Christian of the rising Christ, who is the true Light of the world. The Easter or Paschal Candle is a central symbol of this divine light, which is Christ. This candle which was blessed at the Easter Vigil is used at Baptisms, Confirmations and Funerals and during the Easter Season is kept near the ambo (pulpit) throughout Easter Time until Pentecost.

Today in Rome Pope Francis is to canonize two Popes as Saints. Blessed Pope John Paul II and Blessed Pope John XXIII are now Saints of our Church and offered as examples to us for their heroic and holy lives of faith and service.Pope John Paul, known as a globetrotter who made 104 trips outside Italy, served as pope from 1978 to 2005 and Blessed John XXIII, known particularly for convoking the Second Vatican Council, was pope from 1958 to 1963. We turn in prayer to these good and holy Churchmen and ask for their intercession for our Church and Parish. I am grateful to the San Martino Family for donating a beautiful statue of Saint Pope John Paul II in memory of Maria San Martino. This statue will be placed in our candle room so we make seek the regular intercession of John Paul. Pope Francis said Blessed John was "a bit of the 'country priest,' a priest who loves each of the faithful and knows how to care for them; He was holy, patient, had a good sense of humor and a man of courage, especially by calling the Second Vatican Council.” Pope Francis said of Blessed John Paul : "I think of him as 'the great missionary of the church, because he was "a man who proclaimed the Gospel everywhere." We rejoice in the Risen Lord and rejoice in our two new Saints! St. Pope John Paul II and St. Pope John XXII, pray for us! God bless. Happy Easter!!

Happy Easter!! This is the Day the Lord Has Made! Let us Rejoice! A Blessed Easter

Dear Parishioners: Happy Easter! We pass over from darkness to light, from death to life! Jesus has passed over from the cross to the resurrection! It is indeed as the Psalmist proclaims: “this is the day the Lord has made! Let us rejoice and be glad in it!”  This Easter Sunday we once again stand before Jesus’ empty tomb.  Are we perplexed, like Peter? Lost in grief, like Mary Magdalene? Open to something we still don’t fully understand, like John? We are privileged to stand with eyes enlightened by faith and hearts enlarged by love, having received the gift of faith and love at baptism.  This gift has been nurtured  through the sacraments, the preaching and the prayers of the Church.

This Easter as millions of Catholics renew their baptismal promises they also  proclaim their faith: “I believe in the resurrection of the body.” t see with physical eyes, what cannot be measured and counted or manipulated in a laboratory, is more real than what we can see now with our still mortal eyes. We cannot see or directly touch sympathy for a friend in need, sorrow for those who find their lives turned upside down because they have lost a parent, a spouse, a child or because the economic recession has deprived them of a job or a home; we s grace.

When we are at Mass what we see with physical eyes are bread and wine. What we believe is really present is the risen body of Christ. That body is not constrained by the rules of space and time of this world’s limitations. The risen Lord is completely free, having broken the bonds of death and the grave. His risen body comes to us in Holy Communion, under the visible forms of bread and wine.  Christ comes with the promise of new life, with the assurance that our still mortal bodies will rise to immortality if we receive him now in the Eucharist. “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood,” Jesus promises, “ will live forever.” We take him at his word, for he is the risen Lord.

Christ is risen from the grave and the Church is our Mother, therefore our destiny reaches beyond space and time, beyond what can be measured and controlled. And therein lies our hope and the meaning for our lives.The glorified Christ draws us and the whole world upward to new life.   The Resurrection which we commemorate at Easter is not just a distant historical event of the past.   It is a challenge for today and it opens a path of hope for the future.  And so we must run with  this Easter message.  We must tell all whom  we love and we must tell all others  that Christ has risen from the dead. He is risen indeed! Alleluia.

Next Sunday the Pope Francis is to beatify Blessed Pope John XXIII and Blessed Pope John Paul II.  This means they are now to be saints of our Church.  We will remember these saintly popes at Masses next week here at OLM.  In his first Urbi et Orbi (To the City and the World) Easter Message in 1979, Pope John Paul II asked: “How could we fail to rejoice at the victory of this Christ, who passed through the world doing good to everyone  and preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, in which is expressed the fullness of the redemptive goodness of God? How can we fail to rejoice at the revelation of the power of God alone and at the victory of this power over sin and human blindness?  How can we fail to rejoice at the victory definitively won by good over evil?” We can’t fail to rejoice on this Easter Day!  We rejoice that Christ is risen, he has defeated sin and death.  Let us proclaim: “This is the day the Lord has made! Let us rejoice and be glad in it!” Fr. Connors and I offer our prayers and blessings to you for a truly Holy and Happy Easter!

Holy Week 2014 , "Stay with me, remain here with me, watch and pray"

Dear Parishioners:On Palm Sunday, we commemorate Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem before his crucifixion. During Palm Sunday Mass, the Gospel account of the Passion of Christ is proclaimed.  It is truly a solemn beginning to the holiest week of the year.  Holy Week is an opportunity to enter more fully in the sacred mysteries of our faith and celebrate them as a parish family.  I hope you can make the time this week to attend Mass, get to Confession if you need to go, and join us for the solemn liturgies of the Sacred Triduum that are Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday.  Also I encourage to attend the Living Stations of the Cross that our OLM School  children have been working so hard preparing.  They are  offered on Wednesday at 1:00PM and 6:30PM.

On Holy Thursday  we  celebrate the Mass of the Lord's Supper at 7:00PM.  On the night before Jesus Christ was crucified, he changed bread and wine into his own Body and Blood, and he commanded the Apostles  and their successors through the present this sacrifice.  Just as Christ did for his 12 Apostles at the Last Supper and as he commanded them to do likewise, during the Mass of the Lord's Supper, the priests  who represent Christ  ceremoniously wash the feet of 12 people from the parish.  After the Last Supper, Jesus went to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane, accompanied by two of the disciples. So after the Holy Thursday Mass, the remaining sacred hosts are “altar of repose.”  People are asked to stay for a time, adoring the wondrous sacrament that Jesus instituted that day 2,000 years ago.  The Church remains open until Midnight for adoration.

The Mass of the Lord's Supper finished, the church is now truly empty. So the sanctuary lamp is extinguished and the tabernacle door left open, exposing the vacant space inside. The altar is stripped bare of  its linens and candles, Holy water is removed from the church's fonts and the sacraments are not celebrated until the Easter Vigil. Like the first Christians bereft of Jesus and mourning the two days after the crucifixion, the church stands unadorned until the Easter Vigil.

At 3:00PM on Good Friday we offer the Stations of the Cross.  This devotion is centered on the Passion of Christ and recalls the way of Jesus' suffering and death. AT 7:00PM on Good Friday, the church gathers for the Liturgy of the Lord's Passion, which includes a reading of a Gospel account of the Passion, Holy Communion (consecrated at Mass on Thursday night) and veneration of the Cross.  The faithful process to the cross  at the foot of the sanctuary, as if to receive communion. There each person reverences the crucifix with a kiss or a bow.

On Holy Saturday, we will celebrate the Mother of all Vigils, the Easter Vigil at 8:00PM.  There is no 5:00PM Mass as the Church requires the Easter Vigil to be celebrated after sunset in the darkness.  We keep watch for the expectant rising of Our Saviour. This was the day He went down into the netherworld in order to bring back up with Him into heaven those who had died before His coming.  The Easter Vigil Mass is a solemn, glorious and joyful s resurrection from the dead and at the Mass our candidates who have spent months of ve never been to the Easter Vigil, consider attending this year as it is well worth the time and effort. On Easter Sunday we offer three Masses at 7:30AM, 9:00AM and 10:30AM but there will no 5:00PM Evening Mass on Easter Sunday. 

Those who enter into Holy Week wholeheartedly discover that it can change them forever.  It is a time to clear our schedules of unnecessary activities. Our minds and hearts should be fixed on Jesus and His Passion, Death and Resurrection!  If you are traveling for Easter, please know of our prayers for you and your families. A Blessed Holy Week to all. God Bless.

Basketball Season Ending and Holy Week Coming Soon!

Dear Parishioners: This weekend the NCAA is having its Final Four.  We had our own version last weekend at the New England CYO Basketball Championship Tournament.   This year the Diocese of Providence was the host and we had two OLM teams in the tournament.  Our OLM School 6th Grade Girls team who were the RI State Champions this year played through the semi-finals but were eliminated.  Meanwhile our OLM Parish 5th/6th Boys Parish Team advanced to the Championship Game but was defeated by St. Mark’s Team from Stratford, Connecticut.  Congratulations to both teams on a great season!

Fr. Connors was at Bishop Hendricken High School this week speaking at their Annual Career Day.  He is a great promoter of vocations to the priesthood and religious life.  This week he also took a group of high school young men to visit with the seminarians at the OLP Seminary in Providence.  A couple of weeks ago he took a group of young women to visit the Dominican Sisters Convent in Connecticut.   I urge you to help him in promoting and praying for vocations to the priesthood and religious life. Speaking of vocations, I was asked by our Diocesan Vocation Director, Father Carl Fisette, to host a seminarian studying for the priesthood at OLM.  We don’t know which seminarian for the Diocese of Providence it will be but he will arrive in late May and be with us through the summer months.  Fr. Connors and I are looking forward to working with him and introducing him to the life of a parish priest. Brian Morris from OLM is currently a seminarian pursing his studies for the priesthood at St. John’s Major Seminary in Boston. Brian will be home for Holy Week assisting us at the Sacred Liturgies.  I ask you to continue to pray for him as he continues his priestly formation.

There is a full schedule for Holy Week in this week’s bulletin.  Next Sunday we begin with the great celebration of Palm Sunday and the proclamation of the Lord’s Passion.  We celebrate this feast with great solemnity especially at the 10:30AM Mass as we begin the procession once again from outside the Church.  On Palm Sunday we commemorate Christ's entry into Jerusalem for the completion of the Paschal Mystery.   It sets the tone as we enter into the celebrations of Holy Week.  As God’s faithful people, we remember Christ's triumphal entrance into Jerusalem on a donkey. In Jesus' time, a huge crowd assembled, put their cloaks on the ground, and waved palm branches, acclaiming Christ as the King of Israel, the Son of David.

We now wave our palm branches and sing as the priest enters the  Church: “Hosanna to the Son of David, the King of Israel. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.  Hosanna in the highest.”  These words of praise are echoed every day at Mass at the Sanctus (Holy, Holy).   In his homily for Palm Sunday last year Pope Francis reflected on the procession stating: “We waved our palms, our olive branches. We too welcomed Jesus; we too expressed our joy at accompanying him, at knowing him to be close, present in us and among us as a friend, a brother, and also as a King: that is, a shining beacon for our lives. We accompany, we follow Jesus, but above all we know that he accompanies us and carries us on his shoulders. This is our joy, this is the hope that we must bring to this world. Please do not let yourselves be robbed of hope! Do not let hope be stolen! The hope that Jesus gives us.”                                         

On Palm Sunday we take up the Rice Bowl Collection.  This important collection helps to support the great work of Catholic Relief Services feeding the hungry around the globe.  Your donations support CRS’ humanitarian relief programs in nearly 100 countries worldwide.  As we have fasted, prayed, and given alms during Lent, we have been following Jesus’ call to live in solidarity with the poorest and most vulnerable.    Please roll your  coins collected in your Rice Bowls during Lent  and make returns by check payable to OLM.  In the name of the hungry of the world, I thank you for your generous support.  God Bless. Go Sox!!

Pope Francis Calls for Mercy in Confession, Goes to Confession Himself

Pope Francis on Friday spoke to participants of a “Course on the Internal Forum,” which deals with the Sacrament of Reconciliation and the ministry of Confessors.In his discourse, Pope Francis spoke about how the annual course helps “the Church and Confessors to better carry out the ministry of mercy, which is so important.” He reminded priests that the Holy Spirit is the “protagonist” of the ministry of reconciliation, calling on them to “always be ‘men of the Holy Spirit.’” As such, priests must welcome penitents not with the attitude of a judge, but with “the charity of God, with the love a father who sees the son returning, the shepherd who has found the lost sheep.” For this reason, the Pope said, priests are called to be generous in making themselves available for Confession. “We must never forget,” he said, “that the faithful often have difficulty approaching the Sacrament of Confession.” And so, priests must work hard to encourage people to draw near to the Sacrament “of mercy and forgiveness.” Here, the Holy Father said, priests must avoid both rigorism and laxity. “Confession is not a court of condemnation, but an experience of mercy and forgiveness!” Finally, recognising the difficulties encountered in Confession, Pope Francis encouraged priests to take particular care in the celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. In particular, he said “it’s good that in every parish, the faithful know when they can find priests” available to hear Confessions.

Below, please find the complete text of Pope Francis’ to participants in the course offered by the Apostolic Penitentiary: Dear Brothers, I welcome you on the occasion of the annual Course on the Internal Forum. I thank Cardinal Mauro Piacenza for the words with which he introduced our meeting. For a quarter of a century the Apostolic Penitentiary, aware of the importance of this ministry, has offered, especially to new priests and deacons, the opportunity of this course, in order to contribute to the formation of good confessors. I thank you for this valuable service and I encourage you to take it forward with renewed commitment, building on experience gained and with skilful creativity, to always help the Church and confessors to better carry out the ministry of mercy, which is so important! In this regard, I wish to offer a few thoughts. First of all, the protagonist of the ministry of reconciliation is the Holy Spirit. The forgiveness that the Sacrament confers is the new life sent by the Risen Lord by means of His Spirit: “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain, are retained” (Jn 20:22-23). Therefore, you are called to always be “men of the Holy Spirit,” witnesses and heralds, joyful and strong, of the resurrection of the Lord. This testimony is read on the face, is heard in the voice of the priest who administers with faith and with “unction” the Sacrament of Reconciliation. He welcomes penitents not with the attitude of a judge, not even with that of a simple man, but with the charity of God, with the love of a father who sees the son returning and goes to meet him, [with the love] of the shepherd who has found the lost sheep. The heart of the priest is a heart that knows how to be moved, not by sentimentality or mere emotion, but to the “tender mercy” [viscere di misericordia] of the Lord! If it is true that tradition points out the dual role of doctor and judge for confessors, we must never forget that as a doctor he is called to heal and as a judge, to absolve. The second aspect: if Reconciliation transmits the new life of the Risen Lord and renews baptismal grace, then your task is to give it generously to others. To give this grace. A priest who does not attend to this part of his ministry, both in the amount of time spent and in the spiritual quality, is like a shepherd who does not take care of the sheep that were lost; he is like a father who forgets the lost son and neglects waiting for him. But mercy is the heart of the Gospel! Don’t forget this: mercy is the heart of the Gospel! It is the good news that God loves us, that He always loves the sinner, and with this love draws him to Himself and invites him to conversion. We must not forget that the faithful often have difficulty approaching the sacrament, whether for practical reasons, or because of the natural difficulty of confessing one’s sins to another person. For this reason it is necessary to work hard on ourselves, on our humanity, never to be an obstacle but always to favour drawing near to mercy and forgiveness. But many times it happens that a person comes and says, “I haven’t confessed for many years, I have this problem, I left Confession because I found a priest and he told me this,” and you see the imprudence, the lack of pastoral love, in what that person says. And they draw away, because of a bad experience in Confession. If there is this attitude of a father, that comes from the goodness of God, this would never happen. And we must guard against two extremes: rigorism and laxism. Neither is good, because in reality they don’t take charge of the person of the penitent. Instead, mercy truly listens with the heart of God and wants to accompany the soul on the path of reconciliation. Confession is not a court of condemnation, but an experience of forgiveness and mercy! Finally, we all know the difficulties often encountered in Confession. There are many reasons, both historical and spiritual. However, we know that the Lord wanted to give this immense gift to His Church, offering to the baptized the security of the Father's forgiveness. It is this: it is the security of the Father’s forgiveness. For this reason, it is very important that in every diocese and in the parish communities, particular care is taken of the celebration of this Sacrament of forgiveness and salvation. It’s good that in every parish the faithful know when they can find priests available: when there is fidelity, the fruits are seen. This is particularly true for the churches entrusted to religious Communities, which can ensure a constant presence of confessors. To the Virgin, Mother of Mercy, we entrust the ministry of priests, and every Christian community, that they might always grow in understanding the value of the Sacrament of Penance. I entrust all of you to our Mother and I bless you from the heart