Dear Parishioners:
“This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad!” So sings the Psalmist on Easter Sunday and so sang the large crowds at our Easter Masses. It was truly a day of rejoicing in our faith and hope in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ! Our Holy Week was truly a beautiful celebration here at OLM. Our Franciscan Apostolic Sisters, Sister Emma and Sister Lourdes, enjoyed their first OLM Holy Week. They offered our parish a compliment when they said it reminded them of the Philippines because it was “so solemn and so many people attended!”
Indeed all of Holy Week saw great attendance and it is always so uplifting to see so many
gathered for the Sacred Triduum of Holy Week. It began with a beautiful performance of the
Living Stations by our OLM School Middle School students. If you have never made it to this moving event, please put it on your calendar for next Holy Week. The students did a terrific job offering a very prayerful and meditative Living Stations of the Cross.
At the Mass of the Lord’s Supper we solemnly celebrated the institution of the Eucharist and the Priesthood by Jesus Christ. We thank Fr. Connors for presiding at the solemn Mass and for offering a profound sermon on the meaning of the great feast. A full church is always a great witness of faith to behold and so many praying at the Altar of Repose throughout the night is a profound witness of faith and love. Good Friday at the both the Stations of the Cross in the afternoon and the Solemn Liturgy in the evening we also had a full church. While many others carried on the day as usual it was so great to see so many come to pray and ponder the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ.
We are grateful to Bishop Evans who baptized two people, received four baptized Christians into the Catholic Church and confirmed two adult Catholics on Holy Saturday at the Vigil Mass. It was a beautiful and joyful celebration of faith for our newly initiated and for our parish family. It was a solemn but joyous celebration of the Easter Resurrection alive in the Sacraments. We had large crowds at our Easter Sunday Masses and had the great celebration of a baptism at the 10:30am Mass. It truly was a day to rejoice and be glad!
But of course none of it is possible without the dedication and hard work of so many. In the name of Fr. Connors, Deacon Dowd and myself, I wish to thank the many parishioners who help make Holy Week so beautiful, joyful and solemn. Frist, we thank Celia Franzone and her steadfast decorating crew who decorated for each day and made the
Church look so spectacularly beautiful for Easter. We thank our team of Sacritisans for ensuring everything is set-up, cleaned, polished and starched. Also thanks to Paul Anderson and our hard working crew for all the work in cleaning, preparing, setting-up, taking-down and ensuring all things are spic and span for Holy Week and Easter. We thank our choirs and musicians, Henri St. Louis and Deirdre Donovan, for their great gift of music which contributed such joy, beauty and solemnity to our celebrations.
We also thank our Altar Servers, perhaps the best in the Diocese, for their reverent and solemn service at the Sacred Liturgies! We thank our ushers for their welcome and hospitality to our many parishioners and visitors. We thank our Lectors for their solemn proclamation of God’s Word. We thank our Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion for ensuring the reverent distribution of Holy Communion at Mass and to the many ill and shut-in of our parish.
Yes, Christ is Risen! He has truly Risen! Let us continue to rejoice and be glad in this Easter Season. Let us give thanks to God who is so good for all the gifts of our wonderful parish. Let us rejoice at the lively faith of our parish. Let us thank the many who volunteers. ! We are getting close to our goal for the Catholic Charity Appeal, please pledge today if you haven’t yet. Thank You! God Bless. Rejoice. Be Glad. The Lord is truly Risen! Happy Easter!
A blessed Easter! It took us 40 days to prepare for Easter—that’s what Lent was all about—so now it takes us 40 days to celebrate Easter. That will bring us up to the Feast of the Ascension, when Jesus, risen from the dead, after spending 40 days with His disciples, returned to His Father in heaven. Actually, it doesn’t even end there, because then, on the Ascension, we’ll unite with Our Lady and the Apostles in a novena, nine days of prayer, bringing us to Pentecost Sunday and the gift of the Holy Spirit. So join with me in saying “Happy Easter” for the 50 days after the great Feast! And, of course, every Sunday is a “little Easter,” as we come together on the first day of the week at Mass to profess our faith in the Resurrection of Jesus.
family. Our young teens are finishing preparation for the wonderful sacrament of Confirmation and await the gift of the Holy Spirit as they enter high school. Couples approach the altar for the holy sacrament of matrimony, eager to seal their love and conform it to divine love: forever, faithful, and life-giving. Our young parishioners graduate from eighth grade at OLM School and from high schools and colleges, trusting in God for a future full of promise and hope. And, during these paschal days, candidates for Holy Orders kneel before a bishop to be ordained deacons and priests, and bind themselves to the Risen Jesus and His Church.
The earth itself is alive; winter is over; gardens are being planted; grass, flowers, trees growing; each day sees more light than darkness. Nature mirrors super-nature, as God’s life flourishes in our souls and in the Church. It’s all about the paschal mystery: the dying and rising of Jesus, and our share in it. Jesus invites us to die with Him to sin, selfishness, and Satan, and rise with Him to new life. That’s the sacred rhythm of Christian discipleship: at times we’re on the cross with Jesus; at other times we’re risen to new life with Him.
Pope Francis in his Easter homily last year reminds us: “We cannot live Easter without entering into the mystery. It is not something intellectual, something we only know or read about. It is more, much more! To enter into the mystery means the ability to wonder, to contemplate; the ability to listen to the silence and to hear the tiny whisper amid great silence by which God speaks to us. To enter into the mystery demands that we not be afraid of reality: that we not be locked into ourselves, that we not flee from what we fail to understand, that we not close our eyes to problems or deny them, that we not dismiss our questions, To enter into the mystery means going beyond our own comfort zone, beyond the laziness and indifference which hold us back, and going out in search of truth, beauty and love. It is seeking a deeper meaning, an answer, and not an easy one, to the questions which challenge our faith, our fidelity and our very existence.” 
Palm Sunday sets the stage for the final showdown between Jesus and his detractors. Today, Passion Sunday, the final scene is to be played out. This is Holy Week, when the whole Christian world comes together to commemorate the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the fulfillment of his mission, and the fruition of the task that the Father had sent him to do. Everything Jesus had done so far, every word, every action, every miracle, had been building up to the climactic events of this coming week. All the players are now in place, all the elements of the play are now ready, and Jesus enters into his passion after a life of faithful service to his Father and to the people whom he loved.
Passion Sunday begins Holy Week on this sad note. It sets the tone for the somber and solemn days ahead. But there is inserted into this sadness, an unmistakable element of triumph. For we all know that the play doesn’t end with the crucifixion and death of Jesus on the cross, at the hands of those who rejected him. We know that death would not be the final word, that after the agony of Good Friday and the silence of Holy Saturday, will come the glory and triumph of Easter.
raising him from the dead and destroying death forever. The life of Jesus, his works and his deeds, did not happen in vain. This is the real end or point of the story of Jesus. It is also the point of the story of our own lives, the glory of the resurrection is the promise that awaits us all. On that glorious Easter morning, when the women rush to anoint Jesus’ body in the tomb, they discover, not a dead Jesus, but an angel who tells them that he is no longer there, for he has been raised up. This is complete vindication. Jesus had been right all along, death is not the final word. Neither are suffering and pain. The joy of Easter is what awaits all who remain faithful to God’s promise.
On Good Friday, we mark the Passion and Death of the Lord. No Mass is allowed to be celebrated on this day. We walk the Way of the Cross at 3pm and celebrate the Solemn Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion and Death at 7pm. Good Friday is not the end of our story, just was it wasn’t the end of Jesus’ story.
Pope Francis spoke last week prior to the Worldwide Day of Confessions for the Jubilee Year of Mercy and stated: “Let us put back at the center – and not only in this Jubilee Year! — the Sacrament of Reconciliation, a true space of the Spirit in which all, confessors and penitents, can experience the only definitive and faithful love, that of God for each of His children, a love that never disappoints.”
In a very special way we celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation this Saturday and next Saturday. Our First Communion Classes make their First Confessions and receive God’s love and mercy sacramentally for the very first time in their young lives. It is truly an occasion of faith for them, their families and also for our parish family. Please keep these children in your prayers as they continue to prepare for First Holy Communion in May.
These two big Feast Days for the Irish and the Italians are also big feasts for all the Church. So plan on attending the festivities here at OLM . Join us for the St. Patrick’s Day Mass on Thursday at 12:05pm. Bishop Evans is to celebrate the Mass and Fr. Bernie O’Reilly, a native son of County Cavan, Ireland, is our homilist. It is to be a grand celebration complete with Irish hymns and readings in the Irish language. A reception follows the Mass with Irish cookies and coffee. Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!
Also next Saturday we mark the Feast of St. Joseph with Mass celebrated by Bishop Evans in Italian. Our homilist is Monsignor Albert Kenney, the Vicar-General of the Diocese. Not to worry! Monsignor studied in Rome, speaks fluent Italian and his wonderful Mother’s maiden name is Spinale! Our St. Joseph ‘s Day celebration takes place on Saturday, March 19th at the 8:30AM Mass complete with Italian hymns. A reception of zeppoles and coffee follows Mass. Bouna Festa di San Giuseppe!
Schedule in this week’s bulletin. Also we take up the Rice Bowl Collection next week so please be prepared to make your returns. I ask you to be please write a check and not return coins as that makes it easier for our counters on Monday morning. Thank you for your generous support. Yes, Lent is ending but continue to pray, fast and give alms. Empty your Rice Bowls for the Collection next weekend! Be well. Do Good. God Bless.
If you haven’t been in the Church Sacristy in a while please stop and take a look around. Thanks to the hard work of our OLM Maintenance Team, Paul Anderson and Jeff Franzone, we’ve spruced up the room. Much needed new and efficient lighting was put in, the walls have been repainted, all the woodwork and cabinets refinished, and the bathroom modernized. I am grateful to Paul and Jeff for their hard work in restoring the Sacristy. There are still some finishing touches that remain but it looks great. The Sacristy, if you don’t know, is where we keep the vestments, sacred vessels and altar linens and where the priests vest for Mass. It is now a much brighter place to prepare for Holy Mass.
University of RI to preach our Annual Parish Lenten Mission. Fr. Upton is a very busy young priest and I am truly grateful to him for leading us in our Mission. Fr. Upton is preaching all the weekend Masses and also preaching a Mission Talk each night at 7:00pm on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. On Wednesday night there is to be Exposition of the Eucharist and Benediction. Also each night before the Mission Talk four priests are available for Confession beginning at 6:00pm until 6:45pm. This is a great chancefor our entire parish to make a Mission and take some much needed time in prayer and reflection. It is a time to deepen our faith. I hope you make every effort to attend the Mission as I know it is be a spiritually beneficial time.
I first met Fr. Upton when he was a twelve year old Altar Sever at St. Paul’s Church in Edgewood. He was serving at my First Mass in 1995 and the truth be told had the markings of a fine priest even then! Twenty years later he now is that fine young priest! Fr. Upton has a keen intellect and a tremendous priestly zeal. He is an excellent preacher and I am certain you will enjoy his message at the Mission.
It was a beautiful Funeral Mass for the late Justice Antonin Scalia last Saturday. The liturgy of the Mass of Christian Burial was enhanced by the beauty of the music and the Basilica in which it was celebrated. It was truly a Catholic moment for all to see and appreciate the beauty and profound meaning of the Mass. The Justice’s son, Father Paul Scalia, delivered an eloquent homily. His opening line of the homily described what every Funeral Mass should be. He stated: “We are gathered here because of one man. A
man known personally to many of us, known only by reputation to even more, a man loved by many, scorned by others, a man known for great controversy, and for great compassion. That man, of course, is Jesus of Nazareth.”
"alms giving," which means donating money or goods to the poor and performing other acts of charity. As one of the three pillars of Lenten practice, alms giving is "a witness to fraternal charity" and "a work of justice pleasing to God."
Imagine if every family took up the call to give alms! We are asking each parish family to consider pledging a gift of $300 over ten months. This is a $30 per month pledge that helps to ensure the works of mercy are available to those in need. While I know that every family might not be able to pledge such an amount, I ask each and every parishioner to prayerfully consider making a pledge. No pledge is too small.
Two important upcoming events at OLM to note. The first is the All-Day Confessions next Saturday, March 5 from 9:00am until 3:00pm. This is a special event in recognition of the Year of Mercy and All-Day Confessions are to be celebrated across the globe next Saturday. So spread the word among our family, friends and neighbors. Come experience God’s forgiveness and mercy available in the Sacrament of Confession.
the Gospel.” I’ve known him many years and he is a tremendous young priest and a gifted preacher. I am grateful he is taking time out of his busy schedule to be with us for this time of Mission. So please make room on your schedule for the Parish Mission.