Last week I shared with you a special piece of my life. Sitting down at my field desk in our Fleet Hospital I was able to let prayer strengthen my soul and lift my spirit so that I could be a source of spiritual life to the men and women sent to us in varying stages of brokenness spiritually, physically and emotionally. With the strength and power of prayer, the mystery of the resurrected Lord transforms me to minister to the needs of God’s children.

May the blessings of Easter be with yours for He is risen as He said, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia. Today, throughout the world, men, women and children celebrate this day in prayer rejoicing in Christ who conquers death and restores life. Notice I just said "conquers and restores." This is the present tense. We celebrate and live the resurrection of Christ in the present moments of our daily life. Jesus did not just rise from the dead in the past; He is risen in the present.

After the Second Vatican Council, the bishops refreshed the liturgy of the church to make our sacramental life more personally interactive with God. I recall the phrase "We are a resurrection people, and Alleluia is our song." For many it was and exciting time when the Holy Spirit came to life in ways that were truly inspiring. Putting aside (for this writing) the parallel moments of the distorting of truth and reason, the thought of being a "resurrection people, and Alleluia is our song" was thought to be corny, to say the least. Nevertheless, there is something special about being a people of the resurrection.

If I lead you into the mystery of the passion of Christ so that you can realize how much Christ loves you in your sinfulness, I cannot leave you in that painful moment. Neither does Christ. Entering into the mystery of how deeply God loves us that he sent his only begotten Son to suffer and die for us, not only causes us to reflect on our sinfulness and the sinfulness of the world around us, but also, causes us to see in Christ the way, the truth and the life that leads to resurrection.

Therefore, we are a people of the resurrection. We are a people of life and that life is the resurrected Lord. Toss your pain on the cross with Christ and let it die with Him. Bury your sorrows and those of your family and the world in the tomb of Christ, the Anointed One.

Now, look into the tomb today, Easter Sunday, it is empty. He has taken you sins, your suffering, your losses and destroyed them. Rise with Him from the tomb today and every day. Live in the resurrection of Christ. Be a resurrection people and make "Alleluia" "Praise God" your song to thanksgiving and life.

If you die in Christ, you shall rise in Christ, and if you rise in Christ, you shall live forever. Join me, as your pastor, in leading people to the discovery of the resurrected Christ. Support the ministries of the parish to evangelize (spread the Good New of Christ) to the people of our parish who come once or twice a year to find solace and peace. Join me in welcoming them and let them know that we want them to know they are always welcomed here in God’s house, our family dwelling where Christ’s resurrection is our Easter joy and our gift to them.

There is a Hole in the Basket?

             On the day of my installation, I let you know that thanks to the financial focus given to the parish by Msgr. Hamilton we are able to move forward to refurbish and update the church, school and rectory.  That is still the case although it takes time to bring the pieces together and now we will be creating a timeline for the beginning and completion of needed work and projects.  However, the reason I am saying this is to draw everyone’s attention to the continued responsibility of being good stewards of the faith and supporting the parish financially.  To that end, I want to thank all of you who have already contributed and/or made pledges to the Catholic Ministries Appeal.  As the figures show elsewhere in the bulletin, we are 11% above our goal in pledges and have approximately 52% in paid pledges.  You all need to know that these numbers and percentages represent 499 pledges, which represent 11 % of our registered parishioners.  A sincere Thank you, sincerely, to all who have contributed.

            This 11% of registered parishioners cannot support our parish finances alone.  What can I say about the remaining 89%?  Well, presuming that some of them are reading this letter, I can only plead for your support.  Allow me to interject the fact that I am not blind to the economic struggle going on in our nation, state and county.  It is too painfully present.  I want to make it clear that I am not asking anyone to do the impossible.  I receive letters and notes from people “apologizing” that they cannot contribute, from others who explain their present illnesses and difficulties, and from others who enclose back envelopes because they were away or unable to contribute and “want to catch up.”  These individuals and families are a blessing to us and call us to challenge the non-givers in the area of contributing to support the work of the Church.

            I am asking that everyone who is a wage earner (not those who are on fixed incomes) to take stock of your financial support of OLPH as a thriving community of believers who have so much more to do.  Please see the daily challenges to supply spiritual, physical, emotional and temporal support that goes undone because of fiscal restraints.  To do this we must maintain four major buildings (church, rectory, school, and convent) and our ministries house (the gray house).  Like all of you in your homes, the cost of operations rises in every Diocesan institution and program and in every Parish facility and program.

            The money presently we are spending is a blessing to be able to repair, refurbish, replace, renovate, update and maintain what is our spiritual headquarters.  This is an important piece of good stewardship.

            One of the basic Precepts of the Church that are the basic, minimum expectation of membership in the Catholic Church is “To strengthen and support the Church: one’s own parish community and parish priests; the worldwide Church and the Holy Father.”  I fear that many reading this have never either heard this exhortation, or have forgotten it.

            By virtue of our apparent need for a visible inter-active relationship with God, the Christ established the Church gave it, for purposes of evangelization and development, into the hands of one, Peter, the Fisherman.  The success of fulfilling God’s plan to spread the good news of Christ and build a community founded upon a living, vibrant faith in the dignity of all humanity depends on you.

            I remain positive and enthusiastic about the future of our parish Church and School.  Good common sense, logic, vision, a growing understanding of belonging and the importance of giving of not just time and talent, but also treasure, and the joint hard work of “everyone” will continue to move us into the Christ-centered, life-giving people of God we are called to be here in Lindenhurst.  The widow’s coin is not just a nice story, it is a message in sacrifice and giving, and it works to build living faith.

            What is Hell?  Hell is a real place, a state of existence where one becomes painfully and consciously aware of the burning absence of all meaning in life. Hell is a world without God, the creator of all Life.  Hell is a world that kills unborn children because it hates the inconveniences of childbearing and fears the responsibility of parenthood.  Hell is a world that believes in the stars, the moon, and all the planets, but does not believe in their Creator.  Hell is a world where people would rather listen to inanimate objects then in the living God, the source of all truth.  Hell is believing that changing the definition of life, love, marriage, family, sexuality, and truth will make the world a happier place.  Hell is where people believe and practice all these things, and, where they have never, never, and will never achieve anything more than pain, suffering, distortion and the death of God’s children.

            The battle against the powers of light and darkness motivates me.  This is the battle of Christ, which we become a part of as baptized members of His Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.  This is the battle, which Benedict XVI will address in the days ahead as he speaks to leaders of our nation and other countries, and, to the people here and around the world who will indeed hear his voice.

            The Good News of Jesus Christ motivates me.  The fact that I am privileged to lead people in this spiritual battle by finding ways to bring the Good News of Jesus Christ into the homes of the unchurched motivates me.  The joy of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist motivates me.  I am motivated to make our church a visible sign of our faith and its beliefs.  I am motivated by challenging the development of spiritual, moral, academic and physical, and financial excellence in our Catholic School

            My parishioners, I do not do “Smoke and Mirror,” and I will not let myself be tricked into a false sense of security, spiritually, emotionally, physically, or, financially.  This is what motivates me to do Christ’s work on earth.  Pray about your motivations and be a part of the parish journey to motivate Christ back into the hearts, minds and spirits of the people of God.

            Pray each day for the Journey of Pope Benedict XVI to the United States.  St. Michael the Archangel protect our Holy Father. Our Lady of Perpetual Help, help those who see and hear him come to a deeper knowledge of the truth, your Son, Jesus Christ.

This past week I met with our marble restoration company and we are moving forward to our  beginning the next phase of restoring the sanctuary and creating the environment for the placement of the tabernacle between the two pillars atop the center platform in the sanctuary.  The restoration team will use the present marble in the restoration and store the remainder for future use as the work continues.

Today we celebrate Trinity Sunday, our belief not just in God, but the Triune God.  Not only do we acknowledge the existence of God, but also we believe that God is the Creator of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen.  We believe that this God is, to us, a Father who cares for and watches over our individual lives.  We believe that He came into our lives as one like us in all things but sin, His Son, Jesus Christ.  We believe that the love the Son, Christ, has for us in union with the Father forms itself into a third person, the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.  What power there is in God, and we live in the path of that power.  In fact, we live with the power of this Triune God that can transform the darkness of this world into the Light of everlasting Hope.

            Once again, we remember Benedict XVI proclaiming, “Christ is our Hope.”  However, He is not just our hope in the enclosed limits of our family or parish membership.  Christ is the Hope of everyone we meet whose lives we touch ever so limitedly.  “They will know we are Christians (followers of Christ) by our love.  This is the core of “The Great Commission” to “Go forth and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Teach them to carry out everything I have commanded you, and know that I am with you all days, even to the end of time.”

            The work of evangelization belongs to all of us and must renew our efforts here at OLPH not just as a one time program, but as an ongoing effort to touch the hearts and souls of God’s people in our families and the entire community.  Our five-year goal, which the Pastoral Council has agreed to pursue, is to double the attendance at Mass by the year September 2013.

            Allow me to share with you part of the article, “The Great Omission”  written by Fr. Ray Ryland , a convert from the Episcopal Church, and the chaplain for the Coming Home Network and Catholics United for the Faith. He writes from Steubenville, Ohio, where he lives with his wife, Ruth.  The subtitle of the article is “If you don’t evangelize you are useless.”  In the article, he writes:

            “Recently I saw a sign on a bulletin board in the yard of a local Protestant church. The message was this: "Keep the faith, but not to yourself!"

            This reminded me of our Lord's words, "You are the light of the world. . . . Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 5:14, 16).  Too often we shorten the command-"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works"-and miss the whole purpose of letting your light shine-so that men may "give glory to your father who is in heaven."

            All around us people are stumbling in spiritual and moral darkness. Jesus calls us to shine our light-our love, our compassion, our eagerness to serve others-into that darkness. He wants our light to show the way to him for those in darkness. Remember his words: "I have come as light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness" (John 12:46).

            Jesus also told us, "As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world" (John 9:5). Now that he is in heaven, he needs other lights to shine for him in the world's darkness.

            What are we talking about? Evangelization. We need to talk about it, because we Catholics aren't very adept at evangelizing. We all know the Great Commission: "Go . . . and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you" (Matt. 28:19-20). Judging from the small number of new members that we bring into the Church each year, one would think that for us the Great Commission has become the Great Omission.  Make no mistake about it: Evangelization is serious business. First, the purpose for which the Catholic Church exists is evangelization. In his encyclical On Evangelization in the Modern World, Pope Paul VI made this fact clear. He spoke of the "joy and consolation" with which we heard these words from the 1974 Synod of Bishops: "'We wish to confirm once more that the task of evangelizing all people constitutes the essential mission of the Church.'" (14).

            The Holy Father continued, "It is a task and mission which the vast and profound changes of present-day society make all the more urgent. Evangelizing is in fact the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity. She exists in order to evangelize, that is to say in order to preach and teach, to be the channel of the gift of grace, to reconcile sinners with God, and to perpetuate Christ's sacrifice in the Mass, which is the memorial of his death and glorious Resurrection." Years later, in his encyclical on the laity, Pope John Paul II said the same in different words: "The entire witness of the Church is concentrated and manifested in evangelization" (The Lay Members of Christ's Faithful People, 33).”  Thank you Fr. Ray, we have much to reflect on for OLPH.

From the Pastor’s Desk - Sunday, June 1, 2008:

               Congratulations to our 169 Catholic School, Religious Education and RCIA students who received the Sacrament of Confirmation through the laying on of hands of Bishop Peter Libasci, Auxiliary Bishop of our Diocese of Rockville Centre.  It was a pleasure to hear him speak of the power of the Holy Spirit and its influence, through all of us, overall the world.  He used the analogy of focusing sunlight through a magnifying glass causing the movement of molecules at a speed that produces heat and then ignites into flame.  We are the sunshine of the world as we live our lives in Christ, for Christ is the focus of our light in and through Him.  When we focus our light and our life through Christ, we begin to cause a change that generates a new fire of life and light.  We transform all we are and we transform all we have within us, thus transforming the world.  That world begins in our individual soul and in the soul of each of our families.  From there we set the Church afire with the love of God, in Christ and in the unity of the Holy Spirit.  Bishop Peter also reminded our confirmation class and all of us that we must hold on to our faith with all of our might.  He told us that the world tells us that we do not need God or the Church and that no one can tell us what we can and cannot do.  He reminded us that the world offers us so many ways to find happiness that are wrong, unsaf