Pastor’s Corner — June 2nd, 2024
Additional Role for Heather Dent
In light of last weekend’s announcement from Meghan, I am pleased to announce that Heather Dent, our Marriage Prep Coordinator, will be taking on additional responsibilities in helping me with administrative support (appointments, scheduling and correspondence, etc). Heather is a great team member who lives out our parish core values well. She’s been doing an outstanding job in her current role and I’m very thankful she’s agreed to also use her gifts to help me in my role as Pastor. Her email address is hdent@stpatchurch.org.
SENT Global Table Available This Weekend
As you’ve seen in our bulletin last week and today, we are featuring more information on how to support our parishioner-founded ministry called SENT Global. [See Christian Service section of bulletin] Alicia Cergnul and her team will be available in the gathering space this weekend before and after Masses with more information on how to support this mission to nourish the physical and spiritual needs of people around the world. I’m very proud of Alicia and thrilled about what the Lord is doing in that ministry.
Corpus Christi and Procession After 11:30am Mass (This Weekend)
One of the things we do well as Catholics is holding truths in tension: Jesus and the saints, faith and reason, Scripture and Tradition, holiness and mission, sacraments and evangelization, etc. I love this quote from Pope Benedict XVI that links the Eucharist and our mission of the Church:
“The love that we celebrate in the sacrament [the Eucharist] is not something we can keep to ourselves. By its very nature it demands to be shared with all. What the world needs is God’s love; it needs to encounter Christ and to believe in him. The Eucharist is thus the source and summit not only of the Church’s life, but also of her mission: “an authentically eucharistic Church is a missionary Church.” (234) We too must be able to tell our brothers and sisters with conviction: “That which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us” (1 Jn 1:3). Truly, nothing is more beautiful than to know Christ and to make him known to others. (Benedict, XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis, 84)
As was announced last weekend, we will be having our Corpus Christi procession to the St Pat’s Cemetery just down the road right after the 11:30am Mass this weekend (June 2). After getting to the altar at the cemetery, we will spend a few moments in silent adoration after which we will promptly return. This public witness to our faith in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is powerful. My hope is that families will join in this procession as a sign of how seriously we take Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist. May God be praised for the gift of himself to us in the Eucharist!
Your servant in the Lord,
Fr. Mathias