April - 2022

Pastor's Weekly Update: Sunday, March 26th

Pastor's Weekly Update: Sunday, March 19th

Drawn to Repentance and Conversion -- Sermon for III Sunday in Lent

Pastor's Weekly Update: Sunday, March 12th

Original sin, boredom, and the empire of empty desire (Sermon for the First Sunday of Lent, 2023)

Pastor's Weekly Update: Sunday, February 26th

Loving Our Enemies (Sermon for Sunday, February 19, 2023)

Pastor's Weekly Update: Sunday, Februrary 19th

Pastor's Weekly Update: Sunday, February 12th

Pastor's Weekly Update: Sunday, January 29

Archive

Pastor's Weekly Update: Sunday, April 24th

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Our celebration of the Lord’s Resurrection continues as we celebrate the Octave Day of Easter. This is the Sunday of many names. Probably the most ancient name associated with this day is Dominica in Albis Deponendis – the Sunday of putting aside the white garments, which refers to how the neophytes baptized at the Easter Vigil would wear their white baptismal garments to Mass every day through the Octave until this Sunday. In more recent

Pastor's Weekly Update: Sunday, April 17th

He is risen as He said, Alleluia! Whether you are visiting St. John’s for the first time or are a life-long parishioner, we are glad to have you celebrating Easter with us today! On this great feast, we rejoice in the glory of Christ’s Resurrection, an event that not only changed human history but transformed the very nature of our universe. Death is no longer in oppression over us, but life has won the victory. The crucifixion of Christ was not the end of the story, which me

The Resurrection: We Are Made to Worship

What we celebrate today is far more than the anniversary of an historical event. Easter, the great feast of feasts, is not just about something that happened two thousand years ago, but something that is happening now. Not just “Christ rose from the dead,” but “Christ is risen.” At Easter, we become the pilgrim people of Israel. We have been created, received the Lord’s covenant, been rescued from Egypt, but also strayed from the Lord and been called back to Him by the words

Pastor's Weekly Update: Sunday, April 10th

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Today, with Palm Sunday, we begin the most sacred week of the year, in which we will celebrate the mysteries of our redemption in Christ. Today the crowds rejoice at the Lord’s entrance into Jerusalem, but soon we will cry, “Crucify him!” I cannot encourage you enough to take part in the liturgies of the Sacred Paschal Triduum, beginning on Thursday evening with the Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper, the Good Friday liturgy (an absolutely

Pastor's Weekly Update: Sunday, April 3rd

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Today we observe Passion Sunday. Traditionally, this marks the beginning of the second part of the Lenten season. After the brief pause or lightening last Sunday with Laetare Sunday, now Lent gets even more intense. That is signaled to us by the veiling of the crosses and sacred images in the church – we now even visually fast from beauty as the veil over the Cross in an ironic manner draws our attention even more greatly towards it. In th

Being Taken A Hold Of -- Sermon for Passion Sunday, A.D. MMXXII

“I consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him.” St. Paul is the archetypal convert. After a dramatic encounter with the Lord, his life turned 180 degrees around and he went from persecuting the Church to being its greatest preacher. His words today to the Philippians remind us of this dramatic conve