THE EVANGELIST

June 2024

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Dear Parish Family and Friends,

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I didn’t have the chance to send out a finished newsletter for May. I am sending it with some changes for this month.

 

During the last month there were three important feasts and one in June. Ascension Day, Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, and Corpus Christi. Each of these feasts brings to us a continued revelation of our Lord.

 

The feast of the Ascension falls forty days after the resurrection. We celebrate Jesus’ ascension to heaven. By frequently appearing to his Disciples during those forty days, he had ensured their faith in his resurrection, and he had spoken to them about the reign of God. Now he could return to the Father. But his return was not an abandonment, so we should not be sad. 

 

The Ascension of the Lord into heaven gave joy to the Father, who was pleased with the love and obedience of his Son. It also inspired joy in Jesus himself, who by dying and rising had saved mankind, and entered glory. And the Ascension is a source of joy for us. “In your Son ascended to heaven,” we say today in prayer, “our humanity is next to you, O Father, and we, members of his body, live in the hope of being reunited in heaven with our glorious head.” The redemption is successful, and all the universe rejoices in the majesty of Jesus, who alone has gone before us into heaven and is waiting for us there. 

 

Pentecost, the outpouring of the Holy Ghost is fifty days from the Resurrection, the Lord, glorious at the right hand of the Father, sent the Holy Ghost upon the Disciples. On the Feast of Pentecost, which is as solemn as that of Easter, the liturgy commemorates this outpouring. This is a very great gift of the Father, won by Jesus on the cross.

 

The Holy Ghost is the life of the Church. From the Spirit, the source of every grace, the Church receives the words of Christ and the wisdom to understand them, By the Holy Ghost, the body of Christ is consecrated in the Eucharist, and the other sacraments are made efficacious.

 

It is the Holy Ghost who, guiding Christians to Jesus, makes us recognize him and forms him in our souls. It is also the Holy Ghost who infuses us with wisdom and the light of counsel. And it is he who gives force to our witness.  Pentecost brings and end to Eastertide, and we look ahead to the long season of Sundays after Trinity.

 

Trinity Sunday bring us to one of the core believeth of our faith, We always celebrate the Holy Trinity, the Church’s prayer is addressed to the Father through the Son, Jesus, in the Holy Ghost. However, on this day, we concentrate with special care on this “Mystery of Faith,” which is at the beginning of all, and which Jesus revealed to us. In fact, only the Son of God could have spoken to us of the Father and of the Holy Ghost, which unites them in a bond of indescribable love.

 

There is another important feast which is Corpus Christi. His feast falls the Thursday after Trinity Sunday. This feast was established to commemorate the Body of Christ. The Lord’s Body is actually celebrated throughout the liturgical year. Every Mass is a memorial of the passion of Jesus, who is truly present on the altar. But the Church has also reserved a special feast to meditate on the miraculous transformation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. By the power of the very words of the Lord, “This is my body; this is the cup of my blood” and by the grace of the Holy Spirit, bread and wine are transformed even though they still look the same. They are not a mere symbol or a simple reminder of the presence of Jesus Christ is truly present in both the bread and the wine.

 

This is why we venerate Christ present in the Blessed Sacrament. We make visits to the tabernacle, where the Blessed Sacrament is kept after Mass, and pray to Christ present there as a sign of love. We place the Blessed Sacrament in a monstrance, where we can see Christ present, and we kneel to adore him. 

 

Have a relaxing summer and make it your top priority to be at Mass each Sunday.

 

See you at Mass this and every Sunday!

 

Father Wirth, Rector

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