Posted on April 5, 2024 View all Pastor's Letter
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus,
As a church we continue to celebrate the resurrection of the Lord, His triumph over death, and within this Easter joy today we celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday. It is something that goes much further than a particular devotion; Saint Pope John Paul II in his encyclical “Dives in Misericordia” explains that Divine Mercy is the loving manifestation of God in a history wounded by sin and that God places our miserable situation due to sin in His heart as a Father, who is faithful to His designs. Jesus Christ, dead and resurrected, is the supreme manifestation and performance of Divine Mercy. “God so loved the world that he gave it his only begotten Son” (Jn 3:16) and He sent Him to death so that we might be saved. I really like a phrase from the Easter Proclamation that we sing at the vigil that expresses God’s mercy very well when He says: “To redeem the slave He sacrificed the Son”, that is God, He loves us with mercy, for this reason, for the faith and conversion we welcome the treasure of Divine Mercy.
This weekend (Saturday, the 6th), our Bishop ordained 12 new transitional deacons who will be twelve new priests next year, this is a very great blessing for our diocese and for the entire universal church; These are great signs that our diocese is moving along the right path; Let us thank God for His merciful love and for giving us abundant vocations. On this Sunday of mercy, I invite you to ask Jesus in His Divine Mercy to provide us with more priestly vocations and consecrated life. Congratulations to the new deacons of our Diocese.
For two years our parish has had an application that you can download to your cell phones, through this application the office communicates parish events and activities, it is easier and less complicated, you can also access your donations made online (Pushpay). There are several ways to download it: You can scan the QR code that appears on one of the bulletin pages, or send a message with the letters QoA to the number 77977, and open the link they will send you. Or also Search “QoA” in your Google Play store or App Store. But if you need help, please call the parish office and we will be happy to help you.
Finally, I want to thank you for the financial support you continue to provide to our parish through the weekly offertory. As I announced in last week’s letter, we are behind in the annual budget, specifically in the weekly offertory which is the heart that sustains the parish economy. That will significantly hit our finances and if we do not seek to solve it, it will affect us in the future. I encourage you with faith and confidence in your generosity to take it with faith and increase the weekly offertory a little. If we all join together to give a little more, we will be able to erase that deficit that can be generated. A piece of bread is made up of many small particles of wheat, and when they come together they feed our hunger. As a parish we are similar to this example, we are all a small particle that makes up this parish and if we unite we can do great things.
May God bless you and may His infinite mercy always comfort you.
Fr. Alex
