Posted on February 13, 2023 View all Pastor's Letter
Dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
I hope you have had a blessed week and that this Sunday we will come to the altar to feed our hearts, with His body and blood.
In this weekend’s letter I have to touch on some points that are important for our spiritual growth and it is my duty as a pastor and spiritual father to correct some aspects of our parish life; one of these aspects is the attitude and disrespect against the staff that cleans the church. These last few weeks they have complained that many do not respect when they are cleaning and enter the church or the bathrooms when they are working and there have been discussions about this. It seems to me that this is a lack of respect for the work that they do, therefore starting next week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays the temple will be closed when they are cleaning, the same on weekends. I appreciate your understanding. The truth is, I don’t understand how one can visit the Lord with an attitude of disrespect for His workers.
Moving on, you may have noticed that the parish logo has been changed, we have created a logo for the 60th anniversary of the parish, with a series of symbols that describe our parish. The blue circle represents the color of the Virgin Mary and her infinite love for her children, the face of the virgin with her crown denotes that she is the Queen of the Apostles symbolized by twelve stars around her. The temple behind her image represents to all of us that we are the pilgrim church in this world, and the tower is the desire for holiness, or the desire to reach the infinite, and the yellow or gold color is the symbol of the royalty of our mother as Queen. As I already said in past letters, this year we celebrate 60 years of foundation and we have already begun to prepare for this celebration. Our bishop will celebrate a thanksgiving mass on June 4th of this year, I will tell you more about it in the future.
As I expressed in the last letter, this weekend is Commitment Weekend for the pledge that each one of us will make for this year’s Bishop’s Lenten Appeal. I invite you to make this commitment with faith, with prayer and generosity; the diocese will probably have already sent the pledge envelopes to some of you; I encourage you to respond promptly. I humbly ask you to collaborate in this year’s Lenten Appeal. On behalf of our Bishop Burbidge, I thank you for your sacrifice and collaboration. If you have any questions regarding this Lenten Appeal, please do not hesitate to call us.
This weekend is World Marriage Sunday. This annual celebration is a great opportunity for all to reflect on the gift that marriage is to our Church and our country, as well as an opportunity for couples to revive and grow their own marriages. This year the theme is: Marriage: One Flesh, Given and Received. It is a Sunday to pray for all marriages, and for the spouses to value, love and respect this vocation. God has united them so that they remain alive in love and collaborate with Him through the procreation and education of the future of humanity manifested in their children. May God bless our married couples and make them faithful to their vocation
I hope you have a joyful week,
Fr. Alex