“Meanwhile the Church… had peace and was built up. Living in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers.” Ac 9,31

Dear parishioners,

These last words of this Sunday’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles point to a bright spot in the life of the early Church. It wasn’t all persecution. There were good days. There are bright spots in our life as Church right now as well. Just this week, we began first communions, and we baptized and confirmed five adults. And there are brighter days ahead, so let’s just stay the course.

In the meantime, a few things to share with you.

This coming Friday will mark our last delivery of “All Were Filled” boxes of frozen foods. Thanks to the funding and the organizational help of the Archdiocese, we have achieved a tremendous amount of good. And locally, I take this opportunity to thank the two people who made this temporary ministry possible. They are Lorna Acosta and Richard Lange. Others helped them, but without these two, we simply wouldn’t have been able to pull this off. In your name, I thank them for having taken this on with so much enthusiasm and generosity.

I want to yet again promote two faith education ministries that have been developed by the archdiocese: Proclaim, and Behold. Proclaim is a resource aiming to make missionary disciples out of ordinary disciples, aiming to enable ordinary Catholics to become evangelizers. The second, Behold, is simply providing a very wide array of resources for Catholics to grow in their awareness of Jesus, of his gospel, and of the Church and its various facets, here and now. Both are extremely good. Just go to rcav.org and look for “Behold”, and “Proclaim”. Or type these two words into your search engine. This will probably take you directly to the two sites. I will also ask our tech people to place a link to both these sites on our Instagram and Facebook pages and on our parish website. Both are worth your visit.

A few words about our masses featuring drive through communion. Some people who have pre-registered for drive through communion are actually arriving at the beginning of mass and accessing the mass in their cars, as was our initial plan. We think this is okay. We just ask that you please not leave your cars to receive communion after mass. Receive communion in drive through fashion, like those who arrive just for communion.

Please note that on this First Friday in May, the online adoration hosted by Catholic Street Missionaries is cancelled.

Project Advance 2021 has been launched at the archdiocesan level by way of a Commencement Mass presided by Archbishop Miller. On this occasion, he also produced a video message that you can access by clicking here. We will launch Project Advance at the parish level in September, as we did last year. I refer you to the parish website, to our Instagram page and to our Facebook page for more information on this year’s campaign and for a link to the Archbishop’s video message.

Finally, I remain tormented by the fact that people who don’t drive a vehicle are deprived of communion. This is why I remind you that it’s always possible to make an appointment with Fr. Gabriel or myself to receive communion. His extension number is 3. Mine is 4.

Be on the look-out Monday May 24, or the following day, for a word from Dr. Bonnie Henry as to what the following weeks will look like for us.

God keep us all safe and well as we ride this third wave.
Fr. Guy