AS SPRING MATURES AND WE CONTINUE THE SEASONS I AM HAPPPY TO KNOW THAT SO MANY ARE BEING BLESSED ESPECIALLY RECEIVING THE SACRAMENTS OF INITIATION, WHICH INCLUDE THE SACRAMENTS OF BAPTISM, CONFIRMATION, AND FIRST COMMUNION. IF NUMBERS WERE PROOF OF THE VERACITY OF OUR RELIGION WE WOULD HAVE PLENTY OF PROOF. BUT WE KNOW OUR FAITH IS MORE THAN WHAT THE MAJORITY MAY BELIEVE. IT IS ALSO A PERSONAL DECESION TO SEE THE WAY OF THE GOSPELS AS THE MOST LOGICAL AND REASONABLE CHOICE AROUND, CONSIDERING ALL THE RELIGIONS OUT THERE. SOME OTHER RELIGIONS ARE TOO STRICT, FOR EXAMPLE, REQUIRING A TITHE, OR SOME ARE TOO STRICT, AS IN, ANYTHING GOES. WE FOLLOW THE LAW OF THE HEART WHICH HAS THE RULE OF NATURE WRITTEN ON IT BUT ALSO WE ARE MOTIVATED BY THE PERSON AND MESSAGE OF THE GOSPEL. THERE ARE SO MANY OF THESE WONDERFUL REALITIES AROUND US IF WE OPEN OUR EYES TO SEE.
posted by Father Paul @ 11:19 AM
Monday, April 14, 2008
This weekend, for the first time since we opened the new plaza area, there will be no food sale! This will give everyone involved, those preparing and serving the food as well as those eating it, a break! This weekend ninety-eight young people will receive the sacrament of Confirmation. I taught thirty-one of the young adults for eight weeks during February and March. They are a great group of young adults. By the way, the class was taught ninety percent in Spanish! I surprised myself about doing that. Several of the young people in my class were anxious to receive Confirmation because they are planning to get married in the near future. For your information, I will be offering an eight week First Communion class during May and June. Please sign up in the rectory with your name and phone number if you are interested. First Communions for this year will be during May; there will be about three hundred first communicants this year. This time of reception of the sacraments is a good time for the rest of us to renew our own relationship with the sacraments and renew the meaning of the sacramenets in our own lives. Just a note too, I noticed on the Sunday after Easter that there were less people than usual at the Masses exept the 9:30 a.m. Spanish Mass which is almost always very crowded. Someone remarked that people went to Easter Sunday Mass and figured out that they went to their mass for the season! Needless to say, that was funny to me since its a kind of light humor. Whatever the case, the church is here on Easter and other Sundays of the year too. I did not want to write this blog close to April Fool's since God only knows what I would have written on that day! But as it is that day is already gone for this year.
posted by Father Paul @ 6:12 PM
Friday, April 04, 2008
WHAT A WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR: SPRING BEGINNING, EASTER CELEBRATIONS WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS. I WAS HAPPY TO SEE SO MANY PEOPLE HERE AT THE HOLY WEEK SERVICES AND OF COURSE, ESPECIALLY ON EASTER SUNDAY. EASTER 2008 WILL NEVER RETURN OF COURSE. NEXT YEAR WILL BE EASTER 2009, THEN EASTER 201O, ETC. IN OTHER WORDS WE ARE LIMITED AND WE KEEP GETTING OLDER. I KNOW I DIDNT NEED TO REMIND YOU ABOUT THAT SINCE IT IS A FACT OF LIFE. BUT REMEMBERING THAT HELPS GIVE A PERSPECTIVE. WE HOPE YOU ALL HAD THE CHANCE TO REST AND RELAX AT SOME POINT DURING THIS EASTER TIME. WE STILL HAVE SO MANY ACTIVITIES COMING UP THIS SPRING HERE AT THE CHURCH, FOR EXAMPLE, RECEPTION OF SACRAMENTS, GRADUATION, MAY CROWNING, ETC. ALSO NEWSWORTHY WILL BE POPE BENEDICT XVI'S VISIT TO THE UNITED STATES NEXT MONTH. THERE WILL BE A LOT MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THAT IN THE NEAR FUTURE. LETS ALSO PRAY AND GIVE WHAT WE CAN TO HELP THE MILLIONS OF HUNGRY PEOPLE IN THE WORLD WHO WILL DIE IF THEY DO NOT RECEIVE AID. COMPARED TO THEM WE AT LEAST HAVE THE BASIC NECESSITIES OF LIFE SO LETS REMEMBER THEM SO THAT IF THAT EVER HAPPENS TO US WE WILL RECEIVE ASSISTANCE TOO. GOD BLESS YOU ALL
posted by Father Paul @ 12:45 PM
Friday, March 28, 2008
Holy Thursday
This evening we begin the most important days of our religion: Holy Thursday, tomorrow, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and EAster Sunday. Once a year we have the opportunity to "get religion" as the old Calvinists used to say. If anyone is religious this is not the worst time to draw close to our Teachings, based on the person and teaching of Jesus, handed down to the Apostles, disciples, and continuing down to our day. WE at the church are very busy preparing our liturgies, and other office business and calls, etc. I am appreciative of the wonderful office staff assistance during this time; they are helping and in fact doing a lot of the work. I am most grateful and they will rest on Monday, the day after Easter when the office is closed. Our Mass of the Lord's Supper begins this evening at 7:00 pm and will end with a transfer of the blessed Sacrament into our parish hall. The parish hall will open for worshipers who wish to spend some time with the Blessed Sacrament. The hall will be open until 10:30 or 11:00 p.m.
posted by Father Paul @ 11:46 AM
Thursday, March 20, 2008
If people say that there are no atheists in foxholes they also say that there are no atheists who are not also Guadalupanos. Nevertheless, the Guadalupanos ministry here at St. Catherine of Siena are Guadalupanos in the true sense of the word! Today, after all the Masses, they are sponsoring a food sell in the plaza area. They help to raise funds to pay for mariachis on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Dec. 12th. They are also supportive of our parish in general ways if we need help for a special project. You might say its like the Spanish Altar and Rosary Society. As is well known, the Altar and Rosary Society has supported the parish financially, spiritually, morally, socially, as a ministry of talented and generous ladies. In that respect, both of these traditional, devotional, parish-based societies are such a blessing for and to the church, and to me as pastor as I have experienced, that our parish would be at a loss without them to say the least. Anyway, this weekend the Guadalupanos are selling hot food like papusas, tacos, drinks, and more. Both these ministries are at the heart of the parish as is our parish school. Our faculty, staff, and school families are just outstanding. We are encouraging parishioners and others to consider matriculating into our school for the sake of outstanding learning, safety, and faith. The benefits of attending our school are numerous. For example, isn’t it curious that three of our school parents are currently LAUD accredited school teachers but refuse to send there own children to public schools, even their own school district! They must know something that we don’t. With all due respect for public schools, in general, private schools deliver a superior education in the full sense of the understanding of that word. For example, several of our previous First Families sent their children, at least while in the White House, to private schools. Other parents from our school have reported to me that when their children graduate from eighth grade here they are always ahead of their peers when they enter into high school in ninth grade. And what a “fine arts” curriculum we offer here at our school: music, art classes, and dance classes help complete the foundational reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmatic, and for us, religion. A classic, traditional, faith-inspired learning atmosphere is the ideal ticket to a successful life here and in the next, both being in the future for these children. The school is our parish school of course. Next weekend, March 9th, there will be a school Mass at the 11:00 a.m. Mass with the school choir singing. Also, the Second Grade class parents will sponsor a food sale as a way to help the parish know our school families and help them raise funds for the school. Finally, some of our ministers are away for part or all of this weekend at the annual Religious Education Congress in Anaheim, the biggest of its kind in the U.S. There are national speakers and musicians as well as venders for religious education enrichment. We hope that those who attend the congress this year or in the past find the strength they need for the life and ministry. Every year several of our youth attend Youth Day with thousands of other adolescents from the greater Los Angeles area. I have attended this congress in past years but this year my commitments in the parish do not allow me to participate. The existence of such a congress reminds us of the need and desire for a continuous learning about the meaning of life and ultimately how short indeed our life really is. Who says it better than Hamlet: …there’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ‘tis not to come: if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all: since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is’t to leave betimes?
posted by Father Paul @ 3:55 PM
Monday, March 03, 2008
