We begin our Jubilee Year on Tuesday: The Jubilee Is A Special Year of Grace. We begin our Golden Jubilee with The Special ‘Bread of Life’ Retreat

Every three years we get to make a very special Eucharistic retreat with the Lord. Because St. Mark’s Gospel is very short, we enhance it with readings from the Bread of Life Discourse, the sixth Chapter of St. John’s Gospel. We pick up from last week: “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while” … and he began to teach them many things.

“Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while?” (Mark 6:31). We all need a break after lots of hard work. Jesus invites us to pray, to be alone with Him. He wants each one of you to know His perfect love more intimately and personally, to develop our loving friendship with Him. Our Catholic Faith requires that we grow in our prayer life. This requires daily quiet, meditative time, free from any distractions.

“Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two” (Mark 6:7).

Two by two? Recall St. Matthew’s words:

“Where two or more are gathered in my name, I am there in their midst”

“My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9).

Well, having celebrated Independence Day this past week, it is a good time to reflect on the past year. As we welcomed Fr. Samuel Aliba this past week, likewise a year ago, you all warmly welcomed me to Blessed Sacrament Pariah as your new Pastor.

I am confident that you will agree that it has been a very good year. Together, we have achieved a lot in twelve months with the Lord’s grace and with your generous support also.

“Little Girl, I Say To You, Arise!”

Coming Back To Life: Christ the Healer

It should come as no big surprise that Jesus raising the little daughter of Jairus from death is an absolutely astonishing Gospel passage.

Back then, people died and they were buried, that was it. There was no belief in raising up of the dead. Elijah and Elisha, the great prophets, were said to have raised people from the dead in three instances, but that was a the best part of a thousand years ago!

The last time I was in the holy land, back in 2019, we were visiting the famous Church of the Beatitudes on top of Mount Erebus overlooking the Sea of Galilee. I noticed that our tour guide, Gabriel, was on his cell phone and had a worried look on his face. One of these storms or squalls was blowing up through the Jordan River Valley and bringing with itself some severe weather: the said it was it a “hurricane,” but really it was in fact one of these violent, localized lake micro-bursts, as we would call it. We had to quickly rearrange our schedule, as it was impossible for us to go out on the lake in a boat that evening.

Join Our Knights of Columbus as they help support Foster Kids in Arizona! Donate needed items with the “Tools 4 Success School Supply Drive!” Drop your donations to the table outside of the Parish Office from: Sat, Jun 15–Mon, Jul 15.

“A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand” (Mark 3:24).

We see it in politics and also see it in today’s gospel reading from St. Mark: “And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.” Jesus is quoted as saying this in three of the gospels (in Matthew, Mark, and Luke).

In the gospel for today, we see the scribes looking upon Jesus as Satan and attributing His powers to the Prince of Darkness.

I have spoken at our Tuesday Miraculous Medal Novena of the story of conversion of Claude Newman, an African-American death-row prisoner in 1943. During a series of reported apparitions of “The Lady,” the Blessed Mother, to Claude in a prison block in Vicksburg, Mississippi, he related how:
“The Lady told me that in Communion, I will only see what looks like a piece of bread. But she told me that It is really and truly her Son, and that He will be with me just as He was with her before He was born in Bethlehem.

The Family of Love: The Holy Trinity is God ‘Father, Son and Holy Spirit’

Returning to Ordinary Time after the Season of Easter, the Church celebrates the unity of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son on the first Sunday after Pentecost.

At The Baptism of the Lord and also at The Transfiguration of The Lord, we witness through the scriptures the presence of the Holy Trinity in the world: God the Father revealing and declaring to the world His Beloved Son.

God’s New Creation is Perfected in Pentecost.

Of all the Old Testament festivals, two have become major solemnities in the Church. The first is Passover (Pascha or Easter) and the second is Pentecost (Shavuot, meaning Weeks and is the Festival of The Law, The Torah) established when God gave Moses the Law at Mt. Sinai and celebrated 50 days (7x7).

We celebrate today the Solemnity of the Lord’s Ascension. After Jesus resurrected from the dead, He appeared to the disciples in His glorified body with His precious wounds in His hands, feet and side. Jesus proved that He was not a ghost by having them put their hands into the nail marks and into the wound in His side and He ate in their presence. As the Apostles Creed says:
“He ascended into Heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from there He will come to judge the living and the dead...”

God desires that we give Him all of our love and adoration.

In the first reading, there is something most impressive about St. Peter as reflected by how he has clearly grasped what Christ meant when He instructed His followers to “Love one another, as I have loved you.” Jesus did not say “I love you as a mother loves a child,” and He did not say, “I love you the way a husband loves his wife.” If we know Jesus, we understand that He is filled with wisdom, truth, holiness, devotion, sacrifice, power and many other traits. Yet, He chooses to summarize it for us quite simply by saying, “As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love.”