Clergy Bulletin Articles

It’s Holy Thursday. The Gospel is proclaimed, the rest of the church sits down...except for me. I approach the ambo, hands shaking, praying to the Holy Spirit that He would give me the words that He wants me to speak to His people. These people that I am preaching to, are my spiritual children, I am the one whom they call “Father.” I have been preaching to these people for 9 months... the majority of the time I have no issue preaching to them, but tonight it’s different...

On Saturday, 4/29, POP will be celebrating First Communion. Congratulations to all our young people, and thank you so much to our parents and teachers and catechists who have prepared them. I happened to dig into some old keepsakes, and I found my 2nd Grade class photo and report card and share them here. Bonus points if you can figure out which one was me (my hair looked different back then). My teacher who prepared me for First Communion was Miss Debbie Rinke, who happens to teach one of our 2nd Grade classes at Prince of Peace!

Christ is Risen! He is Risen, indeed!

About 8 years ago, I had the beautiful opportunity to visit the Divine Mercy Shrine during World Youth Day in Krakow, Poland during the Jubilee Year of Mercy. The presence of the Lord in that chapel was palpable.

On this Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion and as we enter Holy Week, it is so good to reflect on the account of the crucifixion of Jesus and the words he spoke. Traditionally many reflect on the “Seven Last Words of Christ.” If you look between the four Gospels, you find seven sentences Jesus speaks—three are unique to the Gospel of Luke, three to John, and one to Matthew/Mark.

We enter the fifth week of Lent, the last normal week of Lent. The following week will be Holy Week. It is time to get serious! This Sunday the intensity goes up a notch as we cover statues in the church. This is a meaningful tradition. As we draw ever nearer to the Passion of Jesus, things are stripped away, just as Jesus will experience in His crucifixion. We take away anything that might distract us from looking where we might be uncomfortable looking—at Jesus on the cross.

As I was reflecting on the readings for this week, I was struck by two words that seem to pervade the readings: light and sight. How important each of these are; as you cannot have one without the other. Without sight, one cannot see. Without light, even those who see, cannot distinguish. Yet, even when we do see, do we always see rightly? I think the answer would be, no.

This Sunday, March 12th, the 3rd Sunday of Lent, we receive the gospel account of the woman at the well and her life-changing encounter with Jesus. Imagine just going for a bucket of water, but instead meeting Jesus, and everything changes! She even leaves her bucket behind. That is the power of the LORD.

We are a week and half into Lent, how are your penances going? We begin and start off all gung-ho, we do really well for 4 or 5 days, and then we miss a day or two and we just decide to give up all hope.

Brothers and Sisters, welcome to Lent. As we enter into this sacred season, we enter into a time of increase. We increase our prayer, we are mindful of the need to mortify ourselves through fasting, and we increase the charitable giving of our time, talent, and treasure. Too often we view Lent as a time of renunciation. Yet, the church prefers that we look at this time in a positive light. If I renounce something, it is only to make room for something far greater.

Lent begins this Wednesday, February 22. Lent is the liturgical season of (roughly) forty days that prepares us for the Easter Triduum—the passion, death, and Resurrection of Jesus.