Mini reflection: Too often, life falls short of my expectations — an opportunity didn’t work out, a day didn’t go the way I planned — so I ball up my fists and stomp my feet. And God takes the Book of the Gospels and opens it to Luke, Chapter 10. On Pilgrimage

Before I embarked on my trip to the National Eucharistic Congress last summer with a group from my archdiocese, we had an orientation meeting. At that meeting, the coordinator of the trip shared with us “The Five Rules of Pilgrimage.”

Mini Reflection: What’s so special about Pentecost that it wasn’t until this moment — and not any of the equally world-changing moments that came in the weeks before it — that the Apostles became the Church? Leaving the Room

I was a full-grown adult before I realized that Pentecost is known as “the birthday of the Church,” and it only resonated with me because someone showed up to a church function with cake and candles. Leave it to buttercream frosting to drive home a theological reality I had been missing for 25 years.

The famous 20th century St. Padre Pio said once that he would wait outside the gates of heaven until the people in his life had entered. I’m not sure that I, or frankly many people I know, would say that and mean it. Yet that is precisely the kind of attitude we see in Jesus as he prays for us in the Gospel today. Having celebrated the Ascension of the Lord just a few days ago, we now hear the Son of God at the Last Supper pray to his Father “that they may be brought to perfection as one” (John 17:23). What does this mean for us?

Mini Reflection: I think of the walls of heavenly Jerusalem, so high and so sturdy, guarded so scrupulously by God’s strongest angels. These walls are not barriers. They are shields. They are arms, encircling us, gathering us in.

My Peace I Give to You

When John has a vision of heavenly Jerusalem, he sees walls. “A massive, high wall,” to be more precise. In the modern lexicon, walls have a negative connotation; we use them as metaphors for all that is exclusionary and rigid.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! He is Truly Risen!

Dear Friends in Christ, we have completed our 40-day journey and we find ourselves looking joyfully into an empty tomb. We began our Lenten journey on Ash Wednesday and find its fulfillment here on, Easter! Throughout our journey we challenged ourselves to search and find all the brokenness and weakness of our lives, all that would distract us from being true disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Dear Friends,

I’d like to introduce to you a young man from Franklin and a son of St. Mary’s Parish, Mr. Sean McKeown. Sean is a seminarian, studying for the priesthood in the Archdiocese of Boston. He is currently in his second year of preparation for Theology studies.

Dear Friends in Christ,

Earlier this year the Parish Pastoral Council and I took up a conversation about our weekend Mass schedule. My concern is the declining numbers for the 12:00pm Mass that our parish has traditionally held between September and May. During my first year as Pastor, I witnessed that our 12:00pm Mass was not only our lowest attended Mass, but it is also a Mass with the smallest collection as well as the hardest Mass to find Liturgical Ministers for service.

Dear Friends,

The Holy Father announced that he has named the Most Reverend Richard G. Henning, S.T.D. as the tenth bishop and seventh archbishop of the Archdiocese of Boston. Archbishop-elect Henning is currently the Bishop of the Diocese of Providence.

It’s so easy to do the right thing because we want to tick all the right boxes. We want to live by the law. We want to accomplish the work of God. Or, at least, we say that we do.

But Jesus tells us that in order to accomplish the work of God, we have to believe in the one he sent. And to believe in Christ is to be filled with the spirit of truth — to do what is right because it is right, not because we want to be filled with good feelings.