Within the past couple of weeks, you received a letter from Archbishop Etienne introducing you to this year’s Annual Catholic Appeal (ACA). Each year at this time we pause and consider all the good that is accomplished because of your support of the ACA: the homeless are sheltered, retired priests and nuns are cared for, our seminarians are prepared to serve as our future priests, and so much more. If you haven’t already done so, I pray you will join me in supporting the Catholic Church in Western Washington by giving to the 2023 Annual Catholic Appeal.

Within the past couple of weeks, you received a letter from Archbishop Etienne introducing you to this year’s Annual Catholic Appeal (ACA). Each year at this time we pause and consider all the good that is accomplished because of your support of the ACA: the homeless are sheltered, retired priests and nuns are cared for, our seminarians are prepared to serve as our future priests, and so much more. If you haven’t already done so, I pray you will join me in supporting the Catholic Church in Western Washington by giving to the 2023 Annual Catholic Appeal.

“I am the light of the world; anyone who follows me will not walk in the darkness; he will have the light of life.” Jesus – Jn. 8:12. This, and: “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hilltop cannot be hidden . . . Your light must shine in the sight of men, so that, seeing your good works, they may give praise to your Father in heaven.” Jesus – Mt. 5:14 & 16.

As many of you know, Holy Redeemer is a blessed and fortunate parish. I liken it to a safe refuge, a lighthouse in the dark night of a storm tossed sea, or a shining city on a hill. The Lord, who is Light, wants us to be light too, and to share our light with those in darkness. I was reminded of this Light, Jesus and us, throughout Lent culminating in Easter. I want to share some reflections on the light that shines here at Holy Redeemer, that you may have your faith strengthened, give praise to Almighty God, and share your faith and light with others.

Most of us are aware of the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. We’ve been praying it every Friday in the church at 3pm for years, and I’m sure you’ve heard it sung or said if you’ve ever listened to a Catholic radio station. The most famous author and voice of the sung version (in English), Donna Cori Gibson, was here Palm Sunday and blessed us with a concert. It is a very popular devotion, one worth learning and using.

In the 1930’s Jesus began to visit a Polish nun named Faustina Kowalska (a canonized saint now) and passed on to her a series of messages that she recorded in her diary which has become a book called: Divine Mercy in My Soul. It’s a book about God’s abiding presence and love for us; as well as an underlying warning to turn away from sin and to turn to the infinite mercy of God.

The greatest thing that has ever happened was when God died for our sins. No greater act has ever happened, not the creation of heaven, the universe, the earth, man, or the future new heavens and new earth. Creation is something God can do with a mere thought, with no suffering, while adding to His Glory. Being crucified for the sins of others is something that God had to physically act out, with much apparent humiliation, and with great suffering. All of those things are beneath God’s dignity, yet He endured His Passion and Death to demonstrate His infinite love, which is the greatest feature of God’s Glory. The greatest manifestation of God’s Glory is not revealed in His power, which is infinite, but in His mercy, which is the most unfathomable aspect of His infinite Love.

The Bible doesn’t tell us what Jesus looked like, how do we know? Answer: The Shroud of Turin.

Today is Passion or Palm Sunday, where at Mass we solemnly read through Our Lord’s Passion and death. Yet the Scriptures aren’t the only place that testify to what happened to Our Lord Jesus Christ at His death. There is one relic par excellent that irrefutably testifies to the truth of the Scriptures. That relic is the Shroud of Turin – the burial cloth of Jesus Christ.

As part of 1st Century Jewish burial custom, people were wrapped in a burial cloth. “They took the body of Jesus and bound it with burial cloths along with the spices, according to Jewish burial custom.” (Jn 19:40) and “They both ran, but the other disciple [John] ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first; he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in” (Jn 20:4). Because of what they discovered on it, the burial cloth that was wrapped around Our Lord’s body, was preserved by his disciples after the Resurrection and became a closely guarded relic.

The last two weeks of Lent are historically known as Passiontide. During this time many churches cover their crosses, images of Jesus, angels, and saints with purple cloth. The season of Passiontide was more or less abrogated in 1969 when the Church came out with a new set of readings for Mass.

It used to be that two Sundays before Easter (5th Sunday of Lent), the Gospel reading was about Jesus confronting the established powers with his divinity; this caused those in authority to pick up rocks to stone him, “but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple” (Jn 8:46-59). Jesus would stay hidden from the religious authorities until his triumphant entry into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday); yet even then, he did not give anyone a chance to seize him until he was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Lent began on Ash Wednesday with Jesus telling us in the Gospel to pray, fast, and give alms; and by us receiving ashes, reminding us of our mortality. On the first Sunday of Lent we heard about Satan tempting Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden and tempting Jesus in the wilderness. In our modern world, Satan’s temptations abound, so much so, that we don’t recognize them much of the time, many people don’t recognize them at all; yet they are all about us leading us into sin and its consequences: slavery, suffering, death, and damnation.

Having fallen, having seen so many others fall, seeing the progress of evil in the world (and in the Church), we naturally become despondent. We can even give up on Christ and join the majority on the broad, easy road to perdition. (Mt 7:13)

This pastor’s column might seem mundane yet it’s important enough for you and the parish that I’m going to run it two weekends in a row. Please continue reading and get plugged in.

Information technology has been around for a generation now and as we all know, it is constantly improving, which is to say, it’s constantly evolving. Beginning this month, we began moving much of the data that we have on file with you to a significantly enhanced system called ParishStaq. We all also starting to transition those of us who are using on-line giving, from Vanco to a much better system called Pushpay. These two systems will work together to substantially improve our current information systems and should last for a long time to come.

This pastor’s column might seem mundane yet it’s important enough for you and the parish that I’m going to run it two weekends in a row. Please continue reading and get plugged in.

Information technology has been around for a generation now and as we all know, it is constantly improving, which is to say, it’s constantly evolving. Beginning this month, we began moving much of the data that we have on file with you to a significantly enhanced system called ParishStaq. We all also starting to transition those of us who are using on-line giving, from Vanco to a much better system called Pushpay. These two systems will work together to substantially improve our current information systems and should last for a long time to come.

Lent has begun and I hope you’ve made a resolution or more, yet it’s not too late if you haven’t. My pastor’s column from last Sunday was chock-full of helpful ideas, check it out on our website if you are still without a resolution or two.

Amongst various things, Lent provides us with an opportunity to focus on spiritually and/or morally improving upon an area or more of our lives; not victory, that’s up to God, but progress through our effort and God’s grace. To this end I want to address the predominant fault that lies within each of us.

Lent is a special penitential season when Catholic Christians try to become better Catholic Christians. Specifically, we try to make some sort of sacrifice for God’s Glory, our salvation, and to atone for our sins and the sins of the whole world. Some people do big things and some people do just one small thing, but we should all do something for the One who did everything for us.

Lent begins this Wednesday, so if you haven’t already made a Lenten resolution, please do so now. Great things, even little things, don’t happen without a commitment and a plan: marriage, parenting, career, good health, etc., all take great commitments and a plan. So does our faith. Martyrs have died for the Lord, and saints have given their whole lives for Him. This Lent please join me in making a commitment, with God’s grace, to a sacrifice that would please the Lord and perhaps better ourselves in the process.

In the Apostles Creed, a prayer we say at the beginning of the Rosary, we hear the words: “He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.” We hear it said again at Mass in the Nicene Creed: “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end.” This is often referred to as The Second Coming.

At the end of our lives, all people regardless of their religion or lack thereof, will be judged by Jesus Christ and ultimately end up in heaven or hell. This is a frightening thought for many but not for all. If you read the lives of the saints you’ll notice that they don’t fear standing before the Lord – they long for it! For the rest of us, well let’s just say we still have work to do. Most people ignore unpleasant or scary things yet our final judgment is one of those things we shouldn’t ignore, but prepare for.

Lent is fast approaching and I started thinking about what to do, and more importantly, how to spiritually prepare. This gets me thinking about the spiritual life and a pastor’s column I wrote 18 months ago on the stages of the spiritual life. I reread it and thought I should share it with you again. A reminder, you can access all my past pastor’s columns on our website.

There is a path or way in the spiritual life to holiness or sanctity, common to all saints. Few know of its existence, and fewer still reach the highest stage in this life, most people never even start on the journey. I find it simultaneously enlightening and depressing. Enlightening because I can see the way forward, what can be, and how to proceed.

Two and three weekends ago I wrote pastor’s columns on how special this parish is. If you missed them you can still read them by visiting our website. What those pastor’s columns presumed as good (or even great), were things that are relative. Relative to other parishes in America today, we’re doing awesome. Compared to the early 1960’s not so much.

Over the past 60 years the trend line for religious practice in this country has been going down. People attending religious services or even identifying with a religion has fallen dramatically during that time. In 2019, the last year we have statistics for this kind of thing, 1500 Protestant churches closed – and that was before the pandemic!

A month ago the Wall Street Journal published a story on priests becoming increasingly conservative over the past generation, while the laity have become increasingly liberal. I haven’t read it but I’m pretty sure part of its inspiration comes from the results of worldwide surveys conducted on behalf of Pope Francis’ Synod on the Synod (pastor’s column dated 12/19/21). As part of that process, parishes and diocese all around the world gave input into what focus they would like the Church to have, and changes they would like to see.

Last week I wrote a pastor’s column on many of the objective things that demonstrate how Holy Redeemer Parish is so special. If you haven’t read that pastor’s column, you still can by visiting our website and clicking on the pastor’s column tab. Today I go a step further and write about why I think Holy Redeemer is so demonstratively special. Remember, none of this is to brag [see my commentary on this in last week’s pastor’s column], rather to share good news (gospel in Greek); good news that we all need in these very troubled times.

At the time covid shut us down in March of 2020, our average weekend Mass attendance was nearly 1600, it’s close to 1300 now. That means that nearly 20% of pre-covid practicing Catholics at Holy Redeemer have not returned. I don’t know what the national average is, or even the average for the Archdiocese of Seattle, the Archbishop is yet to release the numbers which is telling. With that in mind, given the news I share with you below, it is easy to draw the conclusion that the people who have not returned to Mass were for the most part, not very committed in the first place. I say that because the people who are attending Mass at Holy Redeemer now are, as a whole, more committed stewards of the faith than about any parish our size in the nation.

Regardless of what is going on in the world and our personal lives, we can have supernatural peace and joy when our lives are lived in Jesus Christ. We can have that, because God has come down from heaven in the divine person of Jesus Christ, to give us His Catholic Church, His Word, the Sacraments, communion with Him, and consolation from Him. So let us give thanks and praise to God for the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace; a peace the world cannot give or understand.

All too often we reject, out of hand, things of a supernatural nature. To be sure, we need to discern things that aren’t normal; and while God usually operates within the laws of nature, laws he created, he is not limited by them. God does occasionally perform miracles that nature or science cannot explain. Years ago I heard about the holy house of Loreto in Italy. It is supposedly the house that the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph lived in while they lived in Nazareth.