July 5 – Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

This weekend we welcome our new Parochial Vicar, Fr. James Gaurascio.  Just ordained a priest for our Diocese on June 20, 2020, Fr. James succeeds Fr. Mark Bernhard who served as Parochial Vicar at OLM for three years and is now at St. Mary Parish in Mokena. Fr. Mark was a newly ordained priest when he began at OLM.   I think is says a lot about our parish community when the bishop feels confident in assigning a newly ordained priest to OLM.  The first assignment of a newly ordained priest is critical in transitioning him from the academic seminary life to parish ministerial life of a priest.  Trust me, after 38 years as a priest, they do not and cannot teach you everything you need to know about being a parish priest in the seminary!  It is through the lived experience of being embraced by a community (parish) that is willing to forgive your faults, challenge you where you need to grow, and love you that forms you into the priest you become. That certainly describes Our Lady of Mercy parish! Parishioners have a lot to do in forming their priests to be good and holy priests.

As we welcome Fr. James (and that is how he prefers to be called), I am pleased to inform you he is bi-lingual and will be offering a weekly Mass in Spanish, as well as being able to hear confessions and counsel in Spanish.

Fr. James and three other priests of our Diocese are founding members in our Diocese of an association of Diocesan priests called “Companions of Christ.”  Please see the article in today’s bulletin regarding the “Companions of Christ.”  One thing to be aware of is that Fr. James and the other three priests will not be living at the rectories of their respective parish assignments.  They live at a rented home in Lisle.  They pay the rent out of their salary; there is no additional cost to the parish.

I look forward to mentoring and ministering with Fr. James.  Please warmly welcome him to Our Lady of Mercy parish!

As we celebrate this weekend the founding of our nation 244 years ago, let us pray for our citizens, our political leaders and our nation.  Founded as one nation under God, we need to turn to that God, and ask his help in embracing, once again, the vision that our founding ancestors enumerated….that all people are created equal, and ours is a nation of liberty and justice for all.  May God bless our work of uniting all people in peace.

Have a blessed holiday weekend!

Father Don

 

June 28 – Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Sadly, today is Fr. Mark’s last weekend with us.  Most newly ordained priests find it difficult to leave their first assignment.  I hope Fr. Mark will carry with him treasured memories of his first priestly assignment here at Our Lady of Mercy.  I know I do after leaving my first assignment 35 years ago at St. Alexander in Villa Park.  I don’t know whether it is true or not, but it’s been said about priest transfers (to keep us humble I suppose) that 10% of parishioners are happy to see you go, 20% are really upset, and the rest just kind of go with the flow.  I suspect that a much greater percentage here at OLM are extremely sad to see Fr. Mark leave!  I join you!  I know that Fr. Mark and all of us feel short-changed with the COVID-19 restrictions. Not being able to express our gratitude, love, and best wishes to him with a proper reception and opportunity to greet him individually really stinks!  Priest transfers are strange in that this weekend we say goodbye to Fr. Mark, and next weekend, while we are still grieving the loss of Fr. Mark, we welcome Fr. James. And Fr. Mark is welcomed at a new parish.  A week hardly seems enough time to grieve!

I especially want to thank Fr. Mark for what he has done for our parish (the list is endless) and for me personally during his three years at OLM. As a priest nearing retirement, it was a special honor to have a newly ordained priest assigned to minister with me.  I have been a pastor 27 of my 39 years ordained, with eight different parochial vicars ministering with me during my four pastorates.  I cannot thank him enough for the youthful vision, hope, and hard work he has brought to ministry and rectory life. Fr. Mark encouraged me to embrace a new vision for the future church! – moving a parish from maintenance to mission.  Fr. Mark is an excellent preacher putting his heart and soul in preparing homilies.  I have said that he is the Bishop Fulton Sheen of our time!  His homilies at times challenged me in areas I didn’t want to be challenged.  He is a man with a deep spiritual life of prayer, lives a life of simplicity (compare his clothes closet to mine!) and is a convicted disciple of Jesus!  I once told his mother that I didn’t know if I was living with a future bishop or saint!!

While we have had our arguments over theology and rubrics of celebrating the Mass, we have had fun too. We have enjoyed bantering back and forth with each other at Masses to make you laugh. I just pray that one day his heart will be converted to liking dogs.  I hope so…his new pastor has 3 dogs!  God bless you Fr. Mark! May the people at St. Mary in Mokena be as blessed as we have been with your presence and ministry!

Father Don

 

June 21 – Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time

BLESSING PRAYER FOR FATHER’S DAY

(suggested to be given by eldest child or mother of the family)

 

Blessed are You, Lord and Father of All Life,

  who has given to us the gift of the father of our family.

   today, we honor him, and we thank You for the numerous good things

   that are ours because of him.

His love for us has been a sign of Your divine affection

   and a sharing in Your holy love.

His continuous concern for our needs and welfare

   is a mirror of Your holy providence.

And so, as we honor him,

   we praise You, Father of All Peoples.

Bless him this day with Your strength and holy power

   that he may continue to be a sign of You, our God,

   and a priestly parent to our family.

May we who have the honor of bearing his family name

   do so with great pride.

May we, the members of his family,

assist him in his holy duties as a parent

   with our respect, our obedience and our deep affection.

Bless him, Lord, with happiness and good health,

   with peace and with good fortune,

   so that he who has shared of his very life

   may live forever with You, his God and heavenly Father.

This blessing and all graces, we pray,

   descend upon the father of our family:

   in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen+

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!

Father Don

 

 

June 14 – The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

How long can a human live without food?  Given various circumstances, it varies greatly.  At age 74, Mahatma Gandhi, the famous advocate for India’s independence, survived 21 days of total starvation.  A Norther Ireland prisoner endured a 66-day hunger strike before he died.  The illusionist David Blaine had no food for 44 days in a stunt where he was sealed in a plexiglass box which was suspended over the Thames River in London.  A Japanese hiker who was lost went without food for 24 days and survived.  In the desert, Jesus went without food for 40 days.  There is an adage called the rule of threes:  You can’t live without air for three minutes, without water for three days and without food for three weeks.

In today’s Gospel Jesus tells us, “My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.”  Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ – Corpus Christi.  How long can you survive without consuming the Body and Blood of Christ?  During this COVID-19 pandemic and with our churches closed, I know many of you have been starving!  Livestreaming Mass and receiving “spiritual” communion has not quite been the same as receiving the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus in the Eucharist.  With some restrictions lifted, we are now able to celebrate the Eucharist with the maximum of 100 people present in the church.  With the parking lot Mass, more people are able to receive the Eucharist, as the number of people are not restricted, but the number of vehicles.

But what about those who do not come to Mass regularly or not at all?  Surely they must be incredibly malnourished!  I began by asking how long we can go without eating before becoming starved to death. Of course, that is for our physical existence.  But there is more to us than our bodies.  We are not just flesh and blood.  We have a soul.  And that needs to be fed as well.  Maybe people just aren’t aware of that.  But maybe some are afraid of the implications of Jesus’ statement in the Gospel today that he is true food.  The people who heard Jesus speaking the words in today’s Gospel knew well that eating and praying together implied communion.  The shocking thing Jesus did by calling himself the living bread had nothing to do with cannibalism.  The scandal was the declaration that in his very humanity he embodied divine life being offered to them.  Jesus claimed that communion with him was the way to communion with God that he already enjoyed.  What tripped them up, and perhaps us too, is that he brought God too close.  A God who is majestic and unreachable is far easier to deal with than one who invites us to communion in the here and now.  It doesn’t cost much to worship a god to whom we can offer placating sacrifices and then go on with our lives as normal.  But God who initiates communion with us is going to claim everything we are as we come to abide in Christ and allow him to abide in us.

 

Have a Blessed Week in Communion with God!

 

June 7 – The Most Holy Trinity

Here it is, the first weekend in June and we are slowing emerging from two and a half months of isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Some have used the time as an opportunity to grow spiritually and accomplish some long put off goals or projects.  Others were stressed out with the lack of community and sense of a loss of freedom and new demands that life became burdensome of a challenge.  Which are you?  For me, I think I am a combination of both.  I did spend some of the time doing spiritual reading, but I never seemed to get around to most of the projects I had planned to do.  I did get one project done…..cleaned out the basement of the rectory. At other times, I felt overwhelmed by the ever-changing directives that came from the governor and bishop. I dealt with the stress by what I call the other COVID-19…..the 19 or more pounds I put on by eating every sweet and dessert in sight.  But that is now behind me…three things I resolved on Memorial Day weekend to do:  1. Start bike riding again, which I have done every day.  2.  Pay more attention to my diet.  I have stage III kidney disease since I had a kidney removed four years ago due to cancer.  I have to reduce protein, and avoid foods high in potassium, sodium and phosphorus.  And since glucose level is at 110, I need to STOP eating bread and sweets.  3. Laugh more!  They say laughter is the best medicine, and maybe it just is the best way to deal with all the stresses of this pandemic.  So, every night when I go to bed, I take my iPad, go to YouTube and watch an episode of “I Love Lucy” or the “Carol Burnette Show” or “Hollywood Squares” or animals doing goofy things. Anything to make me laugh!  And then I try to do something each day to make someone else laugh.  That’s been the penances I’ve been giving lately, do something to make yourself laugh and do something to make someone else laugh.  Pray for me St. Philip Neri….he gave goofy penances too!

On this Trinity Sunday, God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit offers new pathways for us to reflect on his love for us and draw us into an intimate, dynamic, and life-changing relationship.  God the Father: “receives us as your own.”  The words of Moses remind us that God has created us as his own, loves us, and we belong to him. God the Son:  If we forget God’s love for us, we need only look to the cross to be reminded. God the Holy Spirit:  Our relationship with the Spirit is not an abstract proposition.  The Holy Spirit can impact our lives in concrete and life-changing ways.  The Holy Spirit pours out God’s love into our hearts.  The Holy Spirit transforms fear into freedom, isolation into community, and sends people out with purpose.  May the power of the Blessed Trinity touch your life!

Have a blessed week!

Father Don