Sunday, August 21st, 2022 – Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time - Cycle C Readings: Isaiah 66:18-21, Psalm 117 “Go out to all the world and tell the Good News”, Hebrews 12:5-7, 11-13, Luke 13:22-30

     My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we wish to welcome all our students, faculty and staff to the new academic year 2022-2023. The beginning of the new school year is an opportunity to ask God’s blessings on the school community in the coming year and to help prepare the hearts of students, parents, teachers and staff. We kindly ask all parishioners to help the students feel at home in our faith community. We begin our religious education this Sunday, and we wish to thank all our students and catechists for their desire to participate in sharing the faith and growing in it.
    We live our faith through the profession of faith (the creed), the celebration of the Christian Mystery, Life in Christ, and Christian prayer. There is the need for us to better understand the faith we profess. When we profess the creed in the liturgy, we keep the principal truths of the faith alive in memory. In the celebration of the Christian Mystery, the proclamation of the Gospel finds its authentic response in the sacramental life, through which we experience and witness, in every moment of our existence, the saving power of the paschal mystery by which Christ accomplishes our redemption. Life in Christ recalls the ways through which we manifest our commitments to the faith we profess and celebrate, through our actions and ethical choices. We are called by the Lord Jesus to act in a way which befits our dignity as children of the Father in the love of the Holy Spirit.
    May this year be a time to reaffirm, renew and deepen our faith. To do this we are invited to reflect on our faith in God. Devote time each day in reading the Word of God, because your faith will be strengthened by the power of the Word. In Roman 10:17 we read that “faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes from what is preached”. Devote time for your personal prayer. Constantly ask the Blessed Mother Mary to intercede for you and may we learn from her faith journey. Ask pardon from God in the sacrament of reconciliation. May the Lord fill us with his blessing and lead us along the right path.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen
Fr. Paschal Chester, SVD