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From the Pastor - Third Sunday of Easter

Apr 12, 2024

On this second Sunday of Easter, we celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday. We celebrate this feast today since God’s mercy was shared with us through the resurrection of Jesus. To put it simply, today, we are celebrating Jesus’ merciful love for us and how we can partake in it.


No matter where we are on our journey as a disciple of Christ, we are all in need of God’s merciful love. There are countless times throughout our day when we miss the mark. For instance, we might fail to respond in kind to our spouse or kids, fall into gossip in our workday, or even forget to think positively of others. These shortcomings call us to humble ourselves and receive the unwavering mercy of God. 


Jesus is Mercy itself. He was born into time to save us from sin. And to ensure His Mercy was always available to us, He gave us the Sacrament of Reconciliation. In our Gospel, Jesus encounters the apostles after the resurrection and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” Jesus gave us the gift of this sacrament because He wants to help us reach eternal life. He knows we cannot do it without His merciful love, and a resolve to do better and to follow Him more faithfully.


Today, may we recall the precious gift God has given to us through His Son — Mercy itself. May we never forget that, with a contrite heart and a resolution to do better, God is always willing to forgive. © Catholic Stewardship Consultants, 2024


Pastoral Pondering

I want to congratulate our fifteen neophytes who received Baptism at the Easter Vigil last weekend. Ranging in age from teenager to older adult, they are a diverse group who sincerely desire to belong to the Lord. The remaining 43 candidates will make their Profession of Faith on the eve of Pentecost.


We have been in the process of considering staff changes due to some life changes for some staff members and an evaluation of parish needs based on the recent Pastoral Planning Survey. As these changes are realized, I will keep you posted.


Emily Bixler has already taken on the responsibilities of Office Manager while maintaining some of her liturgical coordination. Leanne Vaccaro, having retired from her office position, will continue to work with OCIA and Stephen Ministry on a part-time basis. Rose George who, up until now, has been or stewardship coordinator, needed to devote more of her time to family business and Lizzy Coleman, who up until now has been working with Evangelization, wants to devote more time to her most important role as wife to Ryan and mom to their two daughters. Lizzy will continue in her position until June.


These departures have led us to look at our overall stewardship needs as well as restructuring the evangelization and faith formation departments. With Lizzy’s departure, Paul Laskowski, our Director of Evangelization and Catechesis, will need to spend more time on our various Evangelization efforts such as Evangelical Discipleship, Small Groups and the Rescue Project. We are, therefore, moving Faith Formation/Catechesis back to a separate department; albeit, while still collaborating with the overall mission of evangelization.



As we move to make our parish staff more responsive and better equipped to respond to the needs of the parish, please keep our efforts in your prayers.


From the Pastor

From the Pastor - Ascension of the Lord

By John Putnam • 10 May, 2024
We often cite Jesus’ quote from today’s Gospel of Mark: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.” This was not a suggestion from the Lord. It was quite frankly a command, and it is one which still holds for each of us. Being an evangelist, being a disciple, being a steward is not a matter of choice for those of us who are Catholic and Christian. It is something the Lord expects of us. Often, we may like to spend time debating how to do that, but that does not lessen the fact that it is something we are supposed to do. We need to acknowledge that even the original Apostles and followers of Jesus did not do that immediately. We learn that they stayed in Jerusalem for some time, and it seemed to be only when the Church and its followers were persecuted that they began to reach out and truly share the “Good News.” Once Christians accepted that charge from the Lord, they did indeed take the Word of God to all corners of the earth. Look at the Church today. It is incredible how this Church has grown from one Man/God and a small group into what it is today. That does not, however, get us “off the hook.” As much as we may argue about how to carry out this command from Jesus, the fact remains that our very lives need to stand as a representation of what it means to be a Christian, what it means to “love one another,” what it means to live and to work as a disciple of Christ. © Catholic Stewardship Consultants, 2024 Pastoral Pondering Over the past couple of weeks, there has been a lot of attention in the news cycle concerning various pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses, including UNC Chapel Hill. Some have become violent and most, at the time I am writing this, have been addressed by law enforcement. However, I thought it would be a good time to recall the conflict in the Holy Land which is ongoing. As a member of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem, a papal chivalric and philanthropical order, I have a special concern for the plight of the Christians in the Holy Land. These brothers and sisters of ours are, in a very real way, caught between Scylla and Charybdis, the monsters of Odysseus Book XII. The Christians in the Holy Land are for the most part Palestinian, so they are often caught between the Islamists on the one hand and the Jewish community on the other. Their plight at times is very difficult. The conflict that arose because of the atrocities perpetrated against Israelis on October 7 th by the terrorist group Hamas, was to be expected, but we must always remember that in these conflicts, there are always innocent victims. The Holy Father, Pope Francis, has been consistent in calling for some type of settlement both in this conflict as well as the one in Ukraine so that deaths might be minimized, and the innocent might not become victims. There are any number of forces who want world conflicts to be ongoing; some for ideological reasons, some for financial gain, and some, I’m sure, who operate out their own sense of righteousness. For us Christians, however, we are always called to pray for peace. We must do what we can to in instruments of peace in the world that seems more and more determined to self-destruct in one way or another. Please pray for the Christian community in the Holy Land. Pray that they might be protected in the midst of the fighting and pray that peace may soon be restored.

From the Pastor - Sixth Sunday of Easter

By John Putnam • 03 May, 2024
Our readings today call us to love as Christ loves. In our Gospel, Jesus says, “Love one another as I have loved you.” The ways Jesus has loved us and continues to love us are endless. We are called to imitate this love. And He tells us the greatest way to do this when He said, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” It is difficult to live that out in our humanity. Yet, it is made much easier when we faithfully love Christ. The fact of the matter is, as our love for Christ increases, so too does our capacity to love others. There are countless moments when we can do just that — for instance, waking up Saturday morning to attend daily Mass instead of sleeping in, or talking to God in the car on the way to work instead of listening to music. These are simple ways to express our love for the Lord by laying down our lives for Him. The more we find ways to love the Lord, the more we will find it easier to put aside our selfishness and serve others. Christ’s command to love others may seem daunting. Yet, Christ would never ask something of us that we cannot live out. All we need to do is take baby steps. Ask yourself, "How can I better love Jesus right now?" for it is in loving Christ that we will better love others, and it is in loving others that we love Christ Himself. © Catholic Stewardship Consultants, 2024 Pastoral Pondering  Last week I had the opportunity of spending the afternoon with my childhood pastor, the Reverend Fred Thompson. He served as the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Newton, NC for over 30 years. He is now 91 years old and continues to live a fairly independent life. We lost touch when my family moved from Newton to Hickory as I began grammar school but reconnected during my undergraduate studies at Lenoir-Rhyne College. We have stayed in touch since then. Such connections from the past are very important. At least in my case, Fred knew things about my parents and my adoption that I never did, and he is always happy to share a story or two. I bring this up because memory, what we refer to in the Mass as anamnesis, is essential not only to our faith but to society as a whole. Our collective memory is important. Significant events of the past are passed on from one generation to the next, and we hopefully learn from our mistakes so that we don’t repeat them. In the Catholic context, we are being obedient to Christ’s command at the Last Supper, do this in memory of me.” And it is through that remembrance that we cannot the past with the present and look with hope to the future – Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again. This is why Sacred Tradition is so very important to our understanding of the Faith. That which is handed over (traditio) is essential because it forms the framework upon which the Church travels throughout the centuries. The same is true in families. In the past multiple generations would live together or in close proximity to each other. Children learned about life from a variety of family members with varying degrees of lived experience and a wealth of memory. With our society becoming more transitory and human interaction being impoverished by the reality of technology, families need to be very intentional about connecting with the past. It helps us all understand who we are, why we are here and for what we were made.
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