Dear friends,
Thank you for your patient endurance of the current inconveniences during this first phase of our construction project. I ask you to embrace them with charity – in hopeful anticipation of the promises they hold – and invite you to consider this time of “labor pain” as necessary for deliverance of the joys to come. Thank you in advance for your patient understanding and kind consideration.
Deacon Tom Tagye has served the parishioners of St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church since April 2013, and I am deeply grateful for his love and dedication to so many ministries, particularly the Ministry to the Sick. In addition to liturgical commitments, he has visited countless people in hospitals, nursing homes, and private homes to bring the comforting presence of Christ to the infirm, suffering, lonely, and depressed. Despite his own physical challenges during the past several years, Deacon Tom has continued to serve SJE with a huge smile and unwavering commitment. He and his wife Terri have been happily married since August 19, 1967, and have seven adult children, 20 grandchildren, and four great- grandchildren. I take this occasion to thank Deacon Tom for his presence in ministering to the wonderful people of St. John’s and wish him a very blessed, relaxed, and well-deserved retirement. And while we will continue to see the Tagyes around our campus, we’d like to thank Terri for her continued dedication to several ministries at SJE.
On this 33rd Sunday, we are nearing the end of the liturgical year, and the Scripture readings invite us to focus on the end of life when the Son of Man will come in the clouds with great power and glory to gather his elect (Mark 13: 26-27). Daniel, likewise, points out that on that day, “many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake; some shall live forever, others shall be an everlasting horror and disgrace” (Daniel 12: 2). As Catholics, we at SJE are preparing for that day when we shall be counted among those of the elect written in the book who will be judged worthy to live forever. Let us pray along with the psalmist (16: 9-11), “My heart is glad and my soul rejoices … because you will not abandon my soul to the netherworld … for You will show me the path to life, fullness of joys in your presence, and delights at your right hand forever.”
We have a number of events occurring in the next few weeks, so I’d like to highlight some of the more important ones:
20 November 2021: Packing food for the Children’s Hunger Project at 9 a.m.
24 November 2021: Vigil Mass of Thanksgiving at 7 p.m.
25 November 2021: Thanksgiving Mass at 10 a.m.
27/28 November 2021: First Sunday of Advent
29 and 30 November and 1 December 2021: Advent Mission at 7 p.m.
With love, Fr. John
Let us also continue our reflection on the Eucharist found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
ARTICLE 3: THE SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST
- THE PASCHAL BANQUET The fruits of Holy Communion
1391 Holy Communion augments our union with Christ. The principal fruit of receiving the Eucharist in Holy Communion is an intimate union with Christ Jesus. Indeed, the Lord said: "He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” (John 6:56). Life in Christ has its foundation in the Eucharistic banquet: "As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me" (John 6: 57).
On the feasts of the Lord, when the faithful receive the Body of the Son, they proclaim to one another the Good News that the first fruits of life have been given, as when the angel said to Mary Magdalene, "Christ is risen!" Now too are life and resurrection conferred on whoever receives Christ (Fanqith, Syriac Office of Antioch, Vol. I, Commun., 237a-b).
1392 What material food produces in our bodily life, Holy Communion wonderfully achieves in our spiritual life. Communion with the flesh of the risen Christ, a flesh "given life and giving life through the Holy Spirit"(PO 5), preserves, increases, and renews the life of grace received at Baptism. This growth in Christian life needs the nourishment of Eucharistic Communion, the bread for our pilgrimage until the moment of death, when it will be given to us as viaticum.
1393 Holy Communion separates us from sin. The body of Christ we receive in Holy Communion is "given up for us," and the blood we drink "shed for the many for the forgiveness of sins." For this reason the Eucharist cannot unite us to Christ without at the same time cleansing us from past sins and preserving us from future sins:
For as often as we eat this bread and drink the cup, we proclaim the death of the Lord. If we proclaim the Lord's death, we proclaim the forgiveness of sins. If, as often as his blood is poured out, it is poured for the forgiveness of sins, I should always receive it, so that it may always forgive my sins. Because I always sin, I should always have a remedy (St. Ambrose, De Sacr. 4,6,28:PL 16,446; cf. 1 Cor 11:26).
Be Blessed! With love, Fr. John