Dear Friends,
As we enter into the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time we are in the penultimate Sunday to the last week of the Liturgical Year. The readings of the past few weeks were reminding us of the last days and how we must be prepared like the wise virgins who carried the flask of oil with them so that they wouldn’t be caught off guard. This week the Scriptures remind us that the day of the Lord will come like a thief at night (1 Thess 5:2) and that God will ask an account of the talents/gifts that he had lavished us with at birth. What did you do with the talents that I had given you will be the resounding question put forth to us by our Master. What answer would you give him? And what would be his response to your accounts? Well done, my good and faithful servant? Or throw this useless servant into the darkness outside? Some tough questions to ponder there.
On Saturday, November 21st 2020 we will do our Annual Food Packing Event for the Children’s Hunger Project. This project has been very dear to us and we are proud of teaming up the Children’s Hunger Project to accomplish packing of 5000 + food packets every year. Our response has always been astounding. Due to Covid-19 we will not be able to do large numbers this year. This year we will do in two shifts. Please see the bulletin for details related to signing up. We will be following Covid safety precautions.
Since October 2018, the Office of Statewide Prosecution has been investigating into the Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church in Florida. The Office of Statewide Prosecution has released the results of the investigation on November 6, 2020. The report said that this investigation did not find any instances indicating children in Florida were currently in immediate danger of sexual abuse by priests. In the cases that were identified the prosecution of those allegations has been barred by either the applicable statute of limitations or intervening death of the accused priest. Our Bishop John Noonan has released a video response to the report which is available in the Diocesan Website. The report says in conclusion: “This investigation did not uncover any current or ongoing, unreported sexual abuse by priests or criminal conduct by the Church. . . This investigation uncovered that in the mid to late 1980s the Florida Province began to take allegations of sexual abuse more seriously and over time the seriousness that it took against such depraved acts increased and culminated when the Florida Province adopted the Charter in 2002. From the investigation, it appeared that the Florida Province is notifying appropriate authorities in writing of every allegation made against a priest. The Province cooperated fully in this investigation, including the bishops and archbishops. The Province seems committed to righting past wrongs, practicing zero-tolerance, and complying fully and timely with Florida’s reporting requirements in every instance of suspected abuse.
Last year, Florida changed its statute of limitations (HB 199) with respect to sexual abuse. Florida law also has evolved with respect to how sexual abuse is defined. Both these legal hurdles prevented this investigation from resulting in any prosecutions. With these hurdles removed, any future, similar misconduct should be able to be prosecuted.” St Paul again urges the Thessalonians (1 Thess 5: 5-6): “For all of you are children of the day. We are not of the night or of darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep as the rest do, but let us stay alert and sober.”
Be Blessed!
With love, Fr. John
Ecclesia De Eucharistia
- The Eucharist creates communion and fosters communion. Saint Paul wrote to the faithful of Corinth explaining how their divisions, reflected in their Eucharistic gatherings, contradicted what they were celebrating, the Lord's Supper. The Apostle then urged them to reflect on the true reality of the Eucharist in order to return to the spirit of fraternal communion (cf. 1 Cor 11:17- 34). Saint Augustine effectively echoed this call when, in recalling the Apostle's words: “You are the body of Christ and individually members of it” (1 Cor 12: 27), he went on to say: “If you are his body and members of him, then you will find set on the Lord's table your own mystery. Yes, you receive your own mystery” (Sermo272: PL 38, 1247). And from this observation he concludes: “Christ the Lord... hallowed at his table the mystery of our peace and unity. Whoever receives the mystery of unity without preserving the bonds of peace receives not a mystery for his benefit but evidence against himself” (Ibid., 1248).
- The Eucharist's particular effectiveness in promoting communion is one of the reasons for the importance of Sunday Mass. I have already dwelt on this and on the other reasons which make Sunday Mass fundamental for the life of the Church and of individual believers in my Apostolic Letter on the sanctification of Sunday Dies Domini (Cf. Nos. 31-51: AAS 90 (1998), 731-746). There I recalled that the faithful have the obligation to attend Mass, unless they are seriously impeded, and that Pastors have the corresponding duty to see that it is practical and possible for all to fulfil this precept (Cf. ibid., Nos. 48-49: AAS 90 (1998), 744). More recently, in my Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte, in setting forth the pastoral path which the Church must take at the beginning of the third millennium, I drew particular attention to the Sunday Eucharist, emphasizing its effectiveness for building communion. “It is” – I wrote – “the privileged place where communion is ceaselessly proclaimed and nurtured. Precisely through sharing in the Eucharist, the Lord's Day also becomes the Day of the Church, when she can effectively exercise her role as the sacrament of unity” (No. 36: AAS 93 (2001), 291-292).
- The safeguarding and promotion of ecclesial communion is a task of each member of the faithful, who finds in the Eucharist, as the sacrament of the Church's unity, an area of special concern. More specifically, this task is the particular responsibility of the Church's Pastors, each according to his rank and ecclesiastical office. For this reason the Church has drawn up norms aimed both at fostering the frequent and fruitful access of the faithful to the Eucharistic table and at determining the objective conditions under which communion may not be given. The care shown in promoting the faithful observance of these norms becomes a practical means of showing love for the Eucharist and for the Church.