News - May 2024 RSS Feed

Thank you Maeve for providing a great bulletin

Renewal is at the heart of the Christian journey. We are, as the documents of Vatican II say, “a church that is always holy and always in need of renewal” (Lumen Gentium nr8). We are holy because we are the body of Christ, and we need renewal because the Holy Spirit has called sinners to repent and be renewed in body and mind. St. Paul has this as a major theme throughout his writings and we see a huge shift in the way that Jesus would be remembered in this Gospel scene. As we gather to celebrate the Body and Blood of Christ, we remember that Jesus was starting a whole new way of encountering God in Faith. He was renewing the way that people encountered God. We need to remember that the original covenant with the Jewish people was being changed by Jesus and that, as God, he has the authority to do this and to signify what is the method of remembering the new covenant. The genius of this renewal is its simplicity and availability. It is a taking in of God so that we might become new people too. We are to remember that God loves us, that the new covenant is open to all, and that it is the work of God’s presence in us that changes us. Of course, we are urged to cooperate freely by the way we live our lives and that also is part of the new covenant. Now we are called to not only receive God’s love, but also share it with others.

The Pentecost Challenge: We invited those to come to the front of the Altar if they’ve experienced the Holy Spirit actively this past year. We will also want to be able to see, in a concrete way, the spiritual growth in our parish. 

Immediately following 9:00 AM mass on 5.26.2024, we will be doing a Memorial Day blessing on the Greenway. Everyone is welcome to join us directly after the mass.

This week we begin Ordinary time, after finishing the Easter season on Sunday with the feast of Pentecost. It was amazing to see how many people came forward to give witness to their faith that Jesus had touched them or that they had encountered the Holy Spirit in some way.

This week’s second collection supports the formation and training of seminarians in the Archdiocese of Boston for service, we pray, as future priests.

Let us come together and join the Salem Prayer Project, which aims to uplift every street, business, and home in Salem through your prayers.

This week we gather to celebrate the Feast of the Pentecost, celebrating the descent of the Holy Spirit as Jesus promised and to mark the beginning (officially) of the Church. It is a moment to remember that God has a big plan and that we have been included in it as participants and recipients.

Next week’s second collection supports the formation and training of seminarians in the Archdiocese of Boston for future service as priests.

Last week I began to discuss what it means to evangelize and this week I would like to begin to look at it more closely. I am relying on the work and quoting from some of the books by Sherry Weddell, a well-known and respected author on the topic of Evangelization in the Catholic Church. However, before we go too far, pre-evangelizing is what we also need to think about. One way that we pre-evangelize or get ready to talk to anyone about Jesus and being his disciple is by first living our faith in a way that makes others notice. We need to be welcoming to those who are seeking and ready to provide a positive experience for them.

Come Holy Spirit

We invite you to read through the 3rd edition of the Salem Council newsletter. Many thanks to their editor, Richard Olivier, for putting this together!

Join us on May 9th at 6:30 PM for mass at IC to celebrate the Ascension of the Lord followed by a delicious potluck meal.

Join MQOA for a retreat! Get away from the busyness of everyday life so you can connect with each other and connect with God. The day includes music, food, laughs, videos, small group discussions, and prayer ministry. 

In the past few weeks, I have been preaching about the importance of evangelizing and remembering that this is everyone’s work. The clearest evidence of this is the first few pages of the Acts of the Apostles, which we read during the Easter season. All the disciples (with the guidance of the Apostles and strengthened by the Holy Spirit) were going out to preach in Jerusalem. There were some great successes, even amid challenges and outright violence against them. They prayed, studied, and gathered to remember Jesus in the early forms of the Mass at Eucharistic meals. Then they went off to where they were prompted by the Holy Spirit to preach and sometimes to perform miracles. The Easter season is when we remember that Jesus invited us to be his witnesses to the world.