Sunday Liturgy

Saturday: 5:00 pm

Sunday: 11:00 am

Mission Statement

We are a welcoming Christian community called to embrace and respect the uniqueness of each individual as we join together in our faith and worship.  Our ongoing   mission is to engage our youth, promote renewal, out reach, evangelization and ecumenical cooperation.

MASS INTENTIONS FOR THE WEEK

PRIEST’S RETREAT:  There will be NO Weekday Mass Tuesday thru Thursday this week, as the Priests are on retreat

May 11 – May 15.  Please pray for our Bishop and Priests.

Monday, May 11th – 9:00 am                           Dorothy & John Sheehan                                                                                                                                             Tuesday, May 12th - 12Noon Funeral Mass - Lynn Enman                                         

Saturday, May 16th – 5:00 pm                         Raymond Keleher (Anniv)                                                        

Sunday, May 17th – 11:00 am                          Deceased Members of Doherty and Loughery Families

Weekly Reflections (Homily) from Msgr. Sheehan (May 8th, 2026)

SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER  

Dear friends:

            Have you ever felt abandoned?  Have you ever felt orphaned?...

            There are thousands and thousands of people these days, as we speak, that feel and are for the first time in their lives refugees… from the Ukraine… and many other war-torn countries…  Thank God, our country is trying to not let them be orphaned or abandoned.

            But you can feel abandoned or orphaned without losing your home, your parents, your country…  A sense of loss can overcome us without experiencing visibly or markedly losing a person – or a place… or something material.

            It happens where we deeply feel that we have lost our direction, our composure, our ability to control our destiny.

            It happens when our sense of need is greater than ever… when we realize how much the person or things we depend on – or used to depend on are not there… or are threatened in some way, or are to be jeopardized.

            The situation or environment creates anxiety, and worry… and grief.

            We intensely want things to revert to where they were before… but they will not… they cannot.

            So we look for new assurances… for ways that we will be able to cope, without… those things or persons we formerly counted on and depended on.

            There is much about all these things in the environment of Jesus’ farewell discourse to his disciples…

            Last week we saw that Jesus spoke to them for the need to “trust”… to not let “their hearts be troubled…” for “keep on believing” in God… and in him.

            This week the same discourse continues… again it is within the environment or circumstance of his impending departure… they feel that they will be lost, abandoned, forsaken… “orphaned”… unable to “cope”… they came to depend on his presence… and they realize they loved him.

            So he simply begins:

            “If you love me… you will keep my commandments…”

            This does not mean a commandment or a rule… but a way of life… a way of life that he has shown them by what he has taught them, by the way he lived with them, and all that he shared with them… by his word and action…

            And he tells them – firstly that if they really love him – they will follow that way of life… that is “keeping his commandments.”

            That in itself will bring us great blessings – but more – if we do this – he says – “I will ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate – to be with you forever.

            This Advocate will be as the word says – a helper…

            This is what we need when we feel lost, abandoned, dejected… sometimes it takes another person to say – “Buddy, you need help…”

            Jesus gives us a helper… “to be with” somebody to be with us… so that we are not abandoned, orphaned… and that Advocate, the Spirit… “will remain with you” and not only will “remain with you, but will abide with you – and is in you.”

            “Not only will the Spirit help you, be with you, dwell in you – I will return… I am coming to you… though “the world” will not see me or recognize me… you will see me… I will be living… and you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you…”

            “You are not alone… “you are not abandoned”… you are not orphaned…”

            “Live up to all I have asked you and taught you… you will in that way love me… and you will be loved by my Father – and I will love you… and reveal myself to you.”

            We are at the center of the Christian message, dear friends in these reflective Sundays after Easter.  The texts bring home again and again the same message:

            “Live the commandment of love… the Father, the Spirit and I – dwell within you… you will bear much fruit… you are one with one another… and you are certainly never alone.  AMEN”