As I begin this eBulletin article, I want to thank Kim Karmirantzos for her hard work and dedication to our Parish in her role as Pastoral Associate for Community Engagement and Communications. She has done a fantastic job over the years and worked especially hard over the last two years during the COVID pandemic. She…
On Tuesday, we continued with our Lenten retreat called From Here to Eternity: How to Live and Die Well. During this third session, I again talked about death as the birthing process into eternal life and our roles as midwives to our loved ones. To this well, we need to know more about the dying…
Last Tuesday, we continued our Lenten retreat called From Here to Eternity: How to Live and Die Well. During this second session, I emphasized that death is more a birth into eternal life than the end of our earthly life. As such, then our role as disciples of Christ is to help those dying to…
Last Tuesday, we started the Lenten retreat called From Here to Eternity: How to Live and Die Well. During this first session, I covered our Catholic belief in the resurrection and the communion of saints and how those affect our approach to death itself. If we know we are destined for eternity life, then the…
I just arrived back from St. Monica’s Parish in Santa Monica, CA where I presented to them the Cairns on the Second Mountain of Life retreat that I gave at St. Simon’s last year. It was very well received and lots of people came to the sessions each night. It was a particularly healing trip…
All of this weekend and next week, I am away giving a retreat at St. Monica Parish, Santa Monica, CA. It will be the retreat I gave last year here at St. Simon, Cairns on the Second Mountain of Life, with some modifications to localize it. St. Monica Parish is a mega parish with over…
Over the last several weeks, I have shared some insights about the mental health continuum and how important it is that we become aware of what contributes to good mental wellness. Last week, I shared how traumas can often cause us to slide down the continuum, sometimes without us becoming aware of it. I…
As we continue our short 4-minute series on the mental health ministry Hope & Wellness, we will now focus our attention on how we move from the wellness part of the mental health continuum to the illness part of the continuum. While it is more complex than we will lay out, there are some basics…
On Friday, February 11, the Church celebrated the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes and the World Day of the Sick. It is a recognition of the importance to pray and care for those who are ill in our community and in our world. Jesus always had a preferential option for the sick and constantly…
“The Joy of the Gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness. With Christ, joy is constantly born anew…I wish to encourage the Christian faithful to embark upon a new chapter of evangelization marked by this joy,…