Happy Easter to all!

The journey through Holy Week is always one of highs and lows - walking with Jesus during the dark hours of Holy Thursday and bearing witness to His suffering on the Cross on Good Friday, and the joy of the Risen Lord on Easter Day. It is a pattern that Christians have gone through for hundreds of years, but it remains a faith-affirming period where our personal relationship with God is made manifest in the Risen Lord on Easter Day.

Journeying through Holy Week is a very personal experience and is borne from a personal relationship with God. As we experience the uncertainty and loss, as the disciples did after Jesus was arrested at the Garden of Gethsemane, we emerge through it all to experience the wondrous joy of Christ's resurrection and a personal promise to each of us for life everlasting.

To everyone and especially our visitors in this blog, we wish you the joy of the Resurrection of Jesus! Happy Easter to everyone!

Praying for our new Pope

Lent is a privileged time for us to listen to the voice of God in prayer. Like Jesus we must find our own “desert place" where we can listen to God without distraction.  

In Lent we set aside extra  times to go to our "desert place" -- whether it be in church or in nature or in the quiet of our hearts — to listen for God's voice in the solitude of prayer.

Our new shepherd of the church, Pope Francis I, also sees the need of prayer in his life. We saw this when he expressed his spiritual need to the people in Saint Peter’s Square asking them to pray for him.

Together, let us say this prayer for our new spiritual leader in the church:

O Lord, guide Pope Francis I in the way of Jesus. May the Gospel inspire him and may truth be his guiding force. Give him wisdom, zeal and the gift of governance as he leads the Church on the journey to your Kingdom. Amen.