You know that I often take this space to thank everyone who worked hard to make our major Holy Days beautiful celebrations. I wanted talk to you about Blessed John Paul II last week, but don’t let that make you think I am, or we should be, any less grateful.
A lot of people worked very hard to make the church beautiful, and Yvette Burgess and Jessica Barsch oversaw all that work brilliantly. Richard Fitzgerald and Camille Frezzo and our choristers and musicians made for an elevating and splendid liturgical setting. I am always proud of my altar servers, who really have to work extra hard through all those complicated Triduum liturgies. And our ushers and Ministers of Holy Communion helped us take care of all the folks who came to share and partake. Thank you all.
My especial thanks to Liz Morelli and everyone who prepared the hospitality and egg hunt on the lawn. That has become a very happy custom here and I think it helps our many visitors experience the gracious nature of our parish community. Whoever ordered the beautiful weather we got Easter Sunday – congrats, you nailed it!
Thanks to our Scouts for kindling the New Fire, and to our counters for handling the offerings that I promise we try not to burn through. Also, our parish staff, especially Dao, and Norma and the sacristy team, all put in many an extra hour. The lists of details that need to be taken care of would amaze you.
I also want to express my personal thanks to everyone who went to the effort to find and greet my parents on Easter. Ordinarily if left to their own devices, they would simply slip quietly off to the rectory; but that way they would never get the chance to meet you, who are in a very real way my family. So I am grateful you were willing and able to hunt them down welcome them. They got some small idea of why I like you all so much!
Also, thanks to everyone who inquired about my family after the tornadoes in Alabama. As you gathered, everyone was in fact up here when the storms hit, so they are safe. They and their immediate neighbors did have some damage, but it was minor. Nearby some more serious storm damage is visible, and they are close enough to the real destruction that everybody knows somebody who got hit very badly. The destruction is astonishing, according to them, as is the persistence of the stricken people in carrying on nonetheless. Let us keep them all in our prayers.
Congratulations to our First Communicants who entered into our Eucharistic Communion this weekend. The Holy Eucharist is of course one of my favorite things, and all the more is it a delight for me to offer it for the first time to children. Somehow they are often able to grasp the reality of the gift of Jesus’ Body and Blood more clearly and simply than we adults. May their insight and enthusiasm fill us all with a hunger and a gratitude for this awesome, life-giving gift and mystery.
Praised be Jesus Christ! Now and forever.
Monsignor Smith
