I heard a politician in Chile tell a story about a government official, from the capital city, going to a small town in the mountains to announce the government was going to be installing a new electrical grid there. This particular town was one of the poorest in the country and very little had changed in a hundred years. The crowd greeted the official's announcement with silence. He went on that the new system would be state-of-the-art, low-cost, and would revolutionize jobs in the area.

It’s the end of the summer here in Arizona. (You wouldn’t know it by the temperatures…) Students are back in school, most everyone is back from vacations, the Cardinals are 0-3 in the pre-season. Yes, summer is giving way to autumn…

For the past few weeks we’ve heard special invitations and information about being baptized as an adult or receiving the sacraments of Holy Communion and Confirmation through the OCIA (Order of Christian Initiation as Adults). Please keep reading this bulletin for more information about the open-house. Ask anyone who’s gone through it over the years and you’ll hear remarkable stories of spiritual transformation or renewal and building community - in many cases lifelong friendships.

Those who are “history buffs” of Early Christianity, as I am, may know that the first Christians in Rome and Greece were infamous among their pagan neighbors for rescuing abandoned babies. Infamous because those first Christians would go out at night and listen for abandoned babies crying. Then they brought the little ones into their homes, protected them, and raised them with love.

We just celebrated the great day on which Mary was assumed body and soul into heaven. Although the Church has always and everywhere believed that Mary “having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory” it was not formally defined as dogma until 1950. Venerable Pope Pius XII wrote in Munificentissimus Deus (say that a couple times fast…) that Mary “by an entirely unique privilege, completely overcame sin by her Immaculate Conception, and as a result she was not subject to the law of remaining in the corruption of the grave, and she did not have to wait until the end of time for the redemption of her body.”

To impress your friends you might share with them that the Catholic Church reads through the synoptic gospels on a 3-year cycle at our Sunday Masses. For example last year's weekly gospels were from Matthew and next year will be Luke. That of course means this year we are mostly reading Mark. Mostly, because Mark is the shortest gospel and to "cover" three weeks in the middle of Ordinary Time we have been reading from John 6.

Happy St. John Vianney Day to all in our parish! Today is a very special day indeed, in fact a “solemnity” in our parish, granted by our Bishop and the Church to us in honor of our holy patron, the parish priest of Ars, France, Saint Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney (which, being quite a mouthful - and in a French accent - we shortened to John Vianney in English…)

This past Friday, July 26, we celebrated the feast day of Saints Anne & Joachim, Mary’s parents - and so the grandparents of Our Lord. There is a tradition that says they were unable to conceive for a very long time in their marriage. Like holy Abraham and Sarah (and others in Israel’s history) they kept faith in God and continued to pray for a child of their own.

Every three years our United States Province of the Congregation of Holy Cross meets in a formal Provincial Chapter. This is sort of like a cross between a family meeting and retreat… It is an opportunity for those we elect as delegates to discern the Holy Spirit’s will for us as a religious order.

Our parish, like many, considers July 1 as the beginning of the new “fiscal year.” There’s no theology behind this, rather it’s an administrative way to wrap up the previous year’s accounting and operations and get ready for the new year. Hard as it is to believe, the school students begin classes in three weeks and around the corner are the new OCIA classes, charity drives, and fall activities.

I got a fair amount of feedback from last week’s “From the Pastor” in which I proposed a comparison to the television character Ned Flanders. Thank you for sharing your thoughts - both the laughs and critique - I really am grateful that anyone reads this at all (besides dear Mom checking online from Ohio…)