This weekend we celebrate how we can allow ourselves to be lead by the Holy Spirit. To permit the Holy Spirit to take control of our lives: by constantly remembering His Holy Presence and behaving well; by praying for His daily anointing so that we may fight against our temptations and control our evil tendencies, evil habits, and addictions; by asking His daily assistance to pray, listening to God through meditative Bible reading, and talking to Him by personal, family and liturgical prayers; and by asking the help of the Holy Spirit to do good for others and to be reconciled with God and others every day.

This weekend we celebrate the Ascension of the Lord; Jesus Assends to be with his Father in heaven. This should not come as a surprise to any of his disciples, nor to us because He had told them what was going to happen.

Before he Ascends, he charges his disciples to go make disciples of all nations and also assures them that he will be with them always. Very soon we will celebrate Pentecost which is the descent of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit which we received at baptism, at confirmation and the one who hovers over the waters and the earth to help guide us and to direct our journey toward our heavenly homeland.

We as human beings show our love to others in different ways: we do it with words, giving gifts, taking others to favorite places they like to visit. We express our love for others in different ways, but the love that Jesus asks of us today in the gospel goes beyond a feeling.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments… He who accepts my commandments and keeps them, he loves me” (John 14:15-21).

The first reading today gives us the account of the ordination of the first Deacons of the Church. I would like to share with you some of the prayers the Bishop says at the ordination of Deacons in our time.

Collect

God, who have taught the ministers of your Church to seek not to be served but to serve their brothers and sisters, grant, we pray, that these your servants, whom you graciously choose today for the office of Deacon, may be effective in action, gentle in ministry, and constant in prayer.

While we pray for the success of our Church Repair, We know that Jesus is our Good Shepherd who truly tends us, feeds us and loves us.

He said, "I am the gate" which means, in and through him alone we have life and salvation. His Good News of peace, righteousness and justice is our gate to enter into eternal life; Acknowledging Him as our Saviour is the gateway towards the kingdom of Heaven.

After having traveled the "Lenten Path" with its message and invitation to "conversion and believe in the Gospel", in addition to receiving every Sunday the proposal of the gospels (Temptation, Transfiguration, Samaritan, Blind from birth, Resurrection of Lazarus and Palm Sunday) we begin Easter time, which goes hand in hand with Lent.

Our faith is sustained in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, as Pope Francis said in his homily at the Easter Vigil on April 8: "This is what the Lord's Easter accomplishes: it encourages us to go forward, to overcome the feeling of defeat, to remove the stone from the tombs in which we often enclose hope, to look to the future with confidence, because Christ rose and changed the course of history.”

A young, engaged couple sat on the couch in front of me as we chatted about their upcoming marriage. The young lady was struggling to trust her future husband. She told me her father had been unfaithful to her mother. She said of her fiancé, “I want him to prove to me that he won’t cheat on me.” The young man looked at me helplessly, raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders. What evidence could he possibly give to validate such a proof? Nothing. All he could do was invite her to trust him.

Happy Easter Christ has Risen! Alleluia!

Jesus Christ, who was brutally put to death and buried, is alive again through the power of God. The message of Easter, the message of the Resurrection is that “he has been raised from the dead”, Jesus Christ was victorious over sin and death for the salvation of mankind!

You may know the number 4-1-1 as what you may have used in the past to call for “information,” but did you know that 4-11 (April 11th) is the feast day of our patron saint-St. Stanislaus of Krakow? While we are entering into Holy Week this week, beginning with Palm Sunday, let us take a day to also celebrate the patron saint of our parish. St. Stanislaus was canonized in 1253 and was the archbishop of Krakow, Poland.

We are approaching the end of Lent, and already the readings for this 5th Sunday anticipate us and speak to us about the resurrection.

In the Gospel Jesus raised Lazarus not to give a show of his power, but so that his contemporaries would believe in the resurrection. The raising of Lazarus is a foretaste of the resurrection of Jesus himself and of ours. Jesus raised Lazarus from natural death and Lazarus had to die again, but he will rise once more to eternal life; that is the promise of Jesus (John 11:24-26). Jesus will resurrect all of us who believe in Him to eternal life, that is our faith and hope of all of us who believe in Jesus.

We see what we want to see. If I know I will not like a place before I get there, I will find all the reasons why I don’t like it; but if I keep a positive mind, I will find many reasons to like it. The same happens if I don’t like someone, I will never see the goodness in that person; but if I keep an open mind, I may see it. In the Gospel, the blind recovers the sight and was very happy, but the Pharisees could only see that it was done on the Sabbath. Would the Pharisees have been more supportive if this had been done on another day? I doubt it, they only saw what they wanted to see, and they would have found another reason to dislike Jesus.

Greetings my parish family!

Thank you to all of you who have already given to this year’s BMA campaign. If you still haven’t given or made a pledge, please do so, as I would like all the families of the parish to participate this year. The back of the bulletin has information for giving online or you may find some envelopes at the entrance of the church. I need everyone’s help with this!

Dear friends,

I invite you to take the text of Romans 12:2 which says: "And do not accommodate yourselves to the present world, rather transform yourselves by renewing your mind, so that you can distinguish what is the will of God: good, the pleasant, the perfect”. The apostle's words serve us to start this time of preparation for Easter. Lent is a whole “path through the desert”, like what the Hebrews did for forty years. It is time to make a "stop" on the road to ask ourselves about the purpose of our life.