Pastor's Weekly Message
Second Sunday of Easter, 26-27 April 2025
Dear Fellow Saints-in-the-Making,
Greetings in Christ the Risen Lord! ALLELUIA!
We continue to celebrate the glorious Resurrection of Jesus Christ as the exultant and sacred Season of Easter lengthens, much like our lengthening days. God, in His infinite Wisdom, created our world in such a way that we, in the Northern Hemisphere, experience the lengthening of daylight during the Easter Season and so have our faith animated by the parallelism of the conquering of the night by the light of day in nature and the conquering of the night of death by the Jesus the Light of the world. Those in the Southern Hemisphere have the experience of longer nights but radiant skies filled with stars that remind them that the Light Who is Christ shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome Him (John 1:5). Alleluia!
As May begins and we turn our hearts to deepening our devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, we hear in this weekend’s Gospel, Peter and six other disciples get into a boat to go fishing. A strange phenomenon, since they have encountered the Risen Jesus several times. Why would they go back to their former way of life? Indeed, after having such an intense encounter with Him Who is the Resurrection and the Life and under the unprecedented circumstances of His Resurrection, how can anyone revert to one’s former way of life? The disciples’ turning back to what they once were is as if they have hung a “Gone Fishin’” sign on their discipleship, meaning, they have closed up shop, avoided their responsibility of sharing the Good News, and become spiritually slothful.
Let us avoid such complacency. Desiring to be on fire with the Holy Spirit Whose descent we will celebrate in just over a month, may we become fishers of people, as Jesus commands us to be, and bring more and more people to Him and to join our parish family at St. Jude.
Congratulations to the children and youth of our parish family who have received Jesus in the Eucharist for the first time on Saturday. Today, they receive Him for the second time. Please keep them in prayer that they may always be filled with the joy of our Eucharistic Lord.
A blessed and glorious Easter Season! JESUS CHRIST IS RISEN! ALLELUIA!
God love you! I do. Fr. Lewis
Update on Extending Our Arms Expanding Our Hearts
The numbers of faithful who participated in the seven Easter Masses we prayed at St. Jude’s have been tallied. Note the increase from last year.
For the Easter Sunday Masses in 2024: almost 2600.
For the Easter Sunday Masses this year: almost 2800.
Including the Easter Vigil Mass, the number increases to almost 3200.
Several hundred persons were standing during Masses in the church and the PLC.
I share these numbers with you so that we all might be aware of the urgent need of expanding.
Please continue to pray for our much-needed church renovation and expansion.