Welcome to our 135th Anniversary Year! Welcome Bishop Golka joining us this Sunday! We are so happy to be celebrating during the National Eucharistic Revival! We have been given so many gifts and blessings by our Heavenly Father. We can never take them for granted. Our Bible readings today teach us that we must live with an intentional awareness of our many blessings and use them gratefully to glorify God.
As good stewards of what has been given us here since 1888, we must continuously fight the tendency towards complacency and instead use our blessings to produce good fruit for the future. By Baptism, we have received the gift of salvation and membership in the Kingdom of God — we are now “tenants” called to work in the “vineyard” and produce fruit for its owner, our Heavenly Father. This calling is a gift from God to be treasured above all other gifts. Jesus makes it clear that if we squander the gift of salvation, we will lose it. It is a sobering truth.
What can you do to help our work in this “vineyard” for the NEXT 135 years? Let us live each day with a profound awareness of all that we have been given by God. This coming week let’s reflect on these gifts and resolve to use all our gifts for God’s glory. We will find peace, joy and purpose as we do.
May this blessing from St. Francis of Assisi, himself, be yours:
“Whoever shall observe these things,
may you be filled in heaven with the blessing of the most high Father,
and may you be filled on earth with the blessing of His beloved Son,
together with the Holy Spirit, the Consoler,
and all the powers of heaven and all the saints.
And I, brother Francis, your worthless servant, as far as I am able,
approve this most holy blessing both internally and externally. Amen.”
St. Francis of Assisi, Pray for us!
Fr. Mark Zacker
Pastor
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