Dear Father Shea,

Before you take over shepherding the flock that is in the Northwest Valley, I wanted to share with you who your new flock is. I’m sure as it was with me, they will work their way into your heart very quickly.

The first thing to know is that there are “year-rounders”, who thrive in any kind of weather and “fair-weather friends”, called such because they thrive here in the nice weather and smartly evacuate when the temperature hits triple digits.

Dear Friends,

Every October we celebrate World Mission Sunday, which helps us remember that we are a missionary Church in keeping with the command of Jesus before his Ascension: “Go and make disciples of all nations.” Every now and then it is good to pause and ask what fruit has our support of the missions produced?

Dear Friends,

The Shroud of Turin is still, well shrouded in mystery. The Shroud is thought by many to be the burial cloth of Jesus. I say, “thought” because no one has ever been able to empirically prove that it is and no one has been able to prove that it isn’t. The Shroud of Turin is the most studied and investigated artifact on the planet. And despite the most sophisticated and highly technical scientific analysis it still refuses to yield its secrets.

Dear Friends,

“The chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas but to destroy Jesus” Matthew 27:20

Pilate offers the crowd a choice. The Gospel writers keep the Hebrew name Barabbas instead of the Greek translation: Barabbas meaning in Hebrew son of God. So the choice Pilate offers: which son of God do you want? The revolutionary, the zealot or this one the Nazarene whom you call king of the Jews…We want Barabbas.

Dear Friends,

Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving these three legs hold up our Lenten disciplines and support and encourage our spiritual growth. Prayer is one of those non-negotiables that has to be part of every disciple’s life. Just as with Fasting we don’t need a diet plan but need some discipline (that’s what makes us a “disciple”) with prayer we need no workshop or seminar just a commitment to do it!

Dear Friends,

Let’s put on our Moral Thinking caps to consider the issue of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF).

The issue has popped up again with a recent ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court. The Court ruled that since Alabama passed a Constitutional Amendment that enshrined that human life begins at conception, the embryos created through IVF are human life and therefore require the protections afforded to human life. This includes the embryos that are created via IVF and are frozen.

Dear Friends,

My first assignment as a priest was at an Italian speaking Parish in West Philadelphia. I told the Cardinal who assigned me there that I was being stereotyped. He didn’t find that amusing. I remember him telling me that his mother was an Italian immigrant and she appreciated being able to go to confession in her native tongue. Va bene, Your Eminence. And so it went.