Weekend Masses

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, This week we celebrate the Feast of all Saints and we commemorate the souls of the faithful departed. There are many traditions associated with these two days. As a child I remember my mother trying to visit as many churches as she could on all souls day. She would cycle from place to place with the youngest who was not in school on the carrier, getting to her three if not more Masses and at the same time making sure that all the meals and household chores were done. During November all of the family graves would be visited. When I look back at it now, I realize it was for her a form of handling her own grief but it was also an expression of her deep faith. We are reminded that it is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead. During this November we will have our table of remembrance and we will remember all the dead throughout the month at Mass. As we pray for them we remember that the feast of All saints is a celebration of all the unnamed saints who are in heaven. They are members of our families and friends we have known. We pray to them and ask them to help us on our journey of faith, so that like them we will have the courage to live and to proclaim our faith in word and in deed. Let the journey continue, Fr Karl  

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, If you walk around stores or you listen to announcements you hear a lot about Halloween. Have you ever thought about what the word means. We use one of the words every time we pray the Our Father. We say Hallowed be your name. Hallowed or may your name be Holy. Yes the word Hallow is an old English name for Holy. And the other part of the word “een’ is the shortened version of eve or evening. When we say Halloween we are saying Holy evening or the eve of All Saints. Very often in the early church the leaders realized that there were many pagan festivals and that Christians would be tempted to go to them so instead, of outright prohibition they celebrated a Christian event on that day. Some of the pagan customs carried over and that may have been the case with Halloween. So as you have fun and celebrate remember the name and say a prayer to the Saints whose feast we celebrate on the day after. Let the journey of faith continue Pray for me as I pray for you, Fr Karl