My Dear Parish Family:

As we are now in the month of November with All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day behind us, the Church will present during the Sundays of November Gospel readings about the end times! Jesus is often pointing out the reality of the end of the world by using parables (stories) to help His listeners (and us) to remember that as wonderful as our lives are here on earth there is an even better world to come.

With this in mind, Fr. Dan and I, beginning this weekend, will be preaching “a themed homily.” This means that we have chosen topics together and although will be using our own style to preach, the mes- sage will be the same. We will be preaching about the Catholic Church’s teaching on death and dying. We will speak on the rituals of funerals and the importance of preparing for a funeral. We both know that this is not an easy topic - after all, who wants to think about dying?

Nevertheless, the Catholic Church holds all people, even in death, to be sacred to the Lord and so gaining knowledge of this subject can really help all of us now and in the future.
Then, each week in the bulletin, in this column, along with Fr. Dan’s help, we will print a recap of the message proclaimed.

Obviously, we are both sensitive to our children’s 9:30 Mass on Sundays and realize we cannot have this kind of message for our children, but know that all the parents and grandparents who attend that Mass may also wish to be informed on this subject and so we will recap the points in the following week’s bulletin.

Please pray for us as we prepare to preach on this deep and powerful topic. Any questions, concerns or needed clarifications after each Sunday’s homily will be very welcomed. You can call, ask in person or email us.

Until next week, may the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace. St. Benedict and Cardinal Cooke, Servant of God, pray for us!

Fr. Stephen P. Norton