This Sunday, at the 11AM English Mass, we will begin our “Family Masses.” the Masses will be animated by children from our religious education program and the homilies will be geared especially towards them. Let’s pray for the success of this effort to get our young people and their families more and more involved in our parish life. All are invited!

As we know, our Salesian Rector Major, Father Angel, was not able to be with us last month, as he had hoped. However, I would like to share a reflection with you on two themes that are very near to his heart and should also impact our faith life in the parish.

This year, as you know, he called us to keep before our eyes the “woman at the well” and, like Jesus did with her, LISTEN, DISCERN, and ACCOMPANY in our relationships with one another especially within the family and with the young. In fact, we did six YouTube presentations both in Spanish and English on this theme. The “well” in the back of our Church reminds us of this “theme” for the year.

In this coming year (2019), taking his cue from Pope Francis’ recent Apostolic Letter: “On the Call to Holiness”, Father Angel gives us a theme: Holiness for you, too! It’s a reminder to us that what matters is to be holy, whether or not we are canonized saints on the “facade” of the Church— each one of us is called to be a “precious treasure” of holiness “inside” the Church! Don Bosco’s last words to his boys remain his last words to all the members of our Salesian Family: “Tell my boys that I will wait for them all in Paradise” — to reach heaven is to be a saint! The only tragedy of life is not to be holy— not to become a saint.

Surely there will be more time to share these things in the coming year, but, for today, as members of the Salesian Family, we want to take to heart these words of Father Angel so that they
may help us on our journey to holiness in the service of others.

Together, let’s listen attentively to Father Angel’s words and his teachings, as we strive to be better Catholics!

God bless you!
Fr. Pat Angelucci