Holy Rosary Catholic Church

Dear Parishioners,

Do you know your ABC’s? That is your ABC’s of Mercy? As we celebrate the Feast of Divine Mercy, receiving God’s mercy in your life is as easy as remembering ABC:

Ask for His Mercy. God wants us to approach Him constantly in prayer, to repent of our sins, and to ask for His mercy for ourselves and the whole world (The Divine Mercy: Message and Devotion). Three ways in which we can ask for God’s mercy is to pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, to pray the Novena of Divine Mercy, and to pray at three in the afternoon—if only for a moment—since it is the hour of Jesus’ death and the hour in which He released His mercy upon the world.

Be Merciful to Others. “God wants us to receive His mercy and to let it flow through us to others. He wants us to extend love and forgiveness to others just as He does to us” (The Divine Mercy: Message and Devotion). We can show others mercy through our actions, words, and prayers. The Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy are excellent ways of showing mercy.

Completely Trust in Jesus. “God wants us to know that the graces of His mercy are dependent upon our trust. The more we trust in Jesus, the more we will receive” (The Divine Mercy: Message and Devotion). Trusting in God means much more than just saying so. It means turning back to Him with our whole heart, repenting of our sins, and forgiving others as God has forgiven us. When we trust God, we surrender our lives to Him as His Son did in the garden when He prayed, “Not my will, but Yours be done” (Lk 22:42). We can begin trusting more in God by saying the simple prayer our Lord gave St. Faustina, “Jesus, I trust in You.”

May God’s abundant mercy flow into your life, and may you let this same mercy flow out to others.

Fr. Ian

Dear Parishioners,

After Mary Magdalene announces to Simon Peter and the beloved disciple on that first Easter morning that someone has taken the Lord’s body from the tomb, Peter and the beloved disciple run to the tomb to see for themselves what has happened. The Gospel of John tells us that the beloved disciple eventually enters the tomb, sees the burial cloths lying there, and believes. Everything that Jesus had predicted regarding his resurrection begins to make sense, and so the beloved disciple believes without first seeing Christ in his risen glory.

There’s the saying, “Seeing is believing,” but not all seeing is believing. Some people refuse to believe even what they see. Thus, belief or faith is a gift from God. God wants everyone to have faith, but some people refuse this gift. It’s amazing that we can profess faith in the Risen Christ without ever having seen him. We should be grateful to God that he has given us hearts that believe. Even so, faith does not mean merely espousing belief in Christ’s resurrection. It means changing our whole way of life—to want to live as Christ teaches us rather than to follow our own designs. I like how St. Paul says it in First Corinthians, which is Option B for today’s second reading. He says, “Clear out the old yeast, so that you may become a fresh batch of dough, inasmuch as you are unleavened.” (1 Cor 5:7a). This saying of Paul is an allusion to Passover, which is followed by the Feast of Unleavened Bread. As preparation for these feasts, all leavened bread is to be cleared out of the house and only unleavened bread is to be eaten during this time. Hence, these feasts provide Paul with an apt image of Christian life: Christ’s death, the true Passover, is followed by the Christian way of life, which has as its marks newness, purity, and integrity. We should strive to preserve our life as such.

“This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad” (Ps 118:24). On behalf of the Friars and the Staff, I wish you and yours a blessed Easter.

Fr. Ian