From the Pastor - 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time

September 13, 2024

Jesus addresses His disciples saying, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” We are Jesus’ disciples, and He is speaking those same words to us here and now.


Living a life of discipleship is not always easy. It requires us to be imitators of Christ — who suffered, died, and rose from the dead out of total love for each one of us. This means we are called to share in Christ’s sufferings by taking up our cross and following Him daily.


But what does this look like in our day-to-day lives?


We can start by making a firm resolution to follow Christ today, here and now, and renewing that resolution each day when we rise. This requires time with Him each day — speaking and listening.


We should also strive to pick up our crosses each day with Christ by our side. Our cross might be suffering from an illness, fighting an addiction, a day of screaming kids, or a period where things just don’t seem to go our way. Instead of avoiding these sufferings or complaining about them, we are called to carry them with Christ, allowing Him to transform us through them.


If we live life constantly focused on us, we will ultimately lose ourselves, but if we surrender our lives for Christ and His mission, we will gain eternal life and become more alive than we could have ever imagined, “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.” This takes daily commitment and requires endurance in our faith, which can only be done through active discipleship. © Catholic Stewardship Consultants, 2024


Pastoral Pondering

Septemberfest is only two weeks away! Our annual social event is a great opportunity to come together as a parish family and enjoy some fun, food and fellowship. I hope to see you there.


Last week I talked about the rosary and the importance of the rosary in connection with Fatima. Today, I wanted to discuss the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. The rosary and the scapular are intimately connected. In fact, at one of the last apparitions in Fatima, Our Lady appeared as Our Lady of Mount Carmel.


The following information is taken from https://www.sistersofcarmel.com/brown-scapular-information.php


The scapular was given to St. Simon Stock by Our Lady in 1251. True devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary consists in three things: Veneration, Confidence and Love. By simply wearing the Scapular, we can tell her every moment of the day that we venerate her, love her, and trust in her protection.


The scapular is sometimes described as a silent prayer. As Our Lord taught us to say the Our Father, Our Blessed Mother taught us the value of the scapular. When we use it as a prayer, Our Lady draws us to the Sacred Heart of Her Divine Son. It is good, therefore, to hold the scapular in the hand. A prayer offered while holding the Scapular is as perfect as a prayer can be. It is especially in time of temptation that we need the powerful intercession of God’s Mother. The evil spirit is utterly powerless when the wearer of a scapular faces temptation, calling upon the Holy Virgin in this silent devotion. “If you had recommended yourself to me, you would not have run into such danger,” was Our Lady’s gentle reproach to Blessed Alan de la Roche, one of her devoted servants.


One of the privileges connected with the scapular is called the Sabbatine Privilege. The Blessed Virgin of Mount Carmel has promised to save those who wear the scapular from the fires of hell; She will also shorten their stay in purgatory if they should pass from this world still owing some debt of punishment.


This promise is found in a Bull of Pope John XXII. The Blessed Virgin appeared to him and, speaking of those who wear the Brown Scapular, said, “I, the Mother of Grace, shall descend on the Saturday after their death and whomsoever I shall find in purgatory I shall free so that I may lead them to the holy mountain of life everlasting.”


The Blessed Virgin assigned certain conditions which must be fulfilled:

  1. Wear the Brown Scapular continuously.
  2. Observe chastity according to one’s state in life (married/single).
  3. Recite daily the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin OR Observe the fasts of the Church together with abstaining from meat on Wednesdays and Saturdays OR With permission of a priest, say five decades of Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary OR With permission of a priest, substitute some other good work.


Pope Benedict XV, the celebrated World War I Pontiff, granted an indulgence for devoutly kissing your scapular.



Each year we enroll our first communicants in the scapular prior to their receiving First Holy Communion. In the end, it is to be an external reminder of an internal reality. It is a reminder of who you are and whose you are.

From the Pastor

From the Pastor - 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

By John Putnam • October 9, 2026
This reflection pertains to the regular readings for the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time. We have been given so many gifts and blessings by our Heavenly Father. Yet, in our fallen state it is all too easy to take them for granted. Our readings today teach us that we must live with an intentional awareness of our many blessings and use them gratefully to glorify God. In our Gospel passage from Matthew, Jesus uses the image of a vineyard to teach the importance of using our blessings well. He tells the story of a landowner who plants a vineyard and leases it to tenants before he goes on a journey. Instead of tending the vineyard, the tenants mistreat the servants in the vineyard and even the son of the landowner, whom they kill. When the landowner realizes what the tenants have done, he puts them to death and leases his vineyard to tenants who “will give him the produce at the proper times.” By Baptism, we have received the gift of salvation and membership in the Kingdom of God — we are now “tenants” called to work in the “vineyard” and produce fruit for its owner, our Heavenly Father. Jesus makes it clear that if we squander the gift of salvation, we will lose it. It is a sobering truth. So, let us use our intellect to think on these gifts throughout the day and resolve to use all our gifts for God’s glory. ©Catholic Stewardship Consultants, 2026 Pastoral Pondering Why St. Francis still matters to the Church On October 4 the Church honors St. Francis of Assisi, one of the most beloved and most demanding saints in our history. He is not merely a garden statue or a gentle friend of animals. Francis is a living reminder of what the Gospel looks like when it is taken at its word. Born Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone around 1181 in Assisi, he was the son of a wealthy cloth merchant. After a brief taste of knighthood and a season of pleasure, he heard Christ speak from the crucifix of San Damiano: “Francis, go and rebuild my house, which, as you see, is falling into ruin.” He took those words first as a command to repair a crumbling chapel. The Lord meant something larger: the renewal of the Church herself. What Francis restored in the Church Poverty as freedom. Francis stripped himself of inheritance, status, and even the clothes on his back. He called Lady Poverty his bride. That was not a romantic gesture. It was a protest against a Church and a society grown comfortable. Every generation of Catholics needs that protest. When we confuse the Gospel with respectability, Francis stands at the door of the Church and asks whether we still believe that Christ is enough. The crucified Christ at the center. In 1224, two years before his death, Francis received the stigmata on Mount La Verna—the wounds of Christ marked in his own flesh. The Church has always taught that holiness is configuration to Jesus crucified and risen. Francis made that teaching visible. He did not invent devotion to the Passion; he embodied it so completely that the Church could not look away. A family of religious life. From one poor man came the Friars Minor, the Poor Clares with St. Clare, and the Secular Franciscans for men and women living in the world. That threefold family still serves the Church on every continent: preaching, serving the poor, praying, and keeping the memory of the Gospel simple. When we speak of “Franciscan” today—whether a friar, a sister, or a parishioner in the Secular Order—we are naming a way of belonging to Christ that the Church has never outgrown. Creation as gift, not possession. The Canticle of the Creatures—“Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Mother Earth”—is not nature poetry. It is theology. Francis saw every creature as a brother or sister because all things come from the same Father. Pope Francis took that insight into Laudato Si’. Care for our common home is not an optional hobby for Catholics. It is part of the same conversion that led Francis to kiss the leper and to call the wolf of Gubbio his brother. Peace that costs something. In 1219 Francis crossed battle lines during the Fifth Crusade and stood before Sultan al-Kamil. He did not win a treaty. He witnessed to a Lord who is Peace. The Church still needs disciples willing to speak of Christ without hatred and without watering Him down. Francis did both. Why this matters here St. Francis matters to the life of the Church because he keeps returning us to the essentials: Christ poor and crucified, the Church always in need of reform, the poor as our brothers and sisters, creation as a hymn of praise, and joy that does not depend on having more. He is not a saint for specialists. He is a saint for anyone who has grown tired of a faith that costs nothing. As we keep his memorial, I invite you to do one Franciscan thing that is within reach: give something away that you do not need; speak peace where there is friction in your home; spend a few minutes outdoors thanking God for what you did not make; or pray before the crucifix and ask, as Francis did, to know Jesus and to make Him known.  The little poor man of Assisi still rebuilds the Church—one converted heart at a time. May he rebuild ours.

From the Pastor - Feast of St. Francis of Assisi

By John Putnam • October 2, 2026
This reflection pertains to the regular readings for the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time. We have been given so many gifts and blessings by our Heavenly Father. Yet, in our fallen state it is all too easy to take them for granted. Our readings today teach us that we must live with an intentional awareness of our many blessings and use them gratefully to glorify God. In our Gospel passage from Matthew, Jesus uses the image of a vineyard to teach the importance of using our blessings well. He tells the story of a landowner who plants a vineyard and leases it to tenants before he goes on a journey. Instead of tending the vineyard, the tenants mistreat the servants in the vineyard and even the son of the landowner, whom they kill. When the landowner realizes what the tenants have done, he puts them to death and leases his vineyard to tenants who “will give him the produce at the proper times.” By Baptism, we have received the gift of salvation and membership in the Kingdom of God — we are now “tenants” called to work in the “vineyard” and produce fruit for its owner, our Heavenly Father. Jesus makes it clear that if we squander the gift of salvation, we will lose it. It is a sobering truth. So, let us use our intellect to think on these gifts throughout the day and resolve to use all our gifts for God’s glory. ©Catholic Stewardship Consultants, 2026 Pastoral Pondering Why St. Francis still matters to the Church On October 4 the Church honors St. Francis of Assisi, one of the most beloved and most demanding saints in our history. He is not merely a garden statue or a gentle friend of animals. Francis is a living reminder of what the Gospel looks like when it is taken at its word. Born Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone around 1181 in Assisi, he was the son of a wealthy cloth merchant. After a brief taste of knighthood and a season of pleasure, he heard Christ speak from the crucifix of San Damiano: “Francis, go and rebuild my house, which, as you see, is falling into ruin.” He took those words first as a command to repair a crumbling chapel. The Lord meant something larger: the renewal of the Church herself. What Francis restored in the Church Poverty as freedom. Francis stripped himself of inheritance, status, and even the clothes on his back. He called Lady Poverty his bride. That was not a romantic gesture. It was a protest against a Church and a society grown comfortable. Every generation of Catholics needs that protest. When we confuse the Gospel with respectability, Francis stands at the door of the Church and asks whether we still believe that Christ is enough. The crucified Christ at the center. In 1224, two years before his death, Francis received the stigmata on Mount La Verna—the wounds of Christ marked in his own flesh. The Church has always taught that holiness is configuration to Jesus crucified and risen. Francis made that teaching visible. He did not invent devotion to the Passion; he embodied it so completely that the Church could not look away. A family of religious life. From one poor man came the Friars Minor, the Poor Clares with St. Clare, and the Secular Franciscans for men and women living in the world. That threefold family still serves the Church on every continent: preaching, serving the poor, praying, and keeping the memory of the Gospel simple. When we speak of “Franciscan” today—whether a friar, a sister, or a parishioner in the Secular Order—we are naming a way of belonging to Christ that the Church has never outgrown. Creation as gift, not possession. The Canticle of the Creatures—“Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Mother Earth”—is not nature poetry. It is theology. Francis saw every creature as a brother or sister because all things come from the same Father. Pope Francis took that insight into Laudato Si’. Care for our common home is not an optional hobby for Catholics. It is part of the same conversion that led Francis to kiss the leper and to call the wolf of Gubbio his brother. Peace that costs something. In 1219 Francis crossed battle lines during the Fifth Crusade and stood before Sultan al-Kamil. He did not win a treaty. He witnessed to a Lord who is Peace. The Church still needs disciples willing to speak of Christ without hatred and without watering Him down. Francis did both. Why this matters here St. Francis matters to the life of the Church because he keeps returning us to the essentials: Christ poor and crucified, the Church always in need of reform, the poor as our brothers and sisters, creation as a hymn of praise, and joy that does not depend on having more. He is not a saint for specialists. He is a saint for anyone who has grown tired of a faith that costs nothing. As we keep his memorial, I invite you to do one Franciscan thing that is within reach: give something away that you do not need; speak peace where there is friction in your home; spend a few minutes outdoors thanking God for what you did not make; or pray before the crucifix and ask, as Francis did, to know Jesus and to make Him known.  The little poor man of Assisi still rebuilds the Church—one converted heart at a time. May he rebuild ours.