This week I really do have Good News!

May 3

Letter from the Pastor

Sixth Sunday of Easter Sunday
May 5, 2024

The good news is that the engineers told us that St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Beach Haven is structurally OK. I breathed a big sigh of relief. They indicated that some work would need to be done, but structurally we are good to go! As you know, this weekend we begin with the 10 AM Mass in Beach Haven. My hope is that the Beach Haven parishioners and those living south of Brant Beach will attend Mass in Beach Haven so the Surf City and off island parishioners can worship at St. Francis Church.

The other good news is this weekend and next we will have 40 of our young people receiving their First Holy Communion. Yesterday, Saturday, May 4th, the following students were blessed to receive their First Holy Communion: Allison Brummer, Alex Chung, Kellyn Ducker, Cole Elsasser, Zane Emery, Sailor Gaudet-Walsh, Joseph Iannacone, Malia Hoover, Zack Jenkins, Jack Johann, Scott Kennard, Liliana Makos, Drew Mayeux, Owen Mazzella, Ava-Rose Powell, Anabella Robinson, Riley Seegers, Myla Stephens, Olivia Strasser, and Bridget Trombly. Congratulations to them and thank you to their parents and teachers!! Next weekend, May 11th, at 11 AM, in St. Francis Church, we will celebrate the First Holy Communion of the next 20 students. Everyone is welcome to join us! It is wonderful to see the excitement in their eyes as they come up to receive communion for the first time. It is an excitement that is certainly real when we contemplate what we are doing.

On the Feasts of Corpus Christi in 2021, Pope Francis said in his address during the Angelus, “With simplicity, Jesus gives us the greatest sacrament. His is a humble gesture of giving, a gesture of sharing. At the culmination of his life, he does not distribute an abundance of bread to feed the multitudes but breaks himself apart at the Passover supper with the disciples. In this way Jesus shows us that the aim of life lies in self-giving, that the greatest thing is to serve. … We find the greatness of God in a piece of Bread, in a fragility that overflows with love, that overflows with sharing. Jesus becomes fragile like the bread that is broken and crumbled. But his strength lies precisely therein, in his fragility. In the Eucharist, fragility is strength: the strength of the love that becomes small so it can be welcomed and not feared; the strength of the love that is broken and shared so as to nourish and give life; the strength of the love that is split apart so as to join all of us in unity.” Pope Francis went on to say that another strength that stands out in the fragility of the Eucharist is "the strength to love those who make mistakes.” He reminded the crowd that Jesus gave us the Eucharist on the night that he was betrayed. The Pope said, “He gives us the greatest gift while in his heart he feels the deepest abyss: the disciple who eats with Him, who dips the morsel in the same plate, is betraying Him. … Jesus reacts to the evil with a greater good. He responds to Judas’ ‘no’ with the ‘yes’ of mercy. He does not punish the sinner, but rather gives His life for him; He pays for him. …When we receive the Eucharist, Jesus does the same with us: Jesus knows we are sinners; and he knows we make many mistakes, but he does not give up on joining his life to ours. He knows that we need it, because the Eucharist is not the reward of saints, no, it is the Bread of sinners. This is why he exhorts us: “Do not be afraid! Take and eat.”

May we all be excited to receive Jesus’ love, mercy, and forgiveness when we receive Christ in the Eucharist and may we be that Eucharist for one another.

Peace and All Good.