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 Dear
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Happy Mother’s Day today to all of our mother,
grandmothers, aunts, and godmothers! We rejoice and give thanks for each of you
today, and for all that you do for all of us! Enjoy your special day. You’re
in our prayers always!
This coming Thursday evening, May 14th,
we will have our celebration of our final Sacrament of Initiation,
Confirmation. We’ve already been so incredibly blessed by the Easter Vigil on
Holy Saturday night and First Holy Communion last weekend, and now we look
forward to the blessings that God will bestow on our Parish family this week in
the Sacrament of Confirmation. Bishop Higi will be here for a special Mass that
will take place at 7:00 PM in the main sanctuary. Because of the Confirmation
Mass, there will NOT be a regularly scheduled 5:30 PM Mass on Thursday evening.
Instead, the entire Parish is invited to come out and join us as we celebrate
the Gift of the Holy Spirit in Confirmation. We are very happy and honored to
welcome Bishop Higi back to St. Maria Goretti once again. Please seriously
consider coming and joining the Bishop for this special Mass and celebration.
We are very proud of all of those who are going to be
Confirmed on Thursday evening. They have worked hard and showed serious
commitment to our Faith and our Church in the last nearly two years of their
formation process. Now they can say with all their hearts that they want the
Gift of the Holy Spirit and God’s Grace help them daily live out their Faith and
love. Thursday will be another great day for our entire Parish family!
There is much debate today in our Church about
Confirmation. The variations of when Confirmation is given, the different
formations that are given, and what is required of the candidates, varies
greatly from diocese to diocese, and even from parish to parish. This has
created a great deal of confusion among parents and among our young people.
Here at St. Maria Goretti, our Parish continues to want the very best for all of
our young people. We do have a rigorous and demanding Confirmation formation
program that is modeled on the Rite of Christian Initiation for adults. During
our young people’s Freshman and Sophomore years of high school, our candidates
complete a Day of Recollection, twelve two-hour catechetical sessions, a minimum
of 112 service hours, a weekend retreat, and a final interview, all to prepare
themselves for the Sacrament and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Certainly,
there are a lot of “easier” ways to prepare for Confirmation. There are
certainly “more time and resource efficient” programs out there, as one of our
neighboring parishes put it. And yet, do we really want to skimp when it comes
to the formation of our young people? Time and energy efficient is something
that I look for in a new water heater. St. Maria Goretti takes the high road.
Yeah, it’s a lot more work for everybody. I am extremely grateful to Jeff
Stankovsky and our amazing team of Confirmation facilitators who work so hard to
coordinate this effort and make this happen for our Parish community. The St.
Maria Goretti Confirmation program not only meets the Diocesan guidelines that
were issued four years ago, but was one of the programs on which the guidelines
for the rest of the Diocese were based. The two-year formation period allows an
on-going relationship to develop between the Confirmation candidates and the
Church, that lasts far beyond high school. One local parish used to lament the
fact that 1/3 of its Confirmation class disappeared from any parish activity a
month after they were confirmed. Within a month! That same parish surveyed
it’s newly Confirmed, and did find that in actuality, a full 1/2 of its
Confirmation class had all but disappeared from the practice of the Faith and
parish life within one year of being Confirmed, in a program that asked for the
bare minimum. What a scandal! As a Church, we’ve got to do better than that.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, when we as a Church expect the
minimum, that is exactly what we’re going to get. And yet when we expect the
very best from every one, that’s when we really see the extraordinary things
that God has in store for us. Our Faith isn’t about being efficient, or saving
time, or doing the minimum just to say that we did something. Our Faith is
about saving souls and helping each other to receive God’s love and grace.
Congratulations to all of our young people getting Confirmed on Thursday night.
You took this seriously. You put in a lot of effort. You know what you’re
doing. The Holy Spirit is going to do great things in each of you!
In Christ,
Fr. Kevin
The evidence for
Jesus’ resurrection is so strong that nobody would question it except for two
things:First, it is a very unusual event. And second, if you believe it
happened, you have to change your life.
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