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Join us on Pentecost Sunday, June 8 for Solemn Vespers, following the 5pm Mass at 6:15pm. A most beautiful way to close the Easter Season celebrating the birthday of the Church. The Novena to the Holy Spirit began Friday, May 30. You
will find the text of the prayers in a handy pull-out section of the 25 May bulletin starting on page 7 or electronically here Holy Spirit Novena 2025.
Please join us for an unveiling ceremony of a beautiful piece of art that has been kindly donated to Saint Bernadette by parishioner, Mike Harrison. The painting has been recently restored. This beautiful piece is called, “Madonna of the Veil”.
This painting is a copy of one painted by Carlo Dolci in the 17th century (1616-1686, Florence). It is estimated to be well over 150 years old. We will unveil the artwork after the Solemn Vespers, Sunday, June 8 at approximately 6:45p. Come
celebrate this welcome addition of art to our parish.
St. Lucy Food Drive is June 7/8. Blue bags will be collected after all Masses this weekend.
Concerts at Saint Bernadette presents the Capital Wind Symphony in a free concert on Friday, June 6, at 7:30 pm. All are welcome!
Join us for our monthly (third Monday) Taizé Prayer Service Monday night, June 16, 8–8:45pm. Come for a peaceful moment of simple song, silence and prayer for unity.
FAITH FORMATION
Living the Liturgical Year:
Happy Pentecost Sunday! It is the last day of the Easter Season. Pentecost is the day the Holy Spirit came down and filled the Apostles with the gifts they needed to lead the Church. It is also the birthday of the Church. You can celebrate Pentecost Sunday by making or decorating a “birthday cake.” You can find directions and suggestions on how to decorate the cake at this link. https://www.catholicicing.com/pentecost-day-celebration-with-strawberry-cake-happy-birthday-to-the-church/.
Registration for 2025-2026 ~ Registration is now open for next year. Continue your child’s growth in the faith by signing them up for classes in 2025-26! Our class sessions will be on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, and we will again offer our Special Religious Development class on Saturday mornings for students with special learning needs and our Family Faith Formation classes once a month on Sunday afternoons (for grades K-5) where parents take a larger role in their child’s faith formation.
Registration information will be in the parish bulletin, on the website, and will be sent via Flocknote to all currently registered children in the first week of June. Who should register? All currently registered students, including all Confirmation 2025, Confirmation 2026, and students preparing to receive First Eucharist next school year. Questions about your child’s registration? Call the Religious Education Office or contact the staff via email.
Volunteers for 2025-2026 ~ As we prepare to plan for the upcoming Religious Education school year, please discern if you would like to help. We are in need of Lead Catechists and aides. If interested, please contact the Religious Education Office or fill out the Volunteer Form on the website. You will also find the QR Code at the bulletin board.
WOMEN'S MINISTRY
Monday, June 2 is our next Dinner with Friends at 5pm, at Saratoga Pizzeria, 8050 Rolling Road. We meet for this casual meal on the 1st and the 3rd Monday of every month.
Our next monthly meeting will be Tuesday, June 10 at 7pm in the Bradican Room. Chair yoga is back! Join us to work out the kinks and enjoy some healthy snacks.
Monday, June 16 is our next Dinner with Friends at 5pm, at Saratoga Pizzeria, 8050 Rolling Road. We meet for this casual meal on the 1st and the 3rd Monday of every month.YOUTH MINISTRY
Middle School Summer Drop-InsAll rising 6th through 8th graders are invited to our Summer Drop-Ins! Join us July 2nd, July 16th, and July 30th for fun, games, friends, and of course, ice cream! We will meet from 6:45-8pm in the gym.
All rising 9th - graduated 12th graders are invited to join us! • July 8 - Game Night - Ice cream sundaes and fun in the youth room - 7-8:30pm, • July 23 - King’s Dominion Day - $39/ticket, volunteers and drivers needed!, • August 5 - End of
Summer Social - bonfire, s’mores, and games on the rectory patio - 7-8:30pm.
To learn more about our middle and high school ministries, please contact Grace Mee, gmee@stbernpar.org
Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,
One sad effect of moving Ascension Thursday to Sunday is that we don’t hear the Gospel from the Seventh Sunday of Easter, when Jesus’ last prayer to the Father before his arrest is that we be one as they are one. Pope Leo gave a beautiful homily about it last weekend:
“The Gospel we have just heard shows us Jesus, at the Last Supper, praying on our behalf (cf. Jn 17:20). The Word of God, made man, as he nears the end of his earthly life, thinks of us, his brothers and sisters, and becomes a blessing, a prayer of petition and praise to the Father, in the power of the Holy Spirit. As we ourselves, full of wonder and trust, enter into Jesus’ prayer, we become, thanks to his love, part of a great plan that concerns all of humanity.
“Christ prays that we may ‘all be one’ (v. 21). This is the greatest good that we can desire, for this universal union brings about among his creatures the eternal communion of love that is God himself: the Father who gives life, the Son who receives it and the Spirit who shares it.
“The Lord does not want us, in this unity, to be a nameless and faceless crowd. He wants us to be one: ‘As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us’ (v. 21). The unity for which Jesus prays is thus a communion grounded in the same love with which God loves, which brings life and salvation into the world. As such, it is firstly a gift that Jesus comes to bring. From his human heart, the Son of God prays to the Father in these words: ‘I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me’ (v. 23).
“Let us listen with amazement to these words. Jesus is telling us that God loves us as he loves himself. The Father does not love us any less than he loves his only-begotten Son. In other words, with an infinite love. God does not love less, because he loves first, from the very beginning! Christ himself bears witness to this when he says to the Father: ‘You loved me before the foundation of the world’ (v. 24). And so it is: in his mercy, God has always desired to draw all people to himself. It is his life, bestowed upon us in Christ, that makes us one, uniting us with one another.”
_____
We celebrate today the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost when the Apostles (and us, by inheritance through them and their successors, the bishops) receive the Holy Spirit in his fullness. Notice, it is an event separate from their baptism. In many traditions this is equated with baptism in the Holy Spirit, when you must be born again. For this reason, for centuries Christian churches were divided over the issue of rebaptizing “converts.” A little less than 20 years ago this was still sometimes the practice.
The idea that you must be born again is complicated by the practice of infant baptism, because an infant clearly cannot make this commitment to embrace the faith and the way of life that comes with it. With the Reformation Protestants no longer considered Confirmation a sacrament as such. This later, formal renewal of our baptismal promises witnessed by the assembly disappeared, when the profession of faith no longer is made for us, but by us.
This was complicated in the Roman Church when the continuous celebration of all three sacraments of initiation no longer happened all at once (as still is practiced in Eastern Rite and Orthodox churches) due not to theological reasons, but practical: in the west, only bishops can confirm (priests can in the east) and as the Church grew there just weren’t enough bishops to do it all every week.
The charismatic movement emerged from the holiness movement within Protestant and Pentecostal churches, which emphasized a second experience of spiritual transformation after conversion. Infant baptism grew to be seen as defective.
This Pentecost, intentionally embrace your Confirmation. Renew your baptismal promises in your heart and be strong in the knowledge that by these sacraments the Holy Spirit truly, fully dwells within you. It is easy, as days get busy, to forget the absolute love of God that the gift represents.
The Lord be with you.
Join us on Pentecost Sunday, June 8 for Solemn Vespers, following the 5pm Mass at 6:15pm. A most beautiful way to close the Easter Season celebrating the birthday of the Church. The Novena to the Holy Spirit began Friday, May 30. You will find the text of the prayers in a handy pull-out section of last week's bulletin starting on page 7 or electronically here Holy Spirit Novena 2025.
St. Lucy Food Drive is June 7/8. Blue bags will be handed out after all Masses this weekend.
Please join Fr. Don for three gatherings here at Saint Bernadette called SBSNRs: Let’s Talk - “Spiritual But Not Religious”, Tuesday nights in the Bradican Room, 7–8:30pm, our next talk is on June 3.
Come help us Rise Against Hunger – June 5-7
Please plan to join Christ Church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Saint Bernadette Catholic Church and School, Temple B’nai Shalom, Rumi Forum, American Turkish Friendship Association, Rise Against Hunger and volunteers from the community to purchase, pack and distribute life-changing meals. In the midst of much change, we want to continue the tradition of being a shining light for the world’s most vulnerable. OUR GOAL is to PACK 150,000 LIFE-CHANGING MEALS. Learn more about this event and sign-up for one of several volunteer opportunities available between June 5-7. To sign up click here: https://www.christchurchva.org/twrah/ Select Donate/Buy Merchandise or Pack Meals to help support this event. Please contact the parish office for more information.
Concerts at Saint Bernadette presents the Capital Wind Symphony in a free concert on Friday, June 6, at 7:30 pm. All are welcome!
FAITH FORMATION
Living the Liturgical Year:
Happy Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord! Forty days after Easter Sunday we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension of Jesus. It traditionally fell on a Thursday, but the the majority of dioceses in the U. S. have moved it to the 7th Sunday of Easter. One such activity that focuses us on “looking steadfastly out toward heaven” can be making and flying kites. Other Ascension activities can be found at https://www.thecatholichomeschool.com/ascension-day-crafts-activities/.
Registration for 2025-2026 ~ Registration will open in June for next year. Continue your child’s growth in the faith by signing them up for classes in 2025-26! Our class sessions will be on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, and we will again offer our Special Religious Development class on Saturday mornings for students with special learning needs and our Family Faith Formation classes once a month on Sunday afternoons (for grades K-5) where parents take a larger role in their child’s faith formation.
Registration information will be in the parish bulletin, on the website, and will be sent via Flocknote to all currently registered children in the first week of June. Who should register? All currently registered students, including all Confirmation 2025, Confirmation 2026, and students preparing to receive First Eucharist next school year. Questions about your child’s registration? Call the Religious Education Office or contact us via email.
Volunteers for 2025-2026 ~ As we prepare to plan for the upcoming Religious Education school year, please discern if you would like to help. We are in need of Lead Catechists and aides. If interested, please contact the Religious Education Office.
WOMEN'S MINISTRY
Monday, June 2 is our next Dinner with Friends at 5pm, at Saratoga Pizzeria, 8050 Rolling Road. We meet for this casual meal on the 1st and the 3rd Monday of every month. Our next monthly meeting will be Tuesday, June 10 at 7pm in the Bradican Room. Chair yoga is back! Join us to work out the kinks and enjoy some healthy snacks.YOUTH MINISTRY
Middle School Youth MinistryAll 6th-8th graders are invited to Middle School Youth Ministry every 1st and 3rd Wednesday of the month! Join us for games, snacks & fun from 6:45-8pm in the Gym. All middle schoolers are welcome, bring a friend!
Middle School Summer Drop-Ins
All rising 6th through 8th graders are invited to our Summer Drop-Ins! Join us July 2nd, July 16th, and July 30th for fun, games, friends, and of course, ice cream! We will meet from 6:45-8pm in the gym.
High School Girl's Bonfire
All 8th-12th grade girls are invited to join us for a bonfire and s’mores this Monday, June 2nd! Meet at the parish office and we will walk up to the Rectory Patio together. Contact Grace Mee (gmee@stbernpar.org) for more information and how to register!
Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,
This past week, after spending a week at my home parish in Kansas for my brother Bob’s ordination celebration, I have had time for a thoughtful reflection of community and its value.
Being home was a powerful experience of community and memory. Wea, Kansas is a very small farming community, though it is growing quickly with development as the city comes closer and closer. Many of the families that were there 50 years ago are still there, most of the parishioners of my parents’ generation are gone. My contemporaries are, many of them, still going to church at Queen of the Holy Rosary church.
I think the sense of community, of putting down roots, family and familiar faces that I rediscovered in Wea is what our parish families largely are missing today. We live in such a transitional culture unrooted in place that we have to work with intentionality to create the place where we feel deep belonging, where we know we can always return and feel at home.
I think this unrootedness is something that influences the crisis of unbelonging that we see in all religions today. If religion is truly the ritual expression of spirituality, that ritual has to take place in a context where all feel at home and valued. I don’t think this necessarily describes the world we live in today. Things happen in isolation in a virtual unreality and replace rootedness and commitment. I wonder what a community without real origins will look like in maturity. We’re starting to see it.
To have memories – especially communal memories – requires people to take time and make many attempts at showing up and creating them. Only after many experiences does something become familiar. “Familiar,” in the sense of “like family,” to whom we belong.
My family put down roots that have lasted even though we have been there only occasionally in recent years, and we made a difference. It was my dad’s vision to replace the old Catholic school that had been closed and unsafe for years (except for the gym), even though the pastor at the time didn’t care for the idea. Dad planned and promoted it, putting in endless hours, and ultimately oversaw the construction of a new school that today is still growing and expanding.
When I was in high school Fr. Brink asked me to design a coat of arms for the parish and paint a double-sided sign for the front lawn of the church. It is still there today when you come to church.
We always visit the graves of Mom and Dad in the cemetery behind the church when we are there.
As I said last week, it is uncommon for three brothers to be priests, but I think Wea had a lot to do with it. It was the community. We were the family who always stayed to the end and put away the chairs and tables when events ended.
Is it possible that a vocation might be a calling heard through your community? Certainly, a vocation needs a context where you can imagine yourself serving, hopefully with satisfaction making an impact on that community who shares your life and supports you.
Community is a precious thing, and we need to work at building it every day. Blessings follow.
The Lord be with you.
Join us on Pentecost Sunday, June 8 for Solemn Vespers, following the 5pm Mass at 6:15pm. A most beautiful way to close the Easter Season celebrating the birthday of the Church. The Novena to the Holy Spirit begins Friday, May 30. You will find the text of the prayers in a handy pull-out section of this weeks bulletin starting on page 7 or electronically here Holy Spirit Novena 2025.
St. Lucy Food Drive is June 7/8. Blue bags will be handed out after all Masses next weekend.
Parish Offices will be Closed on Monday, 25 May in observance of the Memorial Day holiday. Please note NO 7am Mass.
Please join Fr. Don for three gatherings here at Saint Bernadette called SBSNRs: Let’s Talk - “Spiritual But Not Religious”, Tuesday nights in the Bradican Room, 7–8:30pm, our next two talks are on May 27 and June 3.
Come help us Rise Against Hunger – June 5-7
Please plan to join Christ Church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Saint Bernadette Catholic Church and School, Temple B’nai Shalom, Rumi Forum, American Turkish Friendship Association, Rise Against Hunger and volunteers from the community to purchase, pack and distribute life-changing meals. In the midst of much change, we want to continue the tradition of being a shining light for the world’s most vulnerable. OUR GOAL is to PACK 150,000 LIFE-CHANGING MEALS. Learn more about this event and sign-up for one of several volunteer opportunities available between June 5-7. To sign up click here: https://www.christchurchva.org/twrah/ Select Donate/Buy Merchandise or Pack Meals to help support this event. Please contact the parish office for more information.
Concerts at Saint Bernadette presents the Capital Wind Symphony in a free concert on Friday, June 7, at 7:30 pm. All are welcome!
FAITH FORMATION
Living the Liturgical Year:
In today’s Gospel reading Jesus gives us a new commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you.” It is the greatest commandment to teach our children of authentic love of one another. One such activity that brings together the month of Mary and “the new commandment” is making Heart Rosaries. https://www.catholicicing.com/sacred-and-immaculate-heart-rosaries-a-fun-catholic-craft/
SPRED Mass and Reception: May 31
Registration for 2025-2026
Registration will open in June for next year. Continue your child’s growth in the faith by signing them up for classes in 2025-26! Our class sessions will be on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, and we will again offer our Special Religious Development class on Saturday mornings for students with special learning needs and our Family Faith Formation classes once a month on Sunday afternoons (for grades K-5) where parents take a larger role in their child’s faith formation.
Registration information will be in the parish bulletin, on the website, and will be sent via Flocknote to all currently registered children in the first week of June. Who should register? All currently registered students, including all Confirmation 2025, Confirmation 2026, and students preparing to receive First Eucharist next school year. Questions about your child’s registration? Call the Religious Education Office or contact us via email.
WOMEN'S MINISTRY
Monday, June 2 is our next Dinner with Friends at 5pm, at Saratoga Pizzeria, 8050 Rolling Road. We meet for this casual meal on the 1st and the 3rd Monday of every month.YOUTH MINISTRY
Middle School Youth MinistryAll 6th-8th graders are invited to Middle School Youth Ministry every 1st and 3rd Wednesday of the month! Join us for games, snacks & fun from 6:45-8pm in the Gym. All middle schoolers are welcome, bring a friend!
Middle School Summer Drop-Ins
All rising 6th through 8th graders are invited to our Summer Drop-Ins! Join us July 2nd, July 16th, and July 30th for fun, games, friends, and of course, ice cream! We will meet from 6:45-8pm in the gym.
High School Girl's Bonfire
All 8th-12th grade girls are invited to join us for a bonfire and s’mores this Monday, June 2nd! Meet at the parish office and we will walk up to the Rectory Patio together. Contact Grace Mee (gmee@stbernpar.org) for more information and how to register!
Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,
“Well, the archdiocese of Kansas City Kansas finally got one of the Rooney brothers,” said Archbishop Naumann at the beginning of his homily at my brother’s ordination to the transitional diaconate last weekend.
We were asked a lot: why?
First, if you don’t know already, my brother Bob is now a transitional deacon! His vocation story is a beautiful one, and I’d like to share a bit of it with you.
Bob and I both went to the seminary in the fall of 1989, the year our brother John was ordained a priest for Lincoln. Why not Kansas City? When we were kids, our parents were always fighting against the then-archbishop Ignatius Strecker (who served as archbishop from 1969 until 1993) and we grew up thinking he was a bad guy. He was, indeed, one of the principal council fathers of Vatican II, and he sat in sessions next to Karol Józef
Wojtyła, also known as Saint John Paul II. It is true that some crazy things were happening in the Church (in Kansas City, at least), and we were told “It’s Vatican II.”
So we were convinced that Kansas City wasn’t a good place to be a priest, even if we were to have been accepted considering our parents. So Bob and I joined the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska.
I was sent to Saint Charles Seminary in Philadelphia – I loved it, but Bob was sent to a place with a more monastic style and discipline. Not to his liking, he returned and finished his law degree at Georgetown.
But he still felt he was called. In 2006 or 7, Bob went back to seminary, this time studying for Kansas City at Mundelein, Chicago’s seminary. My dad suddenly had a stroke in 2008 (Mom was the one who had real health problems) and died in the early days of 2009. That year Bob left the seminary to take care of them. He had been a very successful medical malpractice defense litigator and took good care, first, of Dad, and then of Mom until she died in 2019.
Shortly after that, he informed us that he would be seeking to go back to the seminary, but he was already older (four years younger than me) and beyond the normal cut off age for people to enter formation. Then, the pandemic... Kansas City sent him to Saint John XXIII seminary in Boston, a seminary for “older” vocations, where he still has one more year before being ordained a priest.
He gave a beautiful homily last Sunday (which just happened to be our mom’s birthday) about why all of this matters. He spoke of sacrifice, he spoke of grace and blessing, and how we mirror the reality of Jesus in our lives – not just priests, all of us.
At the end of Mass (I presided) I thanked him for how he had literally put his own life on hold to take care of our parents, something that the others of us could not have done living at long distance.
Do you see how God, first of all, doesn’t let go? God also is faithful, though most of the time it feels like we’ve got to be the ones hanging onto him. Bob certainly enjoyed being a litigation attorney (I learned last weekend that Bob had only lost one case in 30 years), but it wasn’t really the reason he put Bob on this earth. We knew this to be true as our family came back together again (the last time we were together was also at our home church at Mom’s funeral), and his many friends and colleagues from over the years came together to his ordination and Mass as he begins this new chapter.
So often as a priest you feel like you have to be counter-cultural. But for a weekend in Kansas City it seemed normal, even if it is a bit unusual to have three in one family. If you think you might have a vocation (or know somebody who might), share this story. It’s good, and normal.
The Lord be with you.
Join us on Pentecost Sunday, June 8 for Solemn Vespers, following the 5pm Mass at 6:15pm. A most beautiful way to close the Easter Season celebrating the birthday of the Church.
The Filipino Catholic Community, with the diocesan Multi-cultural Ministries Office, invites you to join in celebrating the Flores de Mayo here, on May 17. The evening begins with a rosary procession at 6pm and Mass at 7pm, followed by a reception in the gym. For more information please email amaremusicministry.flores@gmail.com.
Join us for our monthly (third Monday) Taizé Prayer Service on Monday night, May 19, 8 - 8:45pm. Come for a peaceful moment of simple song, silence and prayer for unity. Please join Fr. Don for three gatherings here at Saint Bernadette called SBSNRs: Let’s Talk - “Spiritual But Not Religious”, Tuesday nights in the Bradican Room, 7–8:30pm, on May 20, 27 and June 3. More information can be found in Fr. Don’s letter this weekend. Come help us Rise Against Hunger – June 5-7Please plan to join Christ Church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Saint Bernadette Catholic Church and School, Temple B’nai Shalom, Rumi Forum, American Turkish Friendship Association, Rise Against Hunger and volunteers from the community to purchase, pack and distribute life-changing meals. In the midst of much change, we want to continue the tradition of being a shining light for the world’s most vulnerable. OUR GOAL is to PACK 150,000 LIFE-CHANGING MEALS. Learn more about this event and sign-up for one of several volunteer opportunities available between June 5-7. To sign up click here: https://www.christchurchva.org/twrah/ Select Donate/Buy Merchandise or Pack Meals to help support this event. Please contact the parish office for more information.
FAITH FORMATION
Congratulations to those who have received their First Holy Communion!
In today’s Gospel reading Jesus gives us a new commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you.” It is the greatest commandment to teach our children of authentic love of one another. One such activity that brings together the month of Mary and “the new commandment” is making Heart Rosaries. https://www.catholicicing.com/sacred-and-immaculate-heart-rosaries-a-fun-catholic-craft/
SPRED Mass and Reception: May 31
Registration for 2025-2026
Registration will open in June for next year. Continue your child’s growth in the faith by signing them up for classes in 2025-26! Our class sessions will be on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, and we will again offer our Special Religious Development class on Saturday mornings for students with special learning needs and our Family Faith Formation classes once a month on Sunday afternoons (for grades K-5) where parents take a larger role in their child’s faith formation.
Registration information will be in the parish bulletin, on the website, and will be sent via Flocknote to all currently registered children in the first week of June. Who should register? All currently registered students, including all Confirmation 2025, Confirmation 2026, and students preparing to receive First Eucharist next school year. Questions about your child’s registration? Call the Religious Education Office or contact us via email.
WOMEN'S MINISTRY
Monday, May 19 is our next Dinner with Friends at 5pm, at Saratoga Pizzeria, 8050 Rolling Road. We meet for this casual meal on the 1st and the 3rd Monday of every month.
Thank you to all who supported our Baby Shower for our two guests at Mary's Comfort. The young mothers were as blessed as we were. Our prayer is that they will be touched by the love of Christ through the gifts and witness you all provided by your service and generosity.YOUTH MINISTRY
We had 37 Middle School Youth members attend this year's BASH at the Diocese this past weekend.
Middle School Youth MinistryAll 6th-8th graders are invited to Middle School Youth Ministry every 1st and 3rd Wednesday of the month! Join us for games, snacks & fun from 6:45-8pm in the Gym. All middle schoolers are welcome, bring a friend!
Middle School Summer Drop-Ins
All rising 6th through 8th graders are invited to our Summer Drop-Ins! Join us July 2nd, July 16th, and July 30th for fun, games, friends, and of course, ice cream! We will meet from 6:45-8pm in the gym.
High School Girl's Bonfire
All 8th-12th grade girls are invited to join us for a bonfire and s’mores this Monday, June 2nd! Meet at the parish office and we will walk up to the Rectory Patio together. Contact Grace Mee (gmee@stbernpar.org) for more information and how to register!
Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,
With grateful hearts we thank God for our new Holy Father Leo. Let us continue to pray that he will be the instrument the world needs to know the true peace of Jesus and the unity and healing which we know is God’s will. Pope Leo described this peace as “unarmed and disarming, humble and persevering,” as only can come from God who loves all peoples unconditionally.
His first message to us on the day of election was so simple and sincere. He spoke of dialogue (in his very short first speech he uses the word three times), a synodal Church, a missionary Church that builds bridges and dialogue, with arms always open to receive everyone, all those who need our charity, our presence, dialogue, and love.
Maybe this is something that seems common in Italy, since so many popes have been Italians, but I can’t get over how many people have spoken of a personal connection with our new pope. “My mother-in-law’s mother taught him in grade school.” “In Peru, after a long day without stopping to eat, he would call, exhausted, late in the evening, and ask if we had any leftovers...” “He was principal at my high school in Chicago.” “I went to the seminary with him and have known him most of my life (Fr. Cedric).”
The fact that an American has been elected Pope by the universal Church is something astounding, something that nobody ever thought would happen. But the fact that he has touched so many people in his life – whether as a parish priest, administrator, Superior General of the Augustinians, missionary, archbishop and, finally, leader of the Dicastery for Bishops appointed by Pope Francis (photo, below left), is a powerful reflection on how we, too, have the ability to touch hearts.
Think of the many chapters of your life, from when you were very young to today. All the characters who populated those stories and the ways in which you have been there for others, and others for you. Think of the way in which you have brought all these people into your own story and the impact you had in their lives. It isn’t just for popes – you, too have many people who look back to times with you and treasure them.
You know a lot about a bishop by his motto. It is no surprise there is a strong theme coming out of all he says, that God is here for all people and unites us. “In illo Uno, unum.” In the One, we are one.
“God cares for us, God loves all of us, and evil will not prevail! We are all in God’s hands. Therefore, without fear, united hand in hand with God and among ourselves, let us move forward.
“To all of you, brothers and sisters of Rome, of Italy, of the whole world, we want to be a synodal Church, a Church that walks, a Church that always seeks peace, that always seeks charity, that always seeks to be close especially to those who suffer.”
His election has inspired people of all churches and religions to send messages of joy and congratulations, because they already know in Pope Leo a hopefulness that looks to the future.
The Lord be with you.
Worship Aid for the Fourth Sunday of Easter
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY
Now accepting applications for PRE-Kindergarten in our school. Interested in joining our school community? We focus on faith formation, academic excellence, and community service. Visit our website: www.stbernschool.org/admissions-process/
Please join Fr. Don for three gatherings here at Saint Bernadette called SBSNRs: Let’s Talk - “Spiritual But Not Religious”, Tuesday nights in the Bradican Room, 7–8:30pm, on May 20, 27 and June 3. More information can be found in Fr. Don’s letter this weekend.
Join us for our monthly (third Monday) Taizé Prayer Service on Monday night, May 19, 8 - 8:45pm. Come for a peaceful moment of simple song, silence and prayer for unity.
Join the Filipino Catholic Community, with the diocesan Multi-cultural Ministries Office, invites you to join in celebrating the Flores de Mayo here, on May 17. The evening begins with a rosary procession at 6pm and Mass at 7pm, followed by a reception in the gym. For more information please email amaremusicministry.flores@gmail.com.
Congratulations to this years’ All Saints Car Raffle Winners. Ray Embree: $ 100, Roy Connor: $ 500, Mark Wise: $ 500, Vanesa Stafford: $ 1,000. A portion of the proceeds raised are diistriibuted back to the parishes in the form of grant. Saint Bernadette places these funds in our Tuition Assistance Fund. Thank you for your generous support with ticket sales and congratulations to our lucky winners.
Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,
At our priests’ convocation last week our speaker, Dr. Anthony Lilles of St. Patrick Seminary in Menlo Park, CA, talked a lot about renewal in the Church and the virtue of hope during this jubilee year of hope named by Pope Francis. Pope Francis knew, he said, that hope is what our world needs most now. I thought I would include some of my notes from his talk on hope and memory, and the healing power of mental prayer.
Hope, he says, is our right relationship to the present. It heals the anxiety of the future as well as the regret or pain of the past. It is beatitude: blessedness, or the foundational gift of the Father in our creation. The Father loves us into existence all the time, and the meaning of our life is to come to terms with it. It lives in the personal dimension, not just a concept, but interpersonal pure life. It is the mutual delight of the Father and the Son which is the Holy Spirit.
Have you ever experienced a peace which comes inexplicably in the middle of the most hopeless, impossible situations? Hurdles in life that are just too high to jump? You pour out your heart completely to God. The peace which endures is only a moment for now in life, but it is also that moment in heaven that never ends. It is to totally love, and know love. With hope we can choose to love, anyway. It is the moment of Jesus on the cross.
This pouring out your heart is mental prayer, and healing comes. Dr. Lilles says that every time renewal happens in the Church, it is always preceded by a renewal of mental prayer in the Church. Based in hope, it is the remedy of discouragement. So many people today are discouraged and need to know a genuine solidarity of hearts.
To encounter the beauty of something meditated upon, you exercise your love desiring it (eros) and at the same time, in beholding it (agape), you know it and somehow become it. You become one with it.
This kind of prayer is anything but passive. (Too many people pray God! Entertain me!) Many people, he says, pray like they are watching TV.
The Psalms were the heart of Jesus, and he prayed them with his entire being, constantly in communication/communion with the Father. It is a kind of passive reception that at the same time requires tremendous attention and openness. John of the Cross calls it mystical wisdom, the living knowledge and love of the presence of Christ in the soul.
His divine indwelling makes us burn brighter, releasing greater charity. He saturates more and more of our humanity. Saint John says it leads us to the death of Christ – you want to go there – not simply a suffering that you must endure to get what you want. You want the cross knowing that life follows from encountering his wounds, and ours, together. Saint John Paul II said that this mystical wisdom is ecclesial, we also get caught up into the life of the Church that is the indwelling Trinity.
This word, this union of hearts with Christ completes his Creation through you and your prayer. Through your heart he makes all things new.
Movements of the heart in prayer shape our hearts, healing memories caused by our sins or the sins of others which affect us, healing our wounds. The mercy of the Father is the healing: literally his healing the misery of the heart (miseri-cordia) of the Church. It all begins with our pouring out our hearts to him, and he pours his into us.
Mental prayer is an intense conversation/sharing with the One who loves you perfectly. Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity says she prays by searching her heart for where Jesus is, and looks especially in all the corners where he seems least present
The Lord be with you.