Dear Friends,

If you have seen that my smiles have broadened these days, you are correct. Why? Well, this is because the long-awaited Perpetual Adoration Chapel construction is now underway as you have probably seen. This project is dear to my heart as it is in many of yours, I am sure. Yes, for many months, we have longed for, prayed fervently and battled with mundane procedures to reach this moment.

Dear Friends,

We have just recently concluded our Parish Census and Survey. One of the major purposes of these exercises as I told you, was to identify the needs of our Parish and appropriately address them. While the final outcome of the survey is still being compiled and will be shared at an appropriate time, one need that came out frequently from many of you and which I personally have been also thinking about, is the need for a Bereavement Support Ministry here in our Parish.

Dear Friends,

This was the simple but profound question I was asked one day by one of my OLMC preschool friends named Luke this past school year. Much as Luke constantly asks me very many questions whenever I visited their class or after Mass, this particular one about the Father of God caught me completely off guard. For all my years of studying theology, some years of teaching religious education and years of preaching, I could not immediately provide him with a simple response suitable for a four-year-old.

Dear Friends,

“You have a great and joyful community here at OLMC. Keep on doing whatever you are doing, Robert. I will certainly come back soon!” These were the final words Bishop Dolan told me as I escorted him to his car after my Installation and thereafter the Groundbreaking for our Adoration Chapel last week. I couldn’t agree more with the Bishop but more especially with his first sentence about being a joyful community.

Dear Friends,

Twelve days ago today, despite his extremely busy schedule, our Bishop, John Dolan, accepted my short-notice invitation for him to come over and officially break ground for the construction of our long-awaited Divine Mercy Perpetual Adoration Chapel this weekend. He is also at the same time installing me officially as your Pastor. I am especially so grateful to God that this historical occasion of the groundbreaking is finally taking place today June 2, 2024, soon after the 11:00am Mass. I am also grateful to our Bishop for making the time to come over and be with us to Preside over these events.

Dear Friends,

This past week, as the school year came to a close, our own school joined the flurry of activities of other schools which included graduations, among others. The last to graduate this past Monday in our own school, which caught my attention most, were the Little Lamb Preschoolers. As usual, I was fascinated by the simplicity and purity of love exhibited by these little souls which ranged from their often off-tune but passionate songs to their spontaneous genuine words of “I love you”.

Dear Friends,

Last week, I joined the Priests of the Diocese of Phoenix for a five-day silent retreat in Tucson. It was one of the best retreats I have had in recent years. One of my prayer focuses for this retreat was for our Perpetual Adoration Chapel whose construction has been delayed for nearly two years, to be approved by the City of Tempe. So, from the very beginning of the retreat, I asked the Lord to expedite the approval process for the building permit so that the construction of our Divine Mercy Adoration Chapel can commence. This was in addition to asking many of you individually and as a community to pray for this same intention for months.

Dear Friends,

When we look at the state of our world today, we can easily get discouraged. There are many reasons for this but one reason that is common and perhaps most apparent is the division we see in the world. We are technically more connected than ever before, more aware of our fellow man’s existence yet we seem to be just as divided as ever. Even within the Church we see this division. Division is nothing new, it’s been around since the fall of Adam and Eve when Adam blamed Eve for his sin. However, what we see in our modern era is a radical individualism, an idea that we must be reverenced as unique and distinct from all others and that our individual identity is more important than anything else.

Dear Friends,

I want to take this opportunity to thank those of you who participated in the just concluded Parish Census. I am glad to report that we have gathered great data through this exercise, and we are now ready to move forward to the Survey portion. Like I mentioned in my previous articles and video messages, I am very interested to hear your thoughts about our Parish namely, what you think we do well and sets us apart as Our Lady of Mt. Carmel; what you think we could improve on and what new things you desire to be introduced in order for our parish to continue thriving.

Dear Friends,

What do you do when you can do nothing? You pray. This is the image of faith in its rawest form. When there is nothing else that can save us, all we can do is cling to the help of God. All we can do is pray. In these moments when we feel that all hope is lost and all our supports fail us we encounter what I like to call “gutter grace.” Whether someone has left the faith or never encountered Jesus, it is typically in life’s gutter where the faith is most profoundly encountered.

Dear Friends,

On the weekend of March 9/10, we officially launched our Census exercise in order to determine the size of our parish. Though during the most part of last month our focus shifted to Holy Week, Easter Triduum and Easter itself, the Census exercise has been ongoing for those who did not do it the first weekend it was launched. Now it is time again to refocus our attention to Stewardship under whose context we began this Census exercise. We want to acknowledge that we are all called to give of our time, talents, and treasure as a gratitude to all of God’s gifts to us.

Dear Friends,

First, He rose from the dead after a horrible torture and death and, threw the whole world momentarily into confusion including the well-trained soldiers deployed to guard the tomb. Then, excitement and then celebration, the kind of which was never witnessed before. But, before the reality of His Resurrection began to sink in, however, He became elusive, appearing and disappearing to His disciples even through closed doors.

Dear Friends,

Today, we celebrate the feast of the Divine Mercy, and as we do so, we do it on the backdrop of an even-greater solemnity, the solemnity of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. We began the celebration of this momentous event in our Church with many blessings. At the vigil Mass we welcomed into our Church 23 new members 11 of who received baptism while the rest received the sacraments of Confirmation and first Holy Communion along with them. This was followed shortly after Mass, by the convalidation of the marriages for two of our couples in the Church.