Dear friends,

As I reflect on this month of July, I'm filled with great joy and gratitude for the blessings I have received in my life and also for the gift of our parish, whose feast we always celebrate this month. This weekend specifically marks for me two significant anniversaries – the day I arrived in the United States to begin my pastoral ministry in the Diocese of Phoenix on July 19, 2004, and my priestly ordination 34 years ago, on July 20, 1991. These two years have had a deep impact on my priestly ministry here among you in ways I cannot express.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a conference hosted by the Archdiocese of San Francisco entitled “Fons et Culmen”, which is a manner that the document Sacrosanctum Concilium from the Second Vatican Council used to describe the Sacred Liturgy. "Fons et Culmen”, Latin for "Source and Summit”, designates the liturgy as the "summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed" and the "font from which all her power flows." This means that the liturgy is central to the Church's mission and life, serving as the primary means through which the faithful encounter God. It is through the Eucharistic celebration that believers are united with Christ and each other, receiving grace and strength to live out their faith.

Dear OLMC,

As I come to the middle of my summer assignment here at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish, I have had the opportunity to reflect on my experiences, which I would like to share with you in this short article.

Under the mentorship of Father Robert Aliunzi, our Pastor, it has been so far a grace-filled time of learning how Jesus reveals His pastoral heart in a living, vibrant parish community, and I have enjoyed every bit of it.

When we hear the word ordinary, we often think of terms like typical, routine, or even boring. So why would the Church set aside an entire season called Ordinary Time?

In the context of the church’s Liturgical Year, ordinary doesn't imply dullness or lack of significance. Instead, it comes from the word ordinal, meaning numbered or sequential. That’s why we hear references such as the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, and so on. (Interestingly, there’s no First Sunday in Ordinary Time—it's replaced by the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord.) Ordinary Time isn’t about ranking importance but simply refers to the sequence of Sundays that fall outside the Church’s major liturgical seasons: Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter.

“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness…” 249 years ago, these words were inscribed in our Declaration of Independence from Great Britain.

Dear Friends,

The month of June (dedicated to the two hearts: The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary) is coming to an end, but God's Love has no end! May the Heart of Jesus, formed in the womb of the Virgin Mother by the Holy Ghost, have mercy on us.

The heart is one of the symbols that is to be found throughout the world. It is a symbol of love.