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Dear Parishioners, On this Second Sunday of Easter, the Gospel tells of what happened on the evening of the Resurrection day when Jesus stood among the ten Apostles gathered in the room where they had eaten the Last Supper three nights before. Remember – there were only ten Apostles on this occasion since Judas killed himself and Thomas was not present for some reason. Jesus unexpectedly walks through locked doors and greets His dear Apostles with “Peace be with you!” After initial surprise and possible shock, they rejoice with their risen Master, Rabbi, Teacher, and Lord. The Risen Jesus represents and literally embodies new life and a new beginning for Him, for His Apostles, and for all who commit themselves to following Him. Jesus emphasizes peace first and foremost in His first appearance to the Apostles, as well as in His second visit to the Upper Room one week later when the Apostle Thomas is present. Jesus tells Thomas to stop disbelieving and start believing in His Resurrection, and Jesus gives much encouragement, actually a blessing, to those people who believe in His Resurrection even though they do not see Him in person as the Apostles have actually seen Him. To fully believe in the Resurrection without ever seeing the Risen Christ is really having true faith, with true faith defined as belief in that which we cannot experience with our five senses. The Last Supper, His arrest, His mock trial, His scourging and being crowned with thorns, His crucifixion, burial, and Resurrection all happened so quickly, yet Jesus knew the time frame and had prepared His Apostles and disciples as best He could for these events. He was as patient as He could be with them and is as patient with us as well in our faith journeys. Jesus calls us each Easter to new life and a new beginning, yet we can begin a new life and a new beginning spiritually at anytime we want, with the faith that we have been given through our Baptism and the Eucharist. With His Resurrection, Jesus’ Passion was over, never to be experienced by Him again, and He wants us to begin that new life in Him, and this can happen over and over again as we need it. We can’t forget His Passion and Death – we commemorate it yearly in Holy Week, but we don’t stop there at the tomb. We use the empty tomb as our beginning, because through our Baptism and the Eucharist we have new life in Jesus. The Apostles and disciples of Jesus didn’t keep going back to the hill of Calvary and the empty tomb in the nearby garden after Jesus’ Resurrection. These were places of death and stagnation. They, then, and us, today, are called to the mountain of the Ascension and the Upper Room of Pentecost – places of new life and not of death. Alleluia!

Dear Parishioners, Have you ever realized something that has always been, that you’ve experienced all your life, and, suddenly, it’s like a light bulb goes off in your brain? Well, that happened to me this past Monday night as I began writing this article. From Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday is 40 days, and from Easter Sunday to Pentecost Sunday is 50 days – a total of 90 days or three months.

Dear Parishioners, It is obvious why Palm Sunday is titled the way it is: Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey for the Passover, while many of His fellow Jews waved palm branches and shouted “Hosanna to the Son of David!” Blessed palms are taken home by Mass-goers today. On Ash Wednesday, blessed ashes, from burned blessed palms leftover from the year before, were applied to our foreheads, giving the name to this first day of Lent. The distinction between sacramentals and sacraments needs to be brought to our attention always, and it is important that a sacramental is never given more importance than a sacrament. Two good examples: A person should not be upset that he or she is not able to go to Mass and receive ashes on any given Ash Wednesday for various reasons. Ash Wednesday is not a holyday of obligation, nor are ashes on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday a “religious” requirement.

Dear Parishioners, We received our ashes this past March 5th, and here we are on the weekend of April 5th & 6th, a month later, on the Sunday before Palm Sunday. Holy Week starts after that, and soon it will be April 20th Easter Sunday for 2025! Sometimes it’s not easy to observe Lent in our world today, because our world is not exclusively Christian or Catholic today – not that our world ever was exclusively Christian or Catholic – but the overall observance of religion, Christian or non-Christian, is not very prevalent in this 21st century.

Dear Parishioners, When has it happened last that your plans and/or your usual schedule in your personal life or in your work changed somewhat significantly temporarily? I know that this is a wordy and maybe grammatically incorrect question, but I want to be clear. Well, a change in our usual schedule at the St. Peter Church campus took place this past Monday morning when the short but heavy rainstorm caused the “roof-in-process” to leak in several places inside of the church, and the contractor had the refinishers start on repairing the water damage to the wood plank decking of our “cathedral” ceiling in the church, which required temporary movement of pews, installation of scaffolding, and plastic covering over the pews to catch the dust and debris that fall from overhead while the wood was being repaired. This results in a literally “unusable” church building now for an unknown period of time. Weekday Masses are now in the Lacour Center (the former convent ) and weekend Masses begin this weekend are at St. Hubert’s.

Dear Parishioners, Some medical conditions that people are diagnosed with can be greatly improved or even cured by the active role the patient takes in the treatment of and the living with the particular disease/diagnosis. High blood pressure requires weight management, proper diet and exercise. Lung/respiratory problems in smokers will certainly improve if they stop smoking. Those with congestive heart failure and fluid retention must watch their sodium intake if they want to have a close-to-normal life. Weight management, exercise, adherence to a healthy diet, and quitting smoking are things that people must decide to do and actually do themselves – no one else can do these things for them – if they are going to improve their health and possibly reverse the disease. Jesus talks about this in the Gospel this Sunday with the example of the fig tree and the gardener. Jesus is the Master Gardener, and we are the fig trees.

My dear parishioners, On this Second Sunday of Lent, Catholics all over the world hear the story of the Transfiguration of Jesus in the Gospel today. It is said that this event on Mount Tabor took place forty days before Jesus’ Passion, Death, and Resurrection as a preview of the glory that would come to Him from His obedience to God the Father and in His love for us, shown in His Crucifixion. The actual time of the Transfiguration is not as important as the vision Jesus was giving to Peter, James, and John, and we might wonder why Jesus didn’t have all 12 of the Apostles present for this glorious manifestation of the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth, but we have to trust Jesus’ decision in only bringing these three up the mountain with Him.

Dear Parishioners, Lenten penances that we choose to do for forty days can be compared to New Year’s resolutions: if we want them to last and to be effective, even though Lent is only forty days, the penance has to be realistic and doable, just as a New Year’s resolution has to be if it will do us some good. The Gospel of Ash Wednesday is a good source for something that we will “do” or “give up” for Lent. First, Jesus talks about almsgiving, or giving our money or time to charity in some way.

Dear Parishioners, This Wednesday, March 5, the 40- day season of Lent begins. We might and can say that we begin the observance of Lent. All of us are born with different levels of observation – that goes without saying – yet it is possible, and sometimes quite necessary, to sharpen our observation of various aspects of our lives. If we consider ourselves by virtue of our Baptism and the other Sacraments, members of the Church, then our ongoing observance of what it is that we do as Catholics is crucial and necessary, especially if we are going to be and feel united with our brothers and sisters as true members of the Catholic – which means universal – Church. The Lenten observances bring us to that awareness each year and are not so hard to remember or to do if we simply sharpen our observation skills when it comes what we are to be about during Lent as the Church – the Body of Christ on earth today. As a reminder, Ash Wednesday and all the Fridays of Lent, including Good Friday, are days of abstinence from beef, poultry, pork and game meats. In addition, on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, the Church asks us to fast as well – to eat only one full meal with two or more smaller portions eaten on those days, as our health/diet situations allow, so that we might be aware of Jesus’ sacrifice for us and share in that sacrifice in this traditional practice of the Church. Lenten practices/ observances are not complicated today, as some may remember from decades past, and what I have spelled out above is the current observance/practice that Rome encourages us to participate in as best we can. We are the ones who benefit from these observances - these practices that have been part of our Catholic heritage for so many centuries. Being a follower of Jesus, a Catholic Christian especially, is not a “do-your-own-thing” way of relating to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The season of Lent unites us in our diversity and calls us to observances that have proven manageable and doable all these years.

Dear Parishioners, What usually happens when someone tries to take the law into his or her own hands? Well, usually, a less-thandesirable, maybe even a terrible or tragic outcome all around and for all involved. The Gospel for this weekend, from the mouth of Jesus Himself, tells us to let the civil law authorities handle civil law issues between citizens, but more importantly, to let God handle the interpersonal issues between people. Jesus is always calling us to integrity, and not to ignorance. Integrity and ignorance both start with the same letter and have the same number of letters yet mean the opposite of each other. Integrity can do so much good, while ignorance can do so much harm. Another way of defining these terms is that Christian integrity is surrendering to God to avenge, punish or intervene, and ignorance is taking revenge, punishment and intervention into one’s own hands and control, with the latter being almost always harmful and dangerous. So if anyone professes to be a Christian, a follower of Jesus, then what Jesus has to say in the Gospel this weekend is the guide for how we are to live and view our lives in Christ. It is certainly a challenge – it is easy to be ignorant, but integrity takes some work and commitment – work and commitment that we are capable of if we believe that Jesus has the words of everlasting life and that His words, directions, and instructions are truly what we need to live by if we are going to live up to our baptismal call to discipleship and to be people full of the integrity that can only come from Jesus.

Dear Parishioners, As a parish priest, I have the responsibility to teach, preach, and guide the souls entrusted to my care in the ways of the Church, to be honest and truthful, and at the same time to be charitable, loving, and pastorally sensitive. This coming May 16 I will celebrate 38 years of priestly ministry, and I have tried to do my best in parish ministry with the help of Christ the High Priest. As such, I try to be faithful to my baptismal and my priestly calls, and all of us who are members of the Church by our baptismal call--clergy, religious, and the laity alike--are called to charity (love), sensitivity, honesty, and truthfulness. For all of us, this is a challenge that we can certainly accept and live if we heed the words of Scripture. The prophet Jeremiah in the first reading this weekend is truthful yet blunt: Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings…whose heart turns away from the Lord. Jeremiah is really speaking to those whose turning away from God is a longtime or lifelong state for them – those who have no need or use for God, Jesus, the Church, as shown by their complete neglect of the practice of their Catholic faith, despite the fact that they are baptized, confirmed, and have received the Eucharist in their childhood. In all truthfulness, many times the families of these people arrange for a visitation and funeral Mass in the church when they die. They had no need nor desire for the Church when they were living – why in death now is the Church so important? I’m really trying not to be judgmental, and “deathbed conversions” happen more than we may know, but throughout the illness that may result in their death, the priest/ pastor is not even notified until the person has died or is literally taking their last breath. This is where we are called to move away from hypocrisy as far as we can. Those who are reading this item are not the hypocrites, yet the devil is always trying to lead us all with false and empty promises. The practice of our faith is what protects us from the weak and strong temptations of the devil to hold God at arm’s length because we have better things to do in our lives than to go to church and practice our faith. We don’t know what happens immediately after a person dies and they see Jesus face to face in their personal judgment, but we do know that His forgiveness is endless and generous. Jesus is still our judge as well as our brother, so let us strive to be faithful and consistent followers of Him who constantly calls us to Himself. May we constantly listen to His voice.

Dear Parishioners, The Oxford dictionary of the English language defines “integrity” as “the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles and uprightness,” and is “the state of being whole and undivided.” I think anyone with any self-respect would want to be a person of integrity or at least strive to be so. It goes without saying that a follower of Jesus who is brutally honest with himself/ herself would embrace integrity as his/her way of life and try to avoid going back and forth from being whole and undivided to fragmented and split. Our patron saint, Peter, in the gospel this weekend, shows a bit of going back and forth by readily obeying Jesus’ “command,” as Peter puts it, but then tells, not asks, Jesus to depart, to leave him because of his sinfulness. Peter is certainly being honest about himself with Jesus, but Jesus already knows, as the Son of God, this fisherman Peter through and through yet still favors and blesses him with two overflowing boatloads of fish, and thus, a sizeable monetary profit. Jesus then responds to Peter by telling him not to be afraid and that he will be catching people, not fish, from then on. At this point, Peter, along with his brother Andrew and their business partners, James and John, make a decision for integrity and strive for “the state of being whole and undivided” in their rather instantaneous abandonment of their nets and boats to follow the Source of the miracle they just witnessed. What is our response to Jesus’ invitation to us as far as following Him, who knows us through and through and our strengths and weaknesses too? Following Him starts with leaving the things in our lives that keep us from His presence, just as these four fishermen did. Doing this was risky, but soon they found out that they had made the right decision. They sought integrity, wholeness, and uprightness with undivided hearts. We can do that in our lives too. Peter was married, possibly had children, had a job, while Andrew, James, and John were also employed full-time. They are not so different from us except that they lived at a different time. Yet striving for integrity is a timeless goal--no matter who we are, what we do, our age or our health, wealth, or marital status. Let us follow His call.

Dear Parishioners, In my bulletin article two weeks ago I spoke briefly about parishioner involvement in liturgical ministries at Masses. Next week’s Gospel relates the calling of Peter, Andrew, James and John by Jesus, from being fulltime professional fishermen to His full-time followers. Perfection and experience were not required of these men for the roles Jesus wanted them to fulfill as Apostles, and neither are perfection and experience required of those who share their talents, gifts, and abilities in the parish setting. If you are reading this church bulletin, that is a sign that you have an interest in our church parish family/community and may have the desire/wish/inclination to see if and where Jesus is calling you to give/use your talents and abilities for the good of your St. Peter parish brothers and sisters. Among our Mass-goers, there are those who would be effective lectors/readers, as well as those who would be effective choir members, instrumentalists, and/or song leaders/cantors, as well as those who would be good Eucharistic ministers, those who would be effective hospitality ministers/ushers/collection personnel, and those would be good servers, both children and adult servers as needed. As you hear the Gospel next week of the call of the two sets of brothers, think about your own personal abilities/talents/gifts and the call of Jesus. Parishioner participation in parish life has many more possibilities than the ones I just talked about earlier and are not just limited to participation at Masses, but have many forms in parish life, from being “behind-the-scenes” to being “in-front-of-the camera,” so to speak. Yet to make our Eucharistic celebrations the best that they can be for us to better experience Jesus, our faith, and our unity as a parish family, the Mass is the best and most appropriate place to start. So, evaluate your talents/abilities/gifts, don’t be afraid to use them if applicable for our parish, consult me with your questions and/or ideas, and like the 12 Apostles, see that we should not be afraid to respond if we hear Jesus’ voice in our hearts calling us to continue building up His Body in our parish community, our spiritual home. Again, perfection and worthiness are not required – just a faithfilled heart.

Dear Parishioners, I went to the window early this past Tuesday morning wondering what I was going to see when I opened the blinds, but the amount of snow amazed me, as did the steadiness of the snowfall throughout Tuesday. I write this article on Wednesday morning, January 22, knowing that Thursday the 23rd is also going to be a day to stay off the roads because of the refrozen melted snow of Wednesday night into Thursday morning. This winter storm event brings us many different thoughts and reactions. What comes to my mind is that God is in control of everything – at least for those who believe in God – and those who may profess that they don’t believe in God or that God is not in ultimate control of nature are still subject to things beyond their control. Since early Tuesday morning we have had to stop our regular routines as far as getting into our cars and going places and to being very aware of the danger of the icy roads. It’s very similar to us hunkering down for a threatening hurricane in the middle of summer and worrying about wind speeds and rising water. At this point we can thank God that we as a south Louisiana community have literally “weathered” this rare winter snowstorm with minimal problems, except for those with pipes that have burst, and we pray that they are quickly repaired. May this adjustment this past week bring us all a good sense of humility – that there are things that take place in our world and in our lives that we have no control over – and that our humility may help us to be stronger believers in God, better neighbors to our brothers and sisters, and better people in general. To be better people because of this past week is a very valuable by -product of the inconveniences we have endured.

Dear Parishioners, With all the activity in 2023 and in the first half of 2024 that I was involved in as pastor of St. Gertrude’s in Des Allemands and its merge with St. John the Baptist in Paradis, as well as in the second half of 2024 in becoming pastor of St. Peter’s and its joining with St. Hubert’s, I didn’t realize that 2025 would be a “Holy Year” - something that the Pope designates every 25 years. Since this is only the third Holy Year in my lifetime, this celebration is certainly not something we observe often. In the Holy Year of 1975, I was fourteen years old, and a “graduating 8th grader” at St. Peter School, and twenty-five years later, in the Holy Year of 2000, I celebrated 13 years of ordination to the priesthood. This 2025 Holy Year marks my 38th anniversary of ordination, and if the good Lord keeps me here until I’m 89, I’ll observe the Holy Year of 2050! The first Holy Year of Jubilee was declared by Pope Boniface VII in 1300, and every 25 years since, a Holy Year of Jubilee has been celebrated throughout the Catholic Church. So, for more information on the Holy Year of 2025 and all the events that are taking place throughout the United States, go to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) website. There you will find all you need to know about what the Holy Year of Jubilee is all about. As we “ring in” 2025, let us never forget that every year, month, week, day, minute, and second are gifts from God, and therefore “holy” and that by our Baptism and membership in the Church, we are holy people as well. Being holy is nothing to be afraid or ashamed of – if we make a sincere and consistent effort to love God, to love our neighbor, and to keep the commandments as best we can, we are holy. It’s a title that Jesus wants to always give us as well as a title that we should strive for. To be holy doesn’t make us superhuman, weird, or unapproachable, it makes us more human, normal, and approachable as Jesus was when He came to earth to “pitch His tent among us” and join us in the human and earthly journey.

Dear Parishioners, As I mentioned in an earlier article, Advent of 2023 was exactly three weeks long, the shortest possible time for this liturgical season since Christmas Day was on a Monday. If 2024 was not a leap year, Christmas 2024 would be on a Tuesday, still shortening the Fourth Week of Advent significantly. Yet we will celebrate Christmas 2024 on Wednesday, December 25, and this same sequence of days and dates will repeat every six or seven years. Yet the season of Advent is more than just a four-week time on a physical calendar – it is a time that we are called to observe and not just “slough-off” or “brushoff” because “we have Christmas to prepare for!” I know well that physical preparation for Christmas is important for individuals, families, our church parish family, and friends, but a spiritual preparation and observance can’t be just thrown to the side, because, for us Catholics, doing that is totally “missing the point.” And what point is that? Well, for one, we can’t get sucked into the majority of the Christian world view that the celebration of Christmas is one or two days at the most. The liturgical Christmas season for the Catholic Church is sometimes half as long as Advent: from the evening of December 24 until well into January, ending on the evening of the Baptism of the Lord – after the Epiphany, traditionally the “Twelfth Day of Christmas.” So, if we literally “do the math,” we literally can and should celebrate Christmas for almost two full weeks after December 25. Don’t hold your breath and wait to see if the rest of the world does that, because they won’t. But did Jesus ever say for us to just “go with the flow?” No, I don’t think so, and our faithfulness to the observance of our Catholic traditions are certainly more important than being like the rest of the world.

Dear Parishioners, Testing and experimentation give us valuable information with which to make future plans and decisions. Such was the case this past Monday when we gathered in the “north arm”, the daily Mass chapel of St. Peter Church. I wanted to see if this space would provide enough seating for the noon and the 6 p.m. Masses for the holyday of obligation. I’d like to first say “thank you” to you Massgoers who readily moved to the chapel after your arrival, and to all who attended Mass here at St. Peter’s on this transferred feast of the Immaculate Conception. My test/experiment results tell me that, for future holydays of obligation, we will use the entire church rather than just the north chapel. Even though there actually was space for all attendees to sit down, and people were really not packed like sardines in the pews, the space was quite full, but I needed to see and know this before making the decision for future holyday Masses. Hopefully, our numbers for all our Masses here might increase. May I mention at this time that our 6:30 a.m. weekday Masses always have room in the chapel for anyone who would like to start their day and join us for Mass – there is ample room for more, and we still won’t be packed like sardines. So don’t let the fact that we were quite full in the chapel this past Monday deter you from coming to St. Peter’s for Mass on any day or at any time. I was conducting a test, an experiment, and I needed to actually have the attendees there in the chapel to see if it was feasible and practical to have holydays Masses there. I conducted the test, got the result, and made my decision: Masses on holydays will continue to be held using our entire church, our full worship space.

Dear Parishioners, We can never be too well-informed about important things, especially in our spiritual lives as members of the worldwide Catholic Church. And there is a saying that goes “everything old is new again,” indicating that practices and ways of doing things go out of use and come back into use. Such is the case with the celebration of the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception this year. For quite a while now, the bishops of the United States, the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops – the USCCB – have lifted the obligation for Catholics to attend Mass if the holyday falls on a Saturday or a Monday; however, since the Immaculate Conception has been transferred this year from Sunday 12/8 to Monday 12/9, and Mary under the title of the Immaculate Conception is the Patroness of the United States, Rome has instructed the bishops to uphold the obligation for Catholics to attend Mass on December 9 this year because of the importance of this dogma of our faith. In addition, since 12/8 – always the Immaculate Conception – falls on a Sunday this year, the Second Sunday of Advent takes precedence as a Sunday over Immaculate Conception, which has been transferred to Monday 12/9 this year. Therefore, from our “headquarters” in Rome, to fulfill our Sunday obligation and our Immaculate Conception obligation, we need to attend Mass twice between 4 p.m. Saturday 12/7 and by midnight Monday 12/9. There will be no vigil Masses for the Immaculate Conception on Sunday evening 12/8, but a Sunday evening Mass on 12/8 will fulfill the obligation for the Immaculate Conception even though the Mass readings and prayers will be for the Second Sunday of Advent. This obligation does not apply to Catholics who are unable to attend Mass due to old age, illness, mobility issues or work obligations. Even only 25 to 30 years ago, we may have had to go to Mass two days in a row for a Sunday and a holyday of obligation, but that certainly didn’t “kill us.” Rome is just giving us a little nudge to remind us that we can never “do too much for God,” yet it is for our own spiritual benefit and growth that sometimes we are called to “go the extra mile” in our faith journey. Our Mother Mary will help us.

Dear Parishioners, Last year, in 2023, Christmas Day was on a Monday, making the Fourth Week of Advent lasting only 24 hours, and this year, 2024, because it is a leap year, Christmas Day is on a Wednesday, cutting the Fourth Week of Advent down to 72 hours. That’s what happens when December 25 is at the beginning of the week, and we have no control over this as we all know. But what we do have control over is the liturgical season of Advent as a whole, whether it lasts only three weeks, instead of four, like in 2023, or whether Christmas falls on a Saturday, when we actually have four full weeks of Advent anticipation and preparation. And that is the key to our observing the preparatory seasons of Advent and Lent: we prepare and anticipate the glorious feasts to come and not “bypass” the season of Advent with full Christmas decorations in place on “Black Friday” or have Easter baskets and lilies as our decorations on Palm Sunday. Advent and Lent are part of our faith life as Catholics for a reason – to benefit us to grow spiritually by using these seasons to prepare through prayer and reflection on the feast that is coming and not “jumping the gun,” so to speak, and celebrating prematurely. It’s not easy to do this in our world where Christmas carols start on Thanksgiving afternoon, or possibly before, and the Easter Bunny comes out the day after Valentine’s Day. If we are to be authentic members of the Church, true disciples of Jesus, then we cannot be “pulled into the ways of the world” and/or “go with the flow,” because we will not experience the full impact of the great celebrations of our faith. Let’s not shorten this Advent of 2024 any more than we have to, and for that matter, not only for 2024 but for every Advent that we observe as God’s people.

Dear Parishioners, The Sunday before the First Sunday of Advent, the Solemnity of Christ the King, is also the last Sunday of the current liturgical year. This year, December 1st marks the First Sunday of Advent and the start of a new liturgical year, in this case, 2025, for us Catholics and other Christian denominations who observe the month-long season of Advent. This year we also start “our Catholic/Christian New Year” exactly one month before the secular celebration of “New Year’s.” That doesn’t mean we as Catholics should not celebrate on December 31 and January 1 with the rest of the world, but we should always keep in mind that new beginning that we can all embark upon when we light the first of the four candles of the Advent wreath. Yet, with Christ as our Light, we can also remember that each and every day can be a day for a new start, a new beginning – not only when Advent or Lent or Easter or Christmas begins – but any and every day is a good day for us to recommit ourselves and renew our Baptism and continue to be a faithful and faith-filled follower of Jesus. Jesus knows that faithfulness and discipleship are not always easy crosses to carry, but our willingness to carry them is what Jesus wants, and He will help us each step of the way at our invitation to Him. That’s where the faithfulness and the discipleship come in – our Blessed Mother, the Twelve Apostles, the many men and women who joined Jesus’ mission and traveled with Him in His three-year mission, and all the saints who followed them - they all committed themselves, each with his or her difficulties. But letting Jesus help us through those difficulties through our faithfulness and discipleship is the key to our growth in faith, hope, and love. Starting this December 1st, let’s make 2025 a truly good year for us, the Church.