FROM THE PASTOR’S DESK

Dear St. Mary’s Parishioners,

Something truly amazing has been happening over the past two weeks. Even though I’ve been a priest for over ten years now, thanks be to God, I have never seen anything like it. One after another, almost like a holy assembly line, people have been coming to confession after decades away from the Church. Son and daughters of God are coming to the stuffy, little, carpeted confessional that we have at St. Mary’s parish, after twenty, thirty, forty, and over sixty years of living in spiritual darkness. It’s the constant amount of people that are coming that is shocking. It’s as if they all got together one day and decided to come at the same time. If you’ve had to wait in the confession line recently for a long time, let me take this opportunity to apologize for any inconvenience. When these souls return to Christ, a priest is wise to take his time and gently listen as they pour out the deepest, most shameful secrets of their lives. This influx of people coming back to the practice of their Catholic faith through the confessional is revealing one obvious, glorious fact – the Holy Spirit is moving! It is through the power of the Holy Spirit that is moving the hearts of men and women to return to God who is all mercy and all loving. This day, the Church celebrates the moment when Jesus Christ sends us his Spirit as we heard in the Scripture readings: “On the evening of the first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst…. He breathed on them and said to them ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (Cf. John 20: 19-23). This same Holy Spirit was given to us when we were baptized; for most of us, it was when we were just infants. Then, when we received the Sacrament of Confirmation, the gifts of the mighty Holy Spirit that transformed the cowardly, fearful disciples into warriors of Christ, suddenly went boldly proclaiming Jesus Christ to an unbelieving world. You and I have the same Spirit, right now, pulsating through our very bodies and souls. Yet, despite this great gift from above, we can stray from God and live below. These fickle hearts of ours can be entranced, with what St. John called, “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – (that) comes not from the Father but from the world” (Cf. 1 John 2:16). Regardless of how far we’ve fallen, the great truth of our Faith is that no sin is so grand as to eclipse the love of our Heavenly Father. We no longer have to carry the burden of shame from our past mistakes. If you have been away from the practice of your faith, or you think your sins are too ugly for God, come to that stuffy, little, shag carpeted confessional in St. Mary’s. You will experience the Gospel in live action, “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them…” (Cf. John 20:23). I only ask that you excuse the long lines.

A Slave of Jesus Christ, Fr. Brian J. Soliven