My Dear People, 

Congratulations to the candidates that entered the Catholic Church on the Easter Vigil.

As we begin the Easter Season, we begin to reflect on the Acts of the Apostles, and how the Christian community was from the very beginning of Christianity.  The text stresses the importance of “being one”--solidarity unity is a virtue of good Christians and one of the marks of the Church: “the apostles bore witnesses to the Resurrection not only by word but also by their virtues” (St. John Chrysostom, Ho.  on Acts 11). The disciples obviously were joyful and self-sacrificed. This disposition, which results from charity, strives to promote forgiveness and harmony among the brethren, all sons and daughters of the same Father. The Church realizes that this harmony is often threatened by rancor, envy, misunderstanding, and self-assertion. By asking, in prayers and hymns like Ubi Caritas, for evil disputes and conflicts to cease, “so that Christ our God may dwell among us:” it is drawing its inspiration from the example of unity and charity left it by the first Christian community in Jerusalem. 

Harmony and mutual understanding among the disciples both reflect the internal and external unity of the Church itself and help with its practical implementation. There is only one Church of Jesus Christ because it has only “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph 4:5), and only one visible head—the Pope—who represents Christ on Earth. The model and ultimate source of this unity is the Trinity of divine Persons, that is, “the unity of one God, the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit” (Vatican II, Unitatis Redintegratio, 2).  The Church derives its life from the Holy Spirit; a main factor in nourishing this life and thereby reinforcing the Church’s unity is the Blessed Eucharist: it acts in a mysterious but real way, incessantly, to build up the mystical body of the Lord. 

This is Divine Mercy Sunday (April 7),  We will have a Holy Hour at 3 PM. in the Church. 

Yours in Christ,

Fr. Vincent Clemente