Dear Friends in Christ,

On this Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Christ comes to us as the wellspring of hope and the fountain of healing grace.  His promises stand true and His words remain forever, "I do will it.  Be made clean."

Our Lord sees right through the leper's grievous suffering and how His heart must have been broken, hearing his desperate cries for help.   The leper's humble gesture of surrender moved Christ to stretch out His hand, touch and heal him.  Christ also longs to reach out to us in our moments of pain, trials and suffering.  Christ longs to pull us up and draw us to His Heart as we kneel down before Him and beg Him to deliver us from our bondages. 

Christ desires to unite the wounds in our lives to His pierced side, hands and feet.  He asks us to lay down beneath His Cross all our wounds which need emotional, physical, and spiritual healing.  Is there a relationship in our life that needs to be mended? Is there an unrepented sin in our heart that needs to be forgiven? God asks us to surrender all our brokenness and uncleanness to the power of the most Precious Blood of the Immaculate Lamb during each Eucharistic Sacrifice and to the light of His mercies in the sacrament of reconciliation.  We find our hope in Christ who desires to make all things new and beautiful in our lives.

As we begin the season of Lent this coming Ash Wednesday, Christ offers us once more a solemn time of renewal and healing.  We receive the ashes as a sign of our resolve to turn away from all those which distort and defile our souls and from whatever keeps us away from God. Let us ask the Holy Spirit to guide us during this Lenten journey of conversion, with our hearts transformed more and more into that of Christ, pleasing and glorifying God in all things. 

A Spirit-refreshed and safe holiday weekend, dear friends! 

In Christ, with blessings of peace,

Rev. Jonathan Paala

Pastor