We are told by scripture scholars that the Gospel of John uses the word “remain” more than any other New Testament writer. And that there is a real significant meaning for the word “remain” for John, and that the evangelist uses the image of vine and branches to “develop a significance of Jesus remaining in the disciples and the disciples remaining in Him.”

Audrey VERONICA Andrews, Brett THOMAS Araniti, Patrick GEORGE Barnard, Francesca LUCY Beaver, Alexander FRANCIS Bourque, Madeline MARY Bourque, Tyler JOSEPH Brouillard, Jackson JOHN Bulger, Madelynn CHRISTINA Burkett, Zachary JOHN Calnan, Amanda HERMIONE Carucci, Mackenzie MARY Cellerino, Sophie MARGARET Cellerino, Tyler AMBROSE Coiro, Lillian CECILIA Connelly, Justin PETER DeFina, CLICK TO READ MORE!!

As we enter into the Third Sunday of Easter we hear once again of “disbelief” or “unbelief” or just plain “uncertainty” as the disciples encounter the Risen Lord and wonder if what they see is “real.” We know that the disciples and apostles needed some kind of “proof” and many searched for something in the here-and-now to connect with their faith beliefs. Jesus gives his followers this “here-and-now” moment when He tells them, “Why are you troubled?

As we celebrate the 50 days of the Easter Season in our Parish, we are each called to continue on as Christ’s Disciples in the ways we freely choose to live-out our Christian faith in our daily activities of life. The Lenten Season was the time in which we hopefully acted to well form our practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, so as to be more “perfect” Christian disciples living out our faith in-and-through the ways we fuse our faith into our families, work and social ethics. My Good Friday homily asked us to consider the question posed by the 11th Station of the Cross: “Is my soul worth this much?”

Each year (and actually every Sunday) at Eastertime we are called to refocus our faith on the Great promise of Easter and now we have the fifty (50) days of the Easter Season to really “buy-into” the Promise of Christ and see how we can redirect our daily lives to reflect the love, the compassion and the mercy of God in-and-through the Domestic Church—our families—for it is the family where the Church truly celebrates the “Mass” and the entirety of our faith.