From the Pastor's Desk

This past week was truly strange.  With businesses downtown closed, with schools closed due to spring break, with the office on less hours, with rainy weather, few cars on Jefferson Street, it reminded me of the ice storm of 2007 without the ice and thankfully with electricity.  Our world has changed in just a matter of a few weeks.  If we were watching the international news, we should not have been surprised.  Our world is so interconnected that we are not living isolated from our world neighbors.  It was only a matter of time before the virus came to our country as Americans returned home from vacations or work overseas.

Over the weekend as I prayed and mediated, I tried to find the silver lining.  For all of those infected, for those who have died and will die because of the virus I am saddened and place them before our loving God.  For the rest of us I hope we learn to look at who and what is truly important in our lives.  In my own life I have slowed down considerable, taking more time to walk around St. Agnes campus, more time to pray and reflect.  For families I hope you spend the time together, eating meals together, talking with one another and not racing off to the next sporting event, theater or friends, because those things should not be happening. 

My thoughts have been centering upon the love and mercy of God.  God does not cause evil but He does allow it to happen since this is earth and not heaven.  May we learn how to care for one another in our homes, within ourselves so that we can love others more like Christ.  Time is the most precious thing we have and now we have hours, days of it to spend with those whom we should love the most.  And in the use of all this time, I urge all of us to spend time in prayer as families.  Parents as you were instructed at the baptism of your children you accepted the responsibility of the teaching of your children in the practice of our faith, to love God and to follow the Ten Commandments.  Work with your children as they struggle to adapt to learning without a teacher present in the room, and without coming to Mass so that once the crisis is past we will all be stronger.  As Fr. Joseph and I celebrate our daily mass, we are keeping all of you in prayer, in the loving hands of God.