Dear Parish Family,

After Jesus’ Ascension his disciples returned

to the upper room where they had

celebrated the Last Supper and gathered in

prayer with Mary, the women, the apostles

and many disciples. Jesus had said to them to stay in the city until

they were clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:49). Jesus had

promised that he would send them a Comforter or Advocate, the Holy

Spirit. So they spent these days on retreat praying for the Holy

Spirit. Although Jesus would no longer be with them as he had been,

as someone they could see and touch, yet he would continue to be

with them as they celebrated the Eucharist and would be with them

through his Spirit whom they would receive at Pentecost after this

time of prayer together.

Remembering Mary, the women, apostles and disciples gathered in

prayer for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit reminds us of the importance

of praying for what we need. While prayer is principally to

make us more open to God, to help us respond better to God’s grace

in our lives, we also believe that God’s love leads Him to hear and

answer our prayers. We greatly admire the faith of people who pray

to God every day for a request and a long time afterwards have their

prayer answered. Each one of us knows people whose prayers seem

to be always answered, and then they are asked to pray for others

also. People often ask priests and sisters to pray for their intentions

and ask priests to offer Mass for their intentions; that is good, but it

is also good that each of us prays for ourselves. Jesus himself taught

the importance of asking God for what we need, “Ask and it will be

given to you; search and you will find; knock and the door will be

opened to you”. (Luke 11:9-10).

Sometimes we might feel that prayer is wasting time instead of doing

something good. We need both work and prayer in our lives. If we

do not pray every day there will be a huge void in our lives and we

cannot hope to be happy.

Not all prayers are answered, or I should say, not answered in the

way we wanted. Even though not all prayers are answered in the way

we desired, hopefully we can see that we have received graces we

probably would not have received had those prayers been answered

as we wished. We have plans and sometimes our plans are not fulfilled.

Our lives can sometimes revolve around ‘me’ or ‘I’ or

‘myself. But God has still more wonderful plans for us if we will

allow them to be fulfilled. It is only in the next life that we will fully

understand God’s plans. The disciples understood the establishment

of the ‘kingdom’ as the reign of God by defeat of sin only when the

Holy Spirit came upon them. Like them when we wait in prayer like

Mary, the women and apostles and disciples before Pentecost we

will receive graces from prayer that otherwise we would not receive.

During this week before Pentecost I invite you to pray like Mary, the

women, the apostles and disciples for a renewed outpouring of the

Holy Spirit on the Church and on all of us that we may respond to

God better. Please believe that your prayer will be answered. As we

plan our summer vacation give some thought of going on a spiritual

retreat to revitalize our soul.

Fr. Tom Kunnel C.O.