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Updated 3/20/2020 Bishop O'Connell's Updated Decree Regarding COVID-19 (click to read all details)
OLPH School's Pandemic Preparedness Plan In Response to COVID-19 (click to read all details)
The Church building is Now Closed until further notice.
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UPDATED 3/20/2020: In Accordance with Bishop O'Connell's Decree
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April 5, 2020 - Palm Sunday
Dear OLPH Family,
A Palm Sunday like no other! We ordered our palms weeks ago. They are in the basement now since we cannot distribute them, to avoid congregating and to honor the wisdom of social distancing.
Each day as I offer holy Mass in an empty church, or nearly empty (for the recorded Masses I need a few key helpers). It strikes me that while I am in the church I am not among the church. Or, rather the church is not with me. As I tend to stress: you are the church! While the building is the church, without you there praying and singing and laughing… and even crying, the building feels like a ghost of its former self. The Most Blessed Sacrament is present, and I have been making holy hours and offering Mass each day, but it is just not the same. And it is more than just being alone… I miss the beautiful roles you play in the worship of our Lord and God.
I long for the day to be with you again, gathered around our lovely marble altar, to offer the sacred mysteries once again. I hunger for the occasion when together we can receive the holy Eucharist from the Mass and be nourished by the bread of life. I miss not being able to feed you with that super-substantial food that nourishes the soul not the body. And I hope you feel that hunger and longing too! Often when we are without something essential in our lives do we realize how much we miss it. And I miss you. I miss how you worship with me and how together we lift up a pleasing and fragrant offering to our Father. I miss how you help me to be me: your pastor. Pastors need flocks.
Over the past two weeks, we have joined Flocknote: a service that helps us connect with you via email and text. Text OLPHMS (all caps) to 84576 to sign up. I began a YouTube channel: “Father Joel Wilson.” And I am trying to light up FaceBook - even though I don’t care for it too much. But all that is not the same. The virtual world will never supplant the real world… well not for me.
March 29, 2020 - Three Things: Eternal Life - Timing - Faith
When God Doesn’t Make Sense - Week V
Three Things: Eternal Life - Timing - Faith
We find ourselves in the last week of our Message Series “When God Does Not Make Sense” and I cannot but smile at the perfect timing of these themes chosen before the Corona Virus Pandemic.
During these days, we have so many doubts, concerns, fears & questions. It is easy and natural to ask: God what are you doing?
But first we must admit that we cannot see all ends as God sees them. Instead, we are encouraged to trust and to grow and to mature in our faith with the Lord.
This week is a lot like two weeks ago: obstacles and growth - when we recognized in the Flight from slavery to Egypt that God placed obstacles in the way of his people in order to raise them in a mature faith. God stretches us so that we can be better and stronger servants for him.
