Dear friends at Saint Frances Cabrini and Saint Mary’s parishes,

Happy Easter! The Lord is risen indeed and there is great joy in our hearts at the Resurrection of our Lord!

This Sunday we celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday. The feast day was instituted by John Paul II on April 30, 2000 on the occasion of the canonization of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska (1905-1938.) This feast day is an opportunity for us to consider the gift of God’s mercy for us and the ways in which we are called to show mercy to others as well. 

One day I was visiting one of my friends’ parents. They own a farm where they have cattle and sheep. The day I was visiting they also had newborn lambs in the farm and they took me to the place where the lambs were to see them. When I got to the farm, I was told three of the newborn lambs had lost their mother and they had to be bottle fed and so I asked if I could help bottle feeding. When these little lambs sensed that I was approaching, bottle in hand, to feed them they began to cry because they knew they were going to be fed. And then I remember thinking, “thank God someone hears the cries of these lambs and comes to feed them every day.” 

Helping feed these newborn lambs became one of the best images I have to describe God’s mercy for us. In his mercy, the Lord hears the cries of the poor and comes to our assistance when we call out for help. As Psalm 34 beautifully proclaims: “the poor one cried out and the LORD heard, and from all his distress he saved him. Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the stalwart one who takes refuge in him” (7;9.)  The Lord is good and, in the Gospel, he also entrusts us with a mission: “be merciful just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6: 36.)

In the first reading for Mass this weekend taken from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 4: 32-35) we learn that the first Christian community was “of one heart and of one mind.” I believe that mercy connects mind and heart in a special way. When we learn in our minds about someone’s pain and acknowledge it, the heart then is moved to compassion and hopefully to action as well. The work of mercy involves all of who we are, and it is, of course, always preceded by God’s help and grace for he does not command what we could not fulfill. 

Also, the work of mercy might leave us “wounded” sometimes. Feeding those newborn lambs was a messy experience! If we look at the Heart of Jesus, the merciful one, we notice that his heart was pierced when he accomplished the great work of his mercy for us on the Cross! Yet the Lord, at the same time that he asks us to be merciful, he also provides us with the means to accomplish his work. In the Eucharist, the Lord offers us “bread from heaven” so that we may eat, if well disposed, in order to regain the strength necessary to be what he is: merciful. 

Mercy is quite the mission for all of us, but it is also quite a joy, for the Lord himself promised happiness to those who are merciful! “Blessed [happy] the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” (Matthew 5:7.)

Sunday:           Acts 4:32-35/Ps 118:2-4, 13-15, 22-24 [1]/1 Jn 5:1-6/Jn 20:19-3     

Monday:         Acts 4:23-31/Ps 2:1-3, 4-7a, 7b-9 [cf. 11d]/Jn 3:1-8

Tuesday:         Acts 4:32-37/Ps 93:1ab, 1cd-2, 5 [1a]/Jn 3:7b-15

Wednesday:    Acts 5:17-26/Ps 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9 [7a]/Jn 3:16-21

Thursday:        Acts 5:27-33/Ps 34:2 and 9, 17-18, 19-20 [7a]/Jn 3:31-36

Friday:             Acts 5:34-42/Ps 27:1, 4, 13-14 [cf. 4abc]/Jn 6:1-15

Saturday:        Acts 6:1-7/Ps 33:1-2, 4-5, 18-19 [22]/Jn 6:16-21

Next Sunday:  Acts 3:13-15, 17-19/Ps 4:2, 4, 7-8, 9 [7a]/1 Jn 2:1-5a/Lk 24:35-48

Normal Mass Schedule
Sundays: 7:30am, 9:30am
12:00pm (Español)
Monday through Friday: 6:15am

Normal Confessions and Adoration
Thursdays from 5:30pm-6:30pm

Normal Parish Office Hours
Monday through Friday
8:30am-12noon

*Please note that there is a "mask-only Mass" 

option offered at Saint Frances Cabrini on Saturdays at 4:30pm.