Dear Friend of Carmel Mission,
Here at Carmel Mission we choose a theme each year for our Advent season. The theme helps to guide our spiritual preparation through Advent, as we get ready to welcome Jesus into our world at Christmas. This year has been like no other in my lifetime. The sweeping and devasting effects ...
Dear Friend of Carmel Mission,
As we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King we bring our liturgical year to a close, and what a year it has been. As I consider the many unprecedented happenings of this past year, I am also reminded that nothing is unprecedented for God. We hear in the Gospel today that God’s Kingd ...
Dear Friend of Carmel Mission,
In the Gospel today Jesus tells us that we are to use our “talents,” our unique gifts, resources and skills, for the betterment of the Master’s Kingdom. In the Church we often talk about the stewardship of time, talent and treasure. All of these are invaluable to our community, t ...
Dear Friend of Carmel Mission,
This past Wednesday, November 4, we celebrated the feast of St. Charles Borromeo, our titular patron here at Mission San Carlos Borromeo del Rio Carmelo. St. Charles is a fascinating figure in the history of the Church. He was instrumental in founding the model for priestly formation tha ...
Dear Friend of Carmel Mission,
Today we celebrate the feast of All Saints. As we remember our favorite saints, whose example has been an inspiration in our own life of faith, we are also encouraged that we too can join their number. Though few of us will become a canonized saint of the Catholic Church, not that I am c ...
Dear Friend of Carmel Mission,
In the Gospel today Jesus gets to the heart of God’s law. We are to love God with our whole being, we are to love ourselves, and our neighbor as ourselves. It seems simple, right? As we know too well, it is anything but simple. As I was contemplating this deceptively straightforward ...
Dear Friend of Carmel Mission,
Today we hear a familiar story from Scripture in our Gospel passage. “Repay to Cesar what belongs to Cesar and to God what belongs to God.” In Jesus’ artful answer to what the Pharisees had hoped would be an impossible question is a beautiful truth. Jesus asks for the Roman coin ...
Dear Friend of Carmel Mission,
We hear in Jesus’ parable today that many are invited to the Lord’s feast. God invites us all to his home, the Kingdom of Heaven. He asks only that we come ready to join in the celebration, to contribute our talents, our time and our energy to building up the Kingdom of God. As fol ...
Dear Friend of Carmel Mission,
As I was reading from Sacred Scripture in preparation for the weekend I came to the first line from the passage from the letter of St. Paul to the Philippians: “Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.” (Ph ...
Dear Friend of Carmel Mission,
In the current time of uncertainty, unease, and fear that we are experiencing, in a world gripped with pandemic and a nation grappling with the profound issues of racial inequality, I find myself turning, as Jesus Himself did, to the psalms. In the psalms we find the depth of human emo ...
Dear Friend of Carmel Mission,
Reflecting on the Gospel for this weekend, I am reminded of a line from a hymn we have fairly recently added to our repertoire at Carmel Mission, O How Blessed. “The first shall be last, the last shall be first, for such is the wisdom of God.” Certainly, it is not in line with huma ...
Dear Friend of Carmel Mission,
Today we read one of my favorite psalms, 103, “The Lord is Kind and Merciful.” The readings from the Book of Sirach and the Gospel reading today focus greatly on the aspect of mercy - God’s boundless mercy for us and how that must be the example of the mercy we show to others. Th ...
Dear Friend of Carmel Mission,
This weekend we celebrate Labor Day, the traditional, if not literal, end to the summer season. We take time on this day to consider and pray for those who work. We know that our God values work and workers, and we are grateful, especially in this time, to so many who work for our bene ...
Dear Friend of Carmel Mission,
Our hearts and our prayers remain with all those affected by the wildfires in our area. We are grateful that, thanks to the hard work of our brave firefighters, inroads have been made in containing the fires and some evacuated people have been able to return to their homes. We know tha ...
Dear Friend of Carmel Mission,
In the Gospel today Jesus tells Simon Peter that he will be the rock on which Jesus will form His Church on earth. Such responsibility boggles the mind. Knowing Peter as we do through the Gospels, we can be fairly certain he was equal parts mind boggled and wildly enthusiastic for the ...
