Dear Friends of Carmel Mission,
I hope that you had a wonderful Christmas in the presence of family and loved ones. I thank all our team at the Mission for the work that they did during 2019. Much of that work is carried out behind the scenes. Every member of our team plays a part in making our beautiful Mission a pla ...
Dear Friends of Carmel Mission,
As we get closer to Christmas, we can almost reach out and touch the excitement in the air.
I saw that excitement in the eyes of a four year old girl recently, when she began telling me of all the wondrous things that her new iPhone would be able to do. She asked me to pray that Sa ...
Dear Friends of Carmel Mission,
I’m writing this message just after I finished eating the most delicious pear - so sweet, so tender, so juicy!
It wasn’t just any pear. It was plucked from a pear tree planted way back in the 1700s by St. Junípero and his friars.
Can you imagine it, a pear tree planted all ...
Dear Friends of Carmel Mission,
As we begin our Advent Season, we prepare to welcome the Prince of Peace into our lives. I will be speaking and writing about this in the weeks during Advent. This weekend I’m sharing with you a beautiful reflection on Advent by one of our parishioners, Roger Fiola. Please enjoy:
Adv ...
Dear Friends of Carmel Mission,
I’m taking this opportunity to wish you a truly Happy Thanksgiving. Fr. Rodrigo joins with me in extending our great gratitude to you for your prayerful support and encouragement to us, your priests.
We are indeed truly blessed to minister in a parish where the Gospel message of ...
Dear Friends of Carmel Mission,
Jesus tells us in the last line of our Gospel passage this weekend (Luke 21:19):
“By your perseverance you will secure your lives”
Perseverance is a virtue that our Savior clearly demonstrated in His life. It is a virtue that we find in the lives of the Saints. Our own saint, Jun ...
Dear Friends of Carmel Mission,
At this time of year we remember our loved ones who have gone home to God. May they rest in His loving embrace.
This weekend, in particular, we honor our Veterans on Veteran’s Day. November 11 is the anniversary of the signing of the Armistice between the Allied forces and German ...
Dear Friends of Carmel Mission,
At this time of year we celebrate two important days in our liturgical calendar: All Saints and All Souls.
Our secular world has laid claim to Halloween, dressing it up in its own colors of black and orange. It is a huge Hallmark holiday, and a day for the makers of candy bars to rejoi ...
Dear Friends of Carmel Mission,
In the Gospel this weekend, we listen to the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, and we are given an example of prayer in it’s purest form:
O God, be merciful to me a sinner
Talk about a reality check!
In the prayer of the tax collector we lie naked before God, str ...
Dear Friends of Carmel Mission,
Our front cover this week features a photograph of our St. Junípero Serra Prayer Garden. This is a place to which I often go, after another busy day at our beautiful Carmel Mission. I sit on a bench and think about St. Junípero, sitting or standing in the same location many years ago. ...
Dear Friends of Carmel Mission,
Gratitude is sometimes unexpressed or taken for granted. In our Gospel this weekend we hear about Jesus healing ten people of leprosy, and how only one of the ten returned to thank Jesus. Is there someone in your life to whom you seldom, if ever, express your thanks? Why not do it this ...
Dear Friends of Carmel Mission,
Colman’s English mustard was a constant feature on our dinner table at home. As a child , I would love to be given the task of mixing the mustard. It came in a small tin box filled with golden powder. The secret was to add just the right amount of water, so that the consistency of t ...
Dear Friend of Carmel Mission,
Each year around October 4, the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, the students of our Junipero Serra School have a special “Blessing of the Animals.” It is always wonderful to see the enthusiasm, love and care that the students have for their cats and dogs, as well as guinea pigs, ...
Dear Friends of Carmel Mission,
It's Fiesta time once again!
Did you know that the beginnings of what would become the fiesta began in the early 1960s? Throughout the Fiesta’s long history, Junipero Serra School groups like the Mothers and Fathers club, along with the Knights of Columbus, worked with the Mission ...
Dear Friends of Carmel Mission,
I personally invite you to our 55th Annual Carmel Mission Fiesta on Sunday October 6, 2019 from 11-5 p.m. Our main goals this year are to bring the larger community together to celebrate and get acquainted in our breathtaking Carmel Mission Courtyard and raise much needed funds to benef ...
