From the Desk of Father Tharp

Divine Mercy Sunday is April 8

The Chaplet of Divine Mercy together with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament for the St. Ann / Sacred Heart Pastoral Region will take place at St. Ann on Sunday, April 8 at 3:00 p.m. 

Feast of the Annunciation

When March 25 is Palm Sunday, you have a liturgical calendar problem.  Thus the Feast of the Annunciation is celebrated April 9, the day after the completion of the Octave of Easter.  Father Roettele Council and Father Butler Assembly Knights of Columbus will celebrate the prayer of the Rosary at St. Ann on April 9, 2018 at 7:00 p.m.  Consider beginning your anticipation of Christmas by joining us in this prayer.

Vacation Bible School

This year Sacred Heart will join St. Ann in our Pastoral Region Vacation Bible School to take place at St. Ann.  I am looking for interested teen volunteers and Virtus trained and approved adult volunteers who will help with this joint program.  I am asking adult and teen volunteers from Sacred Heart and St. Ann to consider this your “home parish” Vacation Bible School.  If you have not been Virtus approved, we will provide plenty of opportunities locally.  For additional information, see notices in this bulletin.

Reflection on Scripture

Why did Thomas doubt?  I submit that like most of us, he did not want to be labeled as a fool.  After all, what is the opinion most of us have of those who report “Elvis Sightings or encounters with ET?”  But the story of the “doubting Thomas” incorporated into the Gospel according to John has another purpose.  It articulates the doubts the early Christian community would have had regarding physical or corporeal resurrection.  What is the definition of a resurrected body?  Is it more than a ghost and less than temporally compromised physical presence of living tissue?  In fact, we know from the stories in the gospels that the resurrected body of Jesus bore the marks of physical torture and injury, and yet were not painful.  We know that the resurrected Jesus could walk through locked doors and still be physically present so as to eat fish.  Scripture also seems to intimate that the resurrected body of Jesus is capable of bilocation; in other words not restricted by the limitations of time and space.  

The early Christians recognized that they had to have an entirely new definition of resurrection.  Jesus in his resurrected body is more alive than we are.  He is eternally beyond human limitations.  And the “good news” is that he invites us to share this reality of eternal life with him through the ontological change of baptism.  This is why the Catholic Church does not define the Sacrament of Baptism as a ritual or ceremony. It is a genuine change in our existence.  It is true rebirth into eternity with Jesus Christ. 

Readings for Third Sunday of Easter

Acts 3:13-15, 17-19

1 John 2:1-5a

Luke 24:35-48

Theme:  He was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.