Weekly Letter from the Pastor

Dear Fellow Parishioners of St. Benedict:

Summer certainly began in beautiful fashion this past Memorial Day Weekend. I hope everyone had a chance to enjoy the weekend. It feels really good to have things back to normal now that all of the pandemic protocols are ended.

We are beginning the farewell tour for our eighth graders and this coming week is especially significant for them. We celebrate their baccalaureate Mass on Wednesday and their graduation on Friday. We wish them the best as they move on to the many different high schools that they will be attending. We will publish more about that next weekend.

We extend our prayers and best wishes to all of our high school graduates. CBA graduated two weeks ago, RBC, SJV, and Trinity Hall graduated this past week and the local township and county schools will be graduating over the next three weeks. We will celebrate them at the Masses next weekend.

Next weekend is the Feast of Corpus Christi -- the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ launches the parish phase of the The National Eucharistic Revival. Sponsored by the U.S. bishops, the revival aims to inspire people to encounter Jesus in the Eucharist. Here is all you need to know about the National Eucharistic Revival:

This is the second year of the three-year initiative to inspire, educate, and unite the faithful on the meaning and place of the Eucharist in the life of the church and in our own individual encounters with Christ. The revival is meant to highlight the True Presence of Jesus.

In a pool conducted by the Pew Research Center, only 31% of Catholics believe in the True Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. It is up to that 31% to spread the truth to all. The revival website says: “We all need healing, yet many of us are separated from the very source of our strength. Jesus Christ invites us to return to the source and summit of our faith — his Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist.” It is a time to confront the hardships that face people in everyday life. The National Eucharistic Revival is a powerful, uplifting way to rise to this challenge.

We conclude the diocesan phase next Sunday as we launch the parish phase. We begin with the Eucharistic Procession concluding the 11am Mass. This involves a procession with Benediction outside following the Mass. At the conclusion of the 11am Mass Father will lead the procession to the first altar and we will conclude back in the church. This is a beautiful reminder of the power of the presence of Christ, and a chance to revisit one of the beautiful traditions of our faith.

During the course of the year there are a number of Eucharistic events planned. We began to introduce this during Lent as we prayed a different version of the Stations of the Cross focused on the Eucharist. We will do the same next year as well.

The belief in the presence of Christ is really the heart of our faith as Catholics. We boldly proclaim it -- we live it -- and through it we can evangelize the world!

Have a blessed week,
Father Garry