December 7, 2025

Launching and Celebrating the Youth in our Parish

In my message last week, I spoke about the end of the Jubilee Year of Hope and that we will mark the end on the weekend of January 3 and 4th, 2026. I also noted that the end of the Jubilee year of Hope begins the era of lived hope in the Church and the world.

To mark the beginning of the era of lived hope in our Church, we are planning to launch and celebrate the Youth in our parish. The youth is said to be the future hope of every society, but we know that they are also the present beacons of hope of the human community. They are the concrete expression of our hope in our families, Church and world.

Therefore, on January 3, at the 5pm Mass will be launch and celebrate our parish youth. This will be an important day in our parish. On this day, we will spiritually and mystically bind all the youth in our parish with the bread and wine that we will offer at the Most Holy Mass and present them to God the Father. Our prayer is that as the substances of the bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of Christ, our youths will be transformed into special offerings dedicated to God for service in the Church and the world.

At the same time in the same Mass, we will consecrate the youth in our parish to the Holy Spirit to enkindle in them the fire of his love and empower them to become true and courageous witnesses of Christ and the values of his kingdom on earth.  

We look forward to having the youth take charge of doing most of the services in the Mass that evening; serving as lectors, ushers, Mass-servers, and possibly the choir. After the Mass, they plan to treat us to dinner at the parish hall. There, we will have further interactions and fraternization with the youth and the rest of us parishioners.  

Between now and then, I appeal to all the young men and women in our parish from the age 15 to 30 years to take part in this launching and celebration; make yourself present to God in our Church. I appeal to you parents, grandparents, and all the adults in our parish to, please, support the youth and make this day a blessed one. Let us encourage the young ones in our families to take part in this event. We can also support them by donating to the funds they are raising to cover the expenses they will make for the event including the dinner they plan for that evening.

Our physical presence will be highly appreciated at the 5 pm Mass on January 3. This might mean your changing your usual Mass time that weekend; it is worth making the sacrifice. Finally, we need adult volunteers to help in grooming and growing our youth group. If you feel called to this ministry, do not hesitate, please make yourself available to God for it.

Like the five loaves and two fish, we present our little initiatives and efforts to the Lord Jesus praying that he multiples them to bring about a strong and flourishing youth in our parish. Amen.

-Fr Bona  

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November 30, 2025

Advent in the Jubilee Year of Hope.

Advent is a special season in the Church’s year of grace. It is an annual four-week period of preparation. It is a time of preparation for Christmas, the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. It also commemorates the span of years that God prepared the world for the coming of his Son Jesus

Christ. This period stretched from the point of God’s promise of redemption after the fall of Adam and Eve (Genesis 3: 15) to the time Mary said “Yes” to God’s message brought to her by the Archangel Gabriel. In addition, Advent prepares the world through the Church for the final coming of Christ in glory at the end of time.

In these three dimensions of Advent, that is, the present, past, and future, there are four principal themes of Advent, namely, hope, peace, joy and love. Hope is like the thread that holds together these themes and everything about this season. This is what informs the use of violet or purple for liturgical celebrations in Advent. Violet or purple is the Church’s color for hope. In hope as the key theme of Advent, we see a special connection between this season and the Jubilee of Hope. We are celebrating the season of hope in a year of hope.

This double sense of celebration of hope is not a coincidence but an act of providence. We are privileged to be living and taking part in this unique moment that may not repeat itself in the nearest future. We would be concluding the Jubilee year with a resounding emphasis on hope by participating devotedly in the activities of this year’s Advent. The Jubilee Year thought us that the real hope of the world is not an idea or theory but a person; His name is Jesus Christ. He is the hope that does not deceive, mislead or confuse. He is the one who came (past), who is (present) and who is to come (future). He is the goal of both our Jubilee and Advent.

The universal Church ends the Jubilee Year of Hope on January 6, 2026. Our parish will mark the end of the Jubilee on the weekend of January 3 and 4, 2026. While the Jubilee celebration ends, the hope it brought to the world stays with us. In fact, the celebration of the end of the Jubilee marks the beginning of a new era, which is, the era of lived hope and hope in practice. Bishop Dolan has presented us the TILMA, which lays out the steps to follow in our Diocese towards putting hope into practice.

In the meantime, our parish Advent preparatory program is set and will run through the four weeks of the season. Every Sunday at 5pm, we shall gather in the Church to pray, sing, listen to talks, and receive blessings directly from the Lord Jesus (Eucharistic Benediction). Thus, we hope to be more spiritually prepared and sanctified for Christmas and the coming of Christ in glory. Let’s create time and not miss this opportunity of grace.

-Fr Bona

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November 23, 2025

Greatly Grateful to God and to You

“How can I repay the Lord for all the good done for me? I will raise the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord” (Psalm 116: 12-13).

There is time for everything, says the Scripture (Ecclesiastes 3:1). Rightly so, this is “Thanksgiving” time. We, as individuals, families, parishes, diocese, and nation, have plenty of reasons to be thankful and to celebrate “Thanksgiving” this year. Our thanksgiving first goes to God, who is the source, center, and end of all that we are and have. From God, our gratitude goes to many men and women to whom we are indebted in various ways for their goodness to us. In this group, we remember our parents, children, siblings, husbands, wives, teachers, students, friends, co-workers, friends, priests, nurses, doctors, drivers, and many others. We are alive and happy thanks to their care, support and services.

Many wonderful things have happened to us and among us between the “Thanksgiving” of last year and this one. As Church, we thank God for the blessing of a new Pope and of newly canonized saints particularly, Carlos Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati. In our Diocese, we thank God for the growth of faith and the increase in the number of seminarians. We thank God for our Bishop, John Dolan, for his unique ways of shepherding us, his Assistant, Bishop Nevares, the emeritus Bishop Olmsted, and all the priests and lay people in our Diocese, who work in different places and capacities as stewards of God’s graces. We all have litanies of blessings that give us cause for thanksgiving.

This is my first “Thanksgiving” in our parish, and I use the opportunity to express my gratitude to you all, parishioners, including our regular and non-regular visitors. Transition is not always easy, but you are making it smoother than it is naturally. Thank you. I profoundly thank my collaborator and brother in the service of Christ, Fr Chauncey; living and working with him is for me an experience of grace. I thank the seminarians with whom I live, and privileged to serve. My lots of debts of gratitude go to the parish and school administrative teams, the parish pastoral and finance councils, our employees, heads, coordinators, and members of various ministries, and volunteers. Together, we evangelize, and to you all, I say, thanks.

We can express our thanksgiving in no better way that is acceptable to God and beneficial to humans than by raising the cup of salvation and calling on the name of the Lord, the Eucharist. For this reason, I invite everyone, and encourage us all to gather and celebrate the Holy Eucharist of the Thanksgiving 2025, on Thursday, November 27 in our Church at 9 am. Let us make this Mass a priority in our Thanksgiving plan. Happy Thanksgiving!

-Fr Bona. 

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November 16, 2025

The God who lives in us; the Holy Spirit

“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you” (1 Corinthians 3: 16).

Prompted by this text, which was part of the Second reading last Sunday on the celebration of the feast of the dedication of the Lateran Basilica, my message this week is an invitation.

I invite us to cultivate and or strengthen our awareness of, devotion to, and relationship with the God who dwells in us, the Holy Spirit. I want our daily lives in actions and words, and our relationships with God, other humans, and our natural environment to reflect the truth of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us, as Church and individuals.

Since “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12: 3b), we need to embrace the spirituality of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit for a better appreciation of Christ and his mission. We need it for effective realization of our call to holiness, our mission to go and make disciples of all nation, and to be truly happy.

To build or sustain a personal relationship with the God who lives in us, I propose an assignment:

An Assignment:

Take a few minutes daily for the next seven days to begin or strengthen your relationship with the Holy Spirit.

·        Set aside between 5 and 10 minutes daily to be with the Holy Spirit.

·        This meeting can be in a car, a park, at home, in a church;

·        All that the meeting needs is a space and time apart. 

·        Begin by observing silence for a while.

·        Deep breathing for a while might help you to bring yourself together.

·        Remind yourself of the truth, that: “The Holy Spirit dwells in me”.

·        Repeat this truth about three times or more.

·        Then, talk to the indwelling Spirit in simple and personal ways.

·        For example, greet him (Good morning or afternoon or evening), praise him.

·        Thank him for living in you.

·        Apologize for the past neglect or indifference to his residing presence in you.

·        Promise to make up for the past neglect,

·        Ask him to grant you the favors, to know, to love, and to be devoted to him. 

·        Appreciate the time you had with him.

·        End the meeting. 

I appreciate the sacrifice you will make to carry out this assignment. Thanks.

-Fr Bona. 

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