Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, with whom I have prayed to our Father many times over: I love you. We were made for this, to love one another as He has loved us. He brought us into to being to live in His spectacular love, as His family forever. I am grateful to God that we have had this time to journey together on our pilgrimage towards our heavenly homeland. You have each been a blessing to me and I thank you for praying with me, loving the Lord with me, and always trying to know and love Him more so that we can live as He lives, thereby truly knowing the way the truth and the life that is life in His name (His presence).
Thank you for all of your kind words, smiles, hugs, singing, prayers, joy, trust, food, laughter and most of all….love. To have been woven together with you all has been a tremendous blessing and a real foretaste of heaven. As I make the transition to Corpus Christi Catholic Church this week, please know that I will continue to pray for you and truly look forward to the day when the race is finally run, and we will be on our way to eternal joy together forever. Towards that end, I’d like to leave you with one last scripture reflection: “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (2 Cor 3:17-18)
My prayer for you is that you continue to seek after the Lord with a hungry heart (Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness—the Lord—for they shall be satisfied). As we make that move to turn (repent=change our thinking…turn away from what is not of Him) we step into the freedom of God’s love, we come into agreement with the person of the Holy Spirit who lives in us to conform us to the image of the Son. When we turn to the Lord, the veil (all the stuff that keeps us from seeing clearly) is lifted. By turning to the Lord with our heart (thoughts, feelings and desires) he opens our mind to see His Glory (the manifestation of his awesome majesty) given through revelation. What He shows us, what we see, what we receive, transforms us! Not by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God do we live! A hungry heart keeps us turning to the Lord for more. The more we receive, the more we are transformed from glory to glory! I pray we all have hungry hearts until we’re in glory with God forever.
Finally friends, I want to warmly thank the amazing staff of the Cathedral Cluster: you have been a tremendous blessing to me and you labor hard for the cluster, I admire you all1 I’d like to give Fr. JJ a shout out in particular: your witness of perseverance, prayer, kindness, joy, love, peace and hunger have truly inspired me, thank you FatherJ Lastly fam, if you’ve ever got an itch for some holy homework in the future, you can always catch my weekend homily at this link.
Love you always!! -Fr. Patrick