Today we celebrate the beautiful feast of Corpus Christi. The feast of the Body and Blood of our Lord. This feast is a treasure for us as Catholics! We cherish this great treasure given to us and instituted by Our Lord. The Lord Jesus gave us his body as food for our journey. We will be having our annual procession with the Blessed Sacrament tonight (Sunday) after the 6:00pm Mass. I hope to see you all there!
All of our graduation celebrations in the parish are over. I am so very proud of all our graduates. May God bless all your future endeavors!
In the bulletin, you will see the copy of the 2017-2018 financial report of the Parish. Please note: on Saturday, April 6, I held a joint meeting of the Parish Council, Finance and Stewardship Councils. This report that is in the bulletin was given out to the members of the councils. In addition, once a month I have an accountant come to the Rectory for the day, to make sure all is in order. Reports are made to the Diocese. The accountant, not me, puts together the final report as seen in the bulletin. After the report is done by the accountant and after I show it to the finance council, the trustees sign the report and it is sent to the Diocese which keeps it on file. This has been the case during the last 5 years of my pastorate!
This weekend is our parish’s missionary appeal weekend. It’s an opportunity for us to pray for and support our brothers and sisters all throughout the world most in need. We welcome our missionary who will be speaking to us and encouraging us to give our talent to alleviate the needs of others. I thank all of you for your kind generosity.
Next Saturday, at 9:00am, all lectors and EM’s are asked to join me at Mass for our annual re-commissioning as ministers in the parish. After Mass, there will be a hot breakfast and a meeting in the school auditorium. Call if you are not able to attend. If you can’t come and do not leave a message I will assume you will no longer want to serve our parish. I am looking forward to being with you in prayer.
We are encouraging our parishioners to take out a journal ad for our 125th Anniversary in October. Information about taking out an ad and purchasing tickets can be found in the bulletin.
Today we celebrate the beautiful feast of Pentecost. To- day we recall the Promise of our Risen, Ascended Lord, who sends the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, down from heaven the percolate to be our guide. Our Easter season of 50 days comes to a close today. Tomorrow we will resume the liturgical season of Ordinary time, in which we once again reflect on the public ministry of Jesus.
This is also graduation season. Today’s 10:30am Mass is the graduation Mass for the St. Sebastian Academy class of 2019. It was an opportunity for us to pray for them, wish them well and acknowledge all their achievements during their time here at St. Sebastian. Congrats to their families. Please continue to keep all our graduates in your prayers!
Next weekend we welcome the MaryKnoll missionaries who will be here talking at all our masses., asking your help once again on behalf of the missions. This is an opportunity for all us to put the Lord’s words into action and help many of God’s people most in need. I thank you in advance for your kind generosity.
The Diocese of Brooklyn is asking parishioners to personally subscribe to The Tablet at home. No longer will you be receiving The Tablet at home unless you pay for a subscription. If you don’t wish to subscribe to the table, we encourage you to take one from one of the two bins in the Church. The cost of each tablet is $1.00. You can place the dollar in the bin.
I wanted to thank those of you who came out to pray and support our Catholic War Veterans and ladies Auxiliary on Memorial Day. It was great to see so many people come out and parade around our neighborhood!
Next weekend is another great weekend here at the parish. I will be celebrating adult confirmation at the 5:00pm English and 12 noon Spanish. Every Pastor in the Diocese of Brooklyn is given a special indult (permission) to confer the sacrament of confirmation to those adults who have been preparing over the course of time. Please keep them in your prayer, as the Holy Spirit will fill then with the seven gift of the Holy Spirit.
Our annual Corpus Christi Procession will take place after the 6:00pm Mass on Sunday, June 23. I invite all the children of our parish, especially those who received their first Holy Communion, to lead the procession with their parents. I look forward to this event in the parish.
Finally, now that the news of Fr. Joey’s leaving us at the end of the month is out, allow me to clarify some misunderstanding that are out there. I have been somewhat quite about this out of respect to Fr, Joey after speaking with him about it. As I stated previously, I received a call from the Diocese stating that Fr. Joey’s application for Incardination was denied and that his last day in the parish was going to be June 30. Nothing else was said to me as to the reason why. Pastors are never given reasons why. It is a standard process that every priest and those priests who are applying for Incardination knows about. Incardination refers to a priest who is from another Diocese, applies for a period of time to another Diocese. Fr, Joey as we all know came from the Philippines and worked in another Diocese in the U.S.A. before coming to Brooklyn. Fr, joey has gone through this before. He knows well the process. A priest, who is not Incardinated into a Diocese, serves at the pleasure of the hosting Diocese. This pried of time that a non-Incardinated priest has in a particular Diocese can end at any time, either at the request of the hosting Diocese (Bishop of Brooklyn) or the Diocese where the priest come from (Philippines). The letter of appointment I received when Fr. Joey arrived 3 years ago was for a period of 1 year. He has been here 3 years! We were all blessed to have him! But the Diocese of Brooklyn after a specific time reviews a candidate’s application and makes a recommendation to the Bishop. This time around there were a number of priests being considered. Some were accepted and some were not. It’s just the way it is. Please, I ask you; do not try to speculate as to the reason or reasons why a candidate’s application is rejected. In addition, I have been hearing form many of our parishioners, that the Diocese has treated Fr. Joey in an “unjust” way and that because of the Diocese; he is “jobless” and “homeless.” This can’t be farther then the truth. I called the Diocese immediately when I heard this and they assured me this is not true. No Diocese will ever leave a priest in this situation. It is up to the priest to apply to another Diocese (as Fr. Joey has done before) or at the very least return to his original Diocese. I thank Fr. Joey for his wonderful ministry here at St. Sebastian. Let us continue to pray for him as he looks to the start of a new ministry in another Diocese. Fr. Joey requested that his farewell mass be at 3:30pm Tagalog Mass on Sunday June 30, Please come and wish him well!
