One of the best ways to attract new members to become Catholic and to join our parish is for them to hear personal stories from Catholics who are already living the faith. We therefore invite all of you to share something about your faith next weekend, June 5/6 after each of the Masses.  We will be recording short video clips of our parishioners answering one or more of the following questions:

1. Why are you Catholic?
2. What is your favorite prayer and why?
3. What is your favorite part of the mass?
4. What do you like most about being Catholic?
5. What do you like most about St. Aidan?
6. Is there a specific event in your life that deepened your faith?

Remember what Saint Peter says in 1 Peter 3:15, "Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you".

Please consider sharing your hope.

Grace: Everything is a gift—the loving relationships that surround us, the call to significant work; the material provisions that meet and extend our needs, the beauty of Creation exposed by changing seasons. We know that the grace of salvation has been given to us—but so much else is grace, too. Grace is getting what you don't deserve and didn’t earn, and it is often defined as ‘unmerited favor’. Grace is love that seeks you out when you have nothing to give in return. Grace-filled moments are those moments of epiphany that occur; moments of inspiration and awe; a sudden recognition of God’s presence.

​When the Disciples huddled together on Pentecost in the upper room, God in His grace, changed everything. It had only been fifty days before that they had abandoned Jesus and fled, leaving him to face the cruelty, the crowd and the cross, alone. The twelve apostles had seen one of their own number betray Jesus for thirty pieces of silver and then hang himself. It had only been fifty days since Peter denied Jesus three times—less than two months! It had just been fifty days since they had all hidden in fear at the thought of what might happen to them next.

But much can change in just fifty days if you think about it: a simple trip to the doctor about a funny mole can change into a battle with cancer; a long agonizing struggle to conceive a child can change into morning sickness; a frigid cold winter can change into the warmth of springtime and blossoms; an office flirtation can change into an adulterous affair; a great job can change into a demoralizing trip to the unemployment office; long nights of studying for final exams can change into graduation, marriage, and a job.

When we pick up the New Testament and read about that great and special Pentecost, we hear how the Disciples are suddenly emboldened to speak powerfully for Jesus. They fearlessly and openly stood up before a mob and proclaimed that the Jesus whom they crucified was now Lord and Christ—after hiding in the upper room. Jesus' chosen leaders—brave and bold on that first Pentecost—had been liars, traitors, and cowards just seven weeks earlier. Now they were willing to risk everything, including their lives, to speak up for Him. That’s why it is fifty days of grace: we go from crucifixion to resurrection to ascension and to pentecost: fallen disciples, broken leaders, and shattered loyalty needed that time of grace to be restored and put right. Jesus needed to confront Peter about his failure. We can all be changed completely with fifty days of grace!

So here we are, fifty days after remembering Jesus' Passion, Death and Resurrection. Where do you stand in your faith journey with the Lord? Have you failed him; failed your loved ones? Have you disappointed yourself? Are you still beating yourself up for sins you committed several months ago, or several years or decades ago? Isn't it time to hear the message of these last seven weeks and the renewal of the Spirit? Isn't it time to believe that you can be changed for the better—to be changed into the person that God made you to be—in fifty days or otherwise?

Jesus was handed over to die because of our sins, and He was raised from the dead to make us right with God. Isn't it time we all really hear that and believe that? It is time for us to all believe that his death can cover our sins. It is time to trust that His resurrection ensures that He has the power to make us right with God--no matter what. It is time to believe that Jesus can take us and our past with all its good and bad and use us for His glory so people around us may see the triumph of His grace in our lives. Move on from the failures, the lies, the denials, the cowardice, and step up and live for Jesus in a powerful way because His Holy Spirit lives in us! This is Pentecost and the birth of our Church!

Much can change for us, if only we will trust that God can change us, bless us, and restore us because of what we saw Him do with those fifty days of grace! Happy Pentecost!

Keep singing in your hearts!

Elizabeth Dyc

Just a Note:   Some songs of grace…

https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/mattredman

https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/yourgracefindsme

Just before Jesus ascended to heaven He gave us the mandate to continue His work of making the universe new through the preaching of the Gospel.  Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation (Mark 16:15).  Jesus began the work of making the universe new by taking to Himself our human nature and perfecting it through His Cross and Resurrection.  We benefit from this Gospel - this Good News - in baptism, where we are not only recipients of this newness, but also become privileged participants in Jesus' work.

“Save us, Savior of the world, for by your Cross and Resurrection you have set us free.”  It is not enough to believe this, we must also act on it; we must live our baptism.  Our baptism provides the grace necessary for acting as our belief requires.  Human skill and industry should be informed by the Gospel so that through sound government and culture we Christians can establish places where Satan is, as it were, expelled and the ravages of sickness - physical and spiritual - are healed.  “But perhaps some one may say to himself, I have already believed, I shall be saved.  He says what is true, if he keeps his faith by works; for that is a true faith, which does not contradict by its deeds what it says in words” (St. Gregory the Great).

Let us together renew our commitment to fulfill the mandate Jesus has given us.  By sharing the Gospel of Jesus’ Cross and Resurrection and having that Gospel inform all of our endeavors, the whole creation will find healing and renewal.  May it be said of us as it was said of Jesus’ first disciples: And they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that attended it. Amen (Mark 16:20).

David J. Conrad

All over Facebook you can see the posts of graduating seniors (high school and college) as parents are trying to arrange some semblance of “normalcy” at the end of a very difficult year for their children. The parents want their kids to have as “normal” a graduation experience as is possible (after the “Year of Covid”), and their kids yearn for that, too. I looked in Webster curious about the “official” meaning for the word “graduation.” The Latin root word grad and its variant gress both mean “step.” These roots are the word origin of many English vocabulary words, including graduate, gradual, aggressive, and egress.

​I thought about how we celebrate each next step by celebrating the one we are stepping up (away?) from—and that made me think of the saying about doors closing and windows opening. “Step” is a movement made by lifting the foot and setting it down again in a new position accompanied by a shifting of the weight of the body in the direction of the new position. According to Webster, to ascend means: to move upward (gradually), and/or to succeed, (as to a throne).  The Living Liturgy tells us that Jesus’ Ascension which we celebrate today is a pledge of his “presence to us that involves us inextricably in the work of salvation…we become the instruments by which salvation is announced and the kingdom continues to be inaugurated throughout the whole world.” We receive a pledge of His presence to us—the pledge of the Holy Spirit sent to us to work the Kingdom of God in the here and now.

I admire those parents as they prepare their children to step up and away into adulthood with many new and various responsibilities, challenges and opportunities. Graduation means that each person takes on the work of our own “salvation” as the burden shifts from their parents to themselves about who they are, who they will be, and what they are about in this world. It is a gradual change—has been—a gradual change to prepare them for the future. Jesus today Ascends and we “graduate” to take on our responsibility for salvation, too—our role and part.

I think graduation into the new life and a new beginning—this changing for the future—can be very scary (all change is scary). John O’Donohue talks about new beginnings quietly forming and waiting to emerge—and how hard it can be to leave what we have outgrown. The “seduction of safety and the gray promises that sameness whispered” and how unwilling and unable we can be to leave what we have known. When Jesus ascended, I can only imagine the terror of the Disciples, even with the promise of an Advocate. We hear the risen Jesus tells us in the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles that we will receive the Holy Spirit and will be his witnesses to all the ends of the earth.  In the same way that we are all sent out as His disciples to do God’s work and will, graduates are now being sent out in the world to do their work, also.

The Second Reading from St. Paul to the Ephesians gives us a plan to follow of how to go about being what we are expected by God to be.  St. Paul urges all of us to “live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness. With patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace…” St. Paul also tells us that we have been given gifts to do work in this world: “some as apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as teachers, to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ…” Wherever we graduate to—we have been given this great advice; and we have received the “tools” we need in order to do the work.

The Gospel of St. Mark tells us to go out to the world and proclaim the good news to all, to be a reflection of Christ in our Communities.  We are what we do... We are our choices… “But they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.” O’Donohue speaks of the delight when courage is kindled and you step on to new ground—eyes young (again) with “energy and dream, a path of plenitude opening before you though your destination is not yet clear.” You can trust the promise and awaken your spirit to adventure; hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk” as you will be “home in a new rhythm as your soul senses the world that awaits you.”

Parents helped their children “ascend” into the new life of adulthood—and as Catholic Christians we are called to the responsibilities of an adult Christian to ascend, too: to live as we are called to live, to utilize our gifts with which we have been equipped for the good of the Kingdom, to do what we were created to do. Now go and do it—graduates all!
Keep singing in your hearts!

Elizabeth Dyc

Just a Note: I would imagine that this lovely piece of music runs through many parents’ minds when their children graduate…