Sunday Liturgy
Saturday: 5:00 pm
Sunday: 11:00 am
Mission Statement
We are a welcoming Christian community called to embrace and respect the uniqueness of each individual as we join together in our faith and worship. Our ongoing mission is to engage our youth, promote renewal, out reach, evangelization and ecumenical cooperation.
MASS INTENTIONS FOR THE WEEK
PLEASE NOTE: There will be No Mass Monday thru Friday as Msgr. Sheehan will be away.
Saturday, February 7th – 5:00 pm Jeffrey Leo Daniel McIsaac
Sunday, February 8th – 11:00 am Shirley Farrah (Anniv)
Weekly Reflections (Homily) from Msgr. Sheehan (January 30, 2026)
FOURTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Dear friends;
The Beatitudes are so familiar to us, my dear people – How often have we heard them…?
They are evocative – of a way of life… of a kind of person.
They are sometimes called the commandments of the new law… They are not… they command nothing… they are descriptive… they describe a way of life – virtues to be lived… and they tell us that if lived… if lived out… they will have the consequence of being blessed… blessed for those who live them… blessed for those around those who live them…
But before all this… they describe the one who gave them to us… and as always – Jesus asks of us nothing that He does not ask of himself.
He embodies the Beatitudes in his own life… He is the blessed one of God… He is “poor of spirit” – the one who empties himself – not clinging to his equality with God… He is the gentle master – “Come to me all you who labor and are overburdened and I will give you rest – learn from me – for I am gentle and humble in heart…”
He mourns… “Jerusalem… Jerusalem how I longed to gather you as a hen gathers her brood… under her wings… and Jesus wept… over the city of his forefathers.”
He hungers and thirsts… “How I yearn – how I long for the baptism with which I have to be baptized… and are under stress until it is completed…”
He is the merciful one… “Be compassionate… as your Father in heaven is compassionate… forgive one another…”
He is the pure in heart… purity of purpose… “I have done what you asked me to do, Father… I have given the words you asked me to speak…”
He is the peace-maker – the peace giver… “Peace be to you… my peace I give you… not like the world gives…”
He is the one persecuted in the cause of right… He is the one spurned, rejected, crucified…”
You see dear friends – the Beatitudes before anything else – like all of God’s word… say something of the Lord… he fulfills them in his person.
And those are called “blessed” or “happy” who follow them – because they find themselves when they attempt to live them, standing with the Lord…
And that is their blessedness – that is their happiness… for in living them… they find themselves in the company of the one they first describe…
They also give an “aura” – to the ones in whom they find expression… those who try to live them reveal to us – a deportment… a manner of living… a way of life… which is blessed not only to them… but to those with whom they try to live the beatitudes…
They also describe a non-possessiveness… a yearning… a longing… a stance… a realization of a certain unfulfillment… and incompleteness…
Something which our world has little patience for… we have to be whole… we have to have it all… we have difficulty in living as “not having something…”
The first sin in mankind in fact – grows out of the temptations of “having it all”… “Why should you not have the fruit of the tree of knowledge…?”
The Lucan Beatitudes in fact are followed by the woes - of those who have it all… who long for nothing…
“Woe to you who are rich – you have your consolation already…”
“Woe to you who are well-fed now you shall go hungry…”
“Woe to you who laugh now… you shall mourn and weep…”
“Woe to you when all people speak well of you… for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets…”
Where are we? Not so much in our possessions… in our holdings… though we may well in our comfort – have attained a way of life immune from any kind of material need… making it very difficult to be close to those who are poor, hungry, thirsty?
Where are we in any kind of longings…? Do we yearn…? Do we hunger and thirst…? Do we allow ourselves to live in some unfulfillment…? Or do we satisfy our every yearning… healthy or unhealthy.
We are people who yearn… who long… and in our yearning and longing we witness to an incompleteness… not as a curse or punishment… but as a stance… that we know and realize, and testify – that we realize there is still more to come… that the Lord still has more to give us… and in witnessing to those around us to this… we become a blessing to them…
Let us live the Beatitudes… let us be a blessing… to ourselves… and those around us.
Amen.