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With the recent onboarding of a new CEO, Catholic Social Services has come to another junction on its journey of serving the community consistently with its unique mission. 

As the New Year begins, we hope and pray that the peace and joy wished upon family members and friends and that the love and affection shown them during this season will endure throughout the year and beyond.

A friend prompted me into this reflection when he recently asked me “What is your Faith to you?”

In preparing for the celebration of Easter, Christendom’s central and most defining event, the liturgy of Holy Week invites us into some special seasonal reflections  referred to as “The Triduum.”

In our tradition, Christmas is an essential liturgical marker on our spiritual journey. It is a powerful reminder, in the calendar year, that God truly inhabits our human condition.

Redirecting us onto the road... spiritually speaking, is the purpose of Advent, and ultimately of the entire year’s liturgical itinerary.

The disciples had experienced the fullness and perfection of Christ's humanity, yet only now -- through the bestowing of the “tongues of fire” (the Holy Spirit) -- could they begin to understand the fullness of his divinity.

It is the Spirit of God who patiently, but persistently, inspires us toward goodness and greater fulfillment; it is He who quietly resides within us, always.

For some Christians, an incongruity is apparent between the modern explorations, discoveries and lessons of science on the one hand, and some of the tenets of our Faith tradition on the other (evolution set against literal creationism).

Once again we engage in the Easter Triduum, these three days leading to the celebration of Christendom’s central, defining event.

As this Easter season continues, I continue to reflect on Christ’s Resurrection. I think that many Christians leaving their churches today have simply found it implausible that Christ could have risen from the dead. This notion of a risen Christ and its implications for our lives is likely the most difficult conundrum relating to our Faith experience.

Today, this Spirit-inspired surrender to God’s love and mercy is what the Church invites us to embrace as we carry out our mission at CSS.

My young granddaughters may have glimpsed the point made in the animated movie The Lion King when the ruler of all animals explains to the young cub that “We are more than we are… we are one,” but after all these years of life, their grandfather still only occasionally awakens to the beautiful wonder of this interconnectedness.