The Baccalaureate Mass with Bishop Larry Silva for all 2023 Graduates from Middle, High School, and College, will be on Friday, May 5th at 7pm at St. Jude in Kapolei. To RSVP, go to CATHOLICHAWAII.ORG/OYYAM/GRAD.
The Youth Ministry will be attending "The Lion King Jr" on Friday, March 31st at St. Louis Mamiya Theatre. To reserve your tickets, please contact Coordinator Karen Loebl.
Guest Speakers from the non-profits - Ala Wai Genki Project and Bottles for College will speak to the Youth Ministry this Friday, March 24th in the Social Hall, after Stations of the Cross. Please bring your recyclable cans and bottles to the Social Hall this Friday between 5pm and 8pm to fund college scholarships for Hawai'i youth.
The Youth & Young Adult Ministry continues to collect donations for the Hawai'i Food Bank during Lent. Please donate your unexpired canned goods and non-perishable foods to the box at the entrance of the church through the end of March.
Gospel Excerpt, Year C, Lk 21:5-19: "Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place; and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky. "Before all this happens, however, they will seize and persecute you, they will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons, and they will have you led before kings and governors because of my name. It will lead to your giving testimony. Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand, for I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute. You will even be handed over by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends, and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name, but not a hair on your head will be destroyed. By your perseverance you will secure your lives."
by —Excerpted from The Sunday Readings Cycle C, Fr. Kevin O' Sullivan, O.F.M.
The Gospel is from St. Luke 15:1-32. The lesson that these stories, made up by our Lord himself, has for us is clearly a lesson of hope and confidence in the infinite mercy of God in His dealings with us. We are all sinners in one way or another. We have all gone astray, got lost like the sheep and the coin in those stories, sometime or other. What is worse, we are all capable of going astray from God again at any moment. If we had only the justice of God to deal with we might well despair, our chances of reaching heaven would be slight indeed.
by Excerpted from The Sunday Readings Cycle C, Fr. Kevin O' Sullivan, O.F.M
The Gospel is from St. Luke 14:25-33 and teaches us that the essential condition for true discipleship, demanded by Christ, was, and still is, total dedication, total commitment of oneself to Him. There can be no such person as a half-Christian. "He that is not with me is against me," He said on another occasion. We cannot be for Christ on Sunday and against Him for the remainder of the week. To be His true disciples, His true followers, we must live our Christian life every day and all day.
We have finally come to this moment in time -- the much-anticipated celebration of the 75-Year Anniversary of our beloved Mary, Star of the Sea Church & Schools. Together as a community, we will officially culminate the year-long celebration of this Diamond Jubilee on Sunday, August 28, 2022, at the 8:15 AM Mass, when we allow ourselves to focus on the Eucharistic Celebration and be challenged by the theme "Live Truth, Live Eucharist." We will celebrate in a way that honors God and encourages hearts to look forward with unity and hope -- a much-needed expectation as we envision the ending of this pandemic.
The Gospel is from St. Luke 12:13-21. Jesus was surrounded by a large crowd to whom he was giving his message of salvation. Some men in the crowd asked him to arbitrate in a family dispute over property. This Jesus refused to do. This interest in property gave him the occasion to teach his hearers, and all of us, in a very effective parable, the relative value of this world's goods.
by --Excerpted from The Sunday Readings by Fr. Kevin O'Sullivan, O.F.M.
The Gospel is from St. Mark, 10:2-16. On the "divorce" section of this Gospel see today's first reading. Christ clearly states that from the very beginning, God's plan for marriage was that it should be a life-long unity of one man and one woman. Its purpose is the procreation of children and their education, as well as the mutual love and fulfillment of the husband and wife. These demand this life-long bond. Divorce, which tries to break this bond, breaks the law of the Creator who decreed what was best for the temporal and spiritual welfare of the human race.
The Gospel is from St. Luke, 10:38-42 and recounts the familiar story of Martha and Mary. St Augustine comments on this scene as follows: "Martha, who was arranging and preparing the Lord's meal, was busy doing many things, whereas Mary preferred to find her meal in what the Lord was saying. In a way she deserted her sister, who was very busy, and sat herself down at Jesus' feet and just listened to his words. She was faithfully obeying what the Psalm said: 'Be still, and know that I am God' (Ps 46:10). Martha was getting annoyed, Mary was feasting; the former coping with many things, the latter concentrating on one. Both occupations were good" (Sermon 103).
The Gospel is from St. Luke 10:25-37 and tells the parable of the good Samaritan. This passage is two-pronged. While providing a powerful lesson about mercy toward those in need, it also proclaims that non-Jews can observe the Law and thus enter into eternal life. Following other Fathers, St Augustine (De verbis Domini sermones, 37) identifies the good Samaritan with our Lord, and the waylaid man with Adam, the source and symbol of all fallen mankind. Moved by compassion and piety, he comes down to earth to cure man's wounds, making them his own (Is 53:4; Mt 8:17; 1 Pet 2:24; 1 Jn 3:5). In fact, we often see Jesus being moved by man's suffering (cf. Mt 9:36; Mk 1:41; Lk 7:13).
The Gospel is from St. Luke 10:1-12, 17-20 and is about Christ conferring His mission on the seventy-two disciples. Christ wants to instill apostolic daring into his disciples; this is why he says, "I send you out," which leads St John Chrysostom to comment: "This suffices to give us encouragement, to give us confidence and to ensure that we are not afraid of our assailants" (Hom. on St Matthew, 33). The Apostles' and disciples' boldness stemmed from their firm conviction that they were on a God-given mission: they acted, as Peter the Apostle confidently explained to the Sanhedrin, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, "for there is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).
by Excerpted from The Sunday Readings by Fr. Kevin O'Sullivan, O.F.M.
The Gospel is from St. Mark, 10:2-16. On the "divorce" section of this Gospel see today's first reading. Christ clearly states that from the very beginning, God's plan for marriage was that it should be a life-long unity of one man and one woman. Its purpose is the procreation of children and their education, as well as the mutual love and fulfillment of the husband and wife. These demand this life-long bond. Divorce, which tries to break this bond, breaks the law of the Creator who decreed what was best for the temporal and spiritual welfare of the human race.
Corpus Christi (Body and Blood of Christ) is a Eucharistic solemnity, or better, the solemn commemoration of the institution of that sacrament. It is, moreover, the Church's official act of homage and gratitude to Christ, who by instituting the Holy Eucharist gave to the Church her greatest treasure. Holy Thursday, assuredly, marks the anniversary of the institution, but the commemoration of the Lord's passion that very night suppresses the rejoicing proper to the occasion. Today's observance, therefore, accents the joyous aspect of Holy Thursday.
The dogma of faith which forms the object of the feast is this: There is one God and in this one God there are three Divine Persons; the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. Yet there are not three Gods, but one, eternal, incomprehensible God! The Father is not more God than the Son, neither is the Son more God than the Holy Spirit. The Father is the first Divine Person; the Son is the second Divine Person, begotten from the nature of the Father from eternity; the Holy Spirit is the third Divine Person, proceeding from the Father and the Son. No mortal can fully fathom this sublime truth. But I submit humbly and say: Lord, I believe, help my weak faith.
Check out the Youth Ministry schedule of events for the months of June and July. For more information, contact Youth & Young Adult Ministry Coordinator, Karen Loebl, [email protected] or text 808-258-4505
The Supreme Court is ready to make a major landmark decision on Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health. Jackson Women’s Health Care is an abortion clinic in Mississippi challenging the Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act (2018) that limits abortion at 15 weeks. Modern science has proven that a fetus at 15 weeks is capable of feeling pain, has a fully formed nose, lips and eyebrows and is able to suck their thumb.
by Excepted from The Sunday Readings, Fr. Kevin O'Sullivan, O.F.M.
The Gospel is from St. John, 21:1-19, The primary purpose in recounting this appearance of the Risen Christ to his Apostles, was to stress the actual conferring of the Primacy on Peter. From this very first meeting with Christ at the Jordan (Jn. 1:42) the Savior had told him that his name Simon bar-Jonah would be changed to Cephas, which means Rock. Some year or so later, at Caesarea Philippi, this change took place when Christ said to Simon, "You are (Peter) Rock. and upon this Rock I will build my Church . . . and I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 16:18-19).
The Gospel is John 20:19-31, doubting St. Thomas. It may surprise and amaze us that the Apostles were so reluctant to believe that Christ had risen from the dead, to live forever in glory with his Father in heaven. But we must remember that during their two or three years with him they saw nothing in him but a mere man, one with divine powers, but yet a man; certain prophets of the Old Covenant had some such powers also. Christ had "emptied himself of his divine nature, and he had foretold his resurrection many times. But that he could be really God, as well as man, was something they could not then grasp, and if he was a mere man death had to be the end.