Weekend of April 6-7, 2024

Dear Friends,

Our Responsorial Psalm antiphon for this Second Sunday of Easter reminds us that we should “Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, his love is everlasting.” This message is especially pertinent to us as Christians during this holy season of Easter. The many blessings of God are made even more clear in the light of Christ’s resurrection, and the beauty of the springtime all around us is a further indication of God’s goodness.

 We are reminded of our obligation to thank God for his many blessings as we celebrate this weekend Divine Mercy Sunday. The Divine Mercy devotion is a great gift to the Church, a gift that was given greater prominence and focus when our late Holy Father, Pope Saint John Paul II, designated this Second Sunday of Easter perpetually as the Sunday of Divine Mercy. God’s goodness and mercy were demonstrated even further to Pope John Paul and to the world when the Holy Father was called home to heaven on the vigil of this great feast, in the early evening of April 2, 2005.

The mercy of God is made manifest to us in so many ways. All we need do is open our eyes and our ears and our hearts just a bit wider to recognize this mercy as it saturates us each day. Of course, the primary ways in which we receive this boundless mercy is through the Sacraments of Penance and Eucharist. The power of the cross --- the great instrument of mercy --- is demonstrated most effectively and most beautifully in these two sacraments of love and peace. We are reminded especially on this great feast of the Divine Mercy to avail ourselves of these two sacraments as frequently as possible, so as to receive this great gift of God’s mercy so that we can be led closer to our ultimate goal of life on high with God through Jesus.

With the advent of this Easter season, we here at Saint Timothy’s and Saint Bartholomew’s enter into what I always refer to as our sacramental season. We congratulate and heartily welcome into the family of faith the folks who were baptized and fully received into the Church at the Easter Vigil. We are blessed as a parish family --- for the second consecutive year! --- to now have eight new Catholics in our midst! God’s mercy truly endures for ever!

This past Thursday, April 4^th, our seventh graders were confirmed by Bishop Michael Fitzgerald. I am proud to say that this class of young people is mature and very serious about their faith, a fact that was very evident to us who walked with them in preparation for this great sacrament. Their participation in their Confirmation liturgy was outstanding! I would ask you to continue to pray for these young people, that the Holy Spirit will fill them with his power to make them the strong, committed Christians Jesus calls them to be.

On Saturday, May 11^th, our second grade school students and our second level PREP students will receive the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist for the first time at my hands. Please pray for these children in the coming weeks, that their hearts will be open to receive our Divine Lord on their First Holy Communion Day and throughout their lives. 

You know that every year the Little Sisters of the Poor visit us here at Saint Timothy’s and Saint Bartholomew’s to tell us about their great work in West Philadelphia at Holy Family Home and to ask for our support, both in prayer and financially. This year, the Sisters will not be visiting because Sister Veronica Susan, who is the tall Sister who always makes the appeal, is having a hip replacement. Instead of rescheduling the Sisters’ visit, I have decided, instead, to take up a second collection for the benefit of the Little Sisters and their great work here in the Archdiocese. This second collection will be taken up two weekends --- this weekend and next --- in both of our churches. I ask you to be as generous as you can (as you always are) as we assist the Sisters in their ministry to God’s elderly poor in our midst. I also ask you to please, in your goodness, remember the Sisters and their residents in your prayers.

            Know that you and those you love are daily remembered in my Mass and my prayers.

                                                                                    Love and prayers,
                                                                                    Father Olivere