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These years living and working among you have been a time of great blessing for me. I have been privileged to work with many fine people, and I believe our collaboration has made our parish outstanding in many ways.

We are very proud of all our graduates’ accomplishments, and we wish them well as they move with God into the future. I hope all our graduates know that we love you very much! Congratulations, as well, to our students who are moving on to the next grade level.

As Catholics, we hopefully are always aware of the importance of the Eucharist in our lives, and of the need we have to thank God each day for the presence of the Eucharist in our hearts and in our world.

I have been appointed by Archbishop Perez as Pastor of Saint Peter Parish in West Brandywine (Honeybrook), Chester County. Father Lane has been appointed Parochial Administrator of Saint Martin of Tours Parish on Oxford Circle.

On this coming Thursday, May 16th at 1:00 P.M., our school children will be participating in our annual May Procession to honor our Blessed Lady. This is always a beautiful tribute to the Mother of God, and a perfect way for us to express our devotion to her, our greatest intercessor and advocate.

When the church was inspected it was found that we had several places where there was loose limestone and mortar, as well as four places where there were partially broken windows. All of these repairs needed to be completed (or we would have faced a hefty fine from the city), so we received three bids and contracted with a masonry company to complete the repairs.

On Saturday, May 11th, 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. 

The empty tomb to which we are witnesses on this Easter Sunday is a reminder to us that Christ conquered death, and that all of us who are baptized into his death and resurrection will certainly be given a share in the new life that he was the first to claim.

The days of Holy Week, and in particular the Paschal Triduum (Holy Thursday evening, Good Friday, Holy Saturday night/Easter Sunday) invite us to celebrate this Paschal Mystery more intensely, uniting our hearts with Jesus as we recall the great events which gave us new life.

Next Sunday we begin the holiest week of our Christian calendar as we celebrate Palm Sunday, or, as it is known by its more formal title, Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion. As we enter into the life-giving days which commemorate for us the Lord’s passion, death, and glorious resurrection, we are reminded of the great gift we have been given in the Person of Jesus, who in the gift of himself has saved us and made us free.

On this Thursday, March 14th at 7:00 P.M. in Saint Timothy’s lower church, we will be celebrating our annual parish Lenten Penance Service. This is a great opportunity for us to gather as a parish family, to acknowledge our need for God’s mercy, and to confess our sins individually and receive absolution.

Please join us for our Triduum in Honor of Saint Joseph, which will be celebrated from Monday, March 18ththrough Wednesday, March 20th at 7:00 P.M. in the upper church at Saint Timothy’s. Each evening’s services include the Triduum Prayers, a homily, and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

Please remember the 2024 Catholic Charities Appeal, which is now underway. Please prayerfully consider making a sacrificial gift to this very important campaign of the Archdiocese, which directly helps our ministries to those who are most poor and vulnerable.

We often refer to our annual Lenten journey as a desert. The desert, for Jesus, was an actual place, which he entered for forty days and forty nights to prepare himself for his public ministry.

You will also find, at the entrances to the church, some tools which will help you in your Lenten practices. There are Little Black Books, which contain a short meditation for each day of the season. There are also Lenten quarter folders, into which you can place quarters each day of the season, bringing the entire folder filled with quarters back to church at the end of Lent.

While trying our best to address these issues, I ask you to read my letter and the financial report carefully, especially since our successes and our achievements far outweigh these challenges.

Mrs. Maureen Pfeiffer, our Principal, and our dedicated faculty and staff, provide a wonderful environment of Christian learning for our children. Our school enjoys a very stable enrollment, which is a great blessing, especially in light of the fact that in so many places Catholic school enrollments are diminishing.

The Holy Father noted that "The Bible cannot be just the heritage of some, much less a collection of books for the benefit of a privileged few. It belongs above all to those called to hear its message and to recognize themselves in its words [for it] is the book of the Lord's people, who, in listening to it, move from dispersion and division towards unity.

Since the last time I wrote to you, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia has been blessed with the announcement of three new auxiliary bishops: Bishops-elect Keith J. Chylinski, Christopher R. Cooke, and Efren V. Esmilla. Bishop-elect Chylinski spent a summer at Saint Timothy’s while a seminiarian, and both Bishops-elect Cooke and Esmilla were assigned to Saint Martin of Tours Church, as Parochial Vicar and as Pastor, respectively.

We invite everyone to bring the Baby Jesus statue from your Nativity scenes at home so that we can bless the statues as part of the Lessons and Carols ceremony. This blessing of the statues of the Baby Jesus is an old tradition, especially in the city of Rome, where people bring their statues to Saint Peter’s Square on this Third Sunday of Advent in order for the Pope himself to bless them from his window.