My Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

May the Lord give you His peace!

Well, it has begun! The work on the Church has started. This is our first weekend in the parish hall. I am so incredibly grateful for all the many hands that helped bring everything over and helped set up our makeshift Church. I will do my best to make our temporary arrangements as prayerful, reverential and peaceful as possible. And, thank you all for your warm welcome!

We must never forget how important a Church building is. After all, it is more than a building. Due to the true, real and abiding presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Tabernacle it is more than a structure. It is the Palace of the Most High Son of God, God’s dwelling among us. Before His ascension into heaven Jesus said; I am with you always, even until the end of the world. Jesus is true to His word and because of that we as Catholics know that He is with us, not just spiritually but personally; Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Most Holy Eucharist.

A Catholic Church is where God dwells among us. When King Solomon built the Temple and it filled with the presence of the Holy Spirit he asked: Could it be that God could dwell among men? We answer Solomon; Yes! God does dwell among men and women. He dwells in this Holy Place! How blessed we are to be Catholic and know with the gift of faith that Jesus has never left us, has not abandoned us, He has remained with us and still dwells with us.

The Jewish people always made memorials where they had experienced God. They would build a shrine or an altar or set up twelve stones marking the place where heaven and earth touched, where they themselves experienced and encountered the everliving God. Our parish Church of Saint James is no different. For many of you this is where you first experienced the Divine presence in your soul through the waters of baptism. It is in our Church where your sins had been forgiven and absolved. Here at Saint James Church you received Him in Holy Communion. Here you were confirmed in the faith by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Confirmation. It was at the foot of our sanctuary that you professed your marriage vows. It was here that you escorted your loved ones to the glory of heaven and here where you yourself plan to finally meet the Lord face to face. Saint James Church is more than a building! It is the portal between heaven and earth, where we meet God and He meets us, where heaven and earth touch.

For all these reasons, and for so many more, I want to make sure that this holy dwelling receives the proper care, respect and honor it so deserves. Our Church should speak of God’s presence among us, His majesty, His holiness, His transcendence. At the same time the Church must speak of God’s closeness to us, His desire for us, His mercy and His thirst to be so close to us. It should speak of a place where God and His children gather as His family to worship, praise, adore thank and love the God Who is love.

Saint James Church should be a place where we can celebrate with joy our communal bond, our fellowship and our deep Christian fraternal unity as children of the same God and Father. At the same time it is a place where we can come and speak to the Lord from the silence of our hearts. A place to cry and weep with sorrow over the tragedies and sufferings of our lives, lifting our hearts to our God who weeps with us. Just as He did with the sisters of Lazarus. It is a place where we can seek intimacy with Jesus in the quiet dark corners of the Church. It is a place where we ask forgiveness  and experience His mercy. They say a Church is more than a building. That is true in so many ways. 

The Church is also the people, the community, the walking together with Christ, toward Christ and in Christ. It is the Universal Church, it is our local diocese and it is the community of Saint James. It is never a matter of one or the other, but a both and. When God created us He said: It is not good for man to be alone. God knows that we are social beings, He made us that way! He calls us into His Church, His family and through the adoption we have received at Baptism He has made us His real children giving us the Holy Spirit that allows us to cry out Abba, Father. And if we share the same Father we are therefore brothers and sisters, a family. 

As the family of God who gathers here together at Saint James Church let us seek God together. Let us praise, glorify, thank and love our God and Father together, as one family. Let us help eachother grow in our relationship with God and together seek to build eachother up in love. The greater the love we show and share with one another, the greater will be our witness to the Truth. By this they will know that you are my disciples; by your love for one another.

This Church, this building, this community this family needs each of us to give it our all. During our sojourn from our parish Church I ask each of us to discern how each of us can participate more fully in deepening our own person spiritual lives by attending the many opportunities for spiritual and faith formation. I also ask each of us to discern how we can build up our community, our family, supporting each other through using our gifts and talents in either lectoring, teaching religious education, visiting the homebound or just using whatever talent to make Saint James Church a more beautiful place.

This Church of Saint James, the building and the community, is our home. It’s where our family gathers to meet our God and one another. Let us continue to make it as beautiful as we possibly can in reverence, respect honor and, most of all, mutual fraternal love. In doing so we can say with King Solomon; God is truly in this place!

In Christ Jesus,

Fr David Mary