September 14, 2025

Dear Brothers and Sisters, As we move into the fall program season, there are so many wonderful things going on at St Thomas. The school is going great, it’s been wonderful to see all our students back for Faith Formation, and I’m excited by the number of people that have come to our OCIA inquiry classes. We might be still waiting for the actual fall weather, but the exciting times are certainly here. We have a couple special things going on right now that I wanted to highlight. First, I hope most parishioners have had a chance to meet our seminarian, Justin Brouillette. But just in case you missed the weekend when we introduced him, here’s the nutshell. One of the milestones for many seminarians is what’s called a “pastoral year,” essentially a year of residency to gain experience applying their education in a parish and to experience the life of a priest in a more first-hand way. Justin is joining us for one of these. He grew up at Our Lady of Sorrows and has completed three years of seminary so far. Be sure to introduce yourself if you haven’t already, and definitely keep him in your prayers! Second, you’ll notice that the liturgy this weekend is a bit unusual. We are interrupting the normal cycle of “green” Sundays in Ordinary Time for the feast day assigned to September 14th: the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. We celebrate the feast every year, but since it falls on a Sunday this year, we are observing it in a more public way. The feast marks the occasion 1700 years ago when Christianity was legalized in the Roman Empire and the Christians of the city of Jerusalem brought the Cross of Christ out of hiding for veneration by all the faithful. As you might imagine, it was a very joyous occasion, and even all these centuries later, the feast day is observed as a sort of miniature Good Friday. Since the meaning of the events of that individual day is worth contemplating throughout the year, it’s good that we have this opportunity to place the mystery of the Cross foremost in our minds, even in the midst of Ordinary Time (the season of the Holy Spirit at work in the Church). As we celebrate this day, I would propose for our reflection and prayer a few lines of an ancient poem in honor of the Cross of Christ, from the pen of St Venantius Fortunatus (one of the great poets of the Christian tradition, who lived in the late 500s). The occasion of the hymn was for a procession with a relic of the Cross: Hail, holy Cross, our only hope In every time of trial and pain. Strengthen the faithful, make them just, And bring us sinners peace again. God bless,

Father Jantz