A walk of faith, hope, and love on the feast of St. Patrick

As many of you know, it has been a blessing for me to travel on pilgrimages in Spain and Italy. Yesterday in the midst of my walk to St. Matthias the song “You’ll never walk alone” started to play on my iTouch (yes I know that I am dating myself with this outmoded form of listening to music). The words of this song took on a new significance during this moment in my life.

When you walk through a storm

Hold your head up high

And don’t be afraid of the dark.

At the end of the storm

There’s a golden sky

And the sweet silver song of a lark.

Walk on through the wind

Walk on through the rain

Though your dreams be tossed and blown.

Walk on, walk on

With hope in your heart

And you’ll never walk alone.

You’ll never walk alone.

I have found in the outpouring of love from our church members that these words are so very true. People have called, emailed, and text messaged the desire to help in any way possible. To run errands, to contact the homebound, to simply stay connected with one another. But those words also remind me that none of us walk alone as I learned on my pilgrimage treks. Our God is always at our side and we simply need to open our eyes to that presence in those around us.

I hope today that we will be able to post the daily celebration of mass in the chapel but once again when it comes to these wonderful modes of communication, your pastor has a lot to learn. Social distancing does not help when one is trying to social network. This would be a good time to encourage our young people to consider if they might be called to serve the church as they seem to be hardwired for this means of communication.

In faith, hope, and love,
Fr. Dave