Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

News and Notes:

This weekend, children at both St. Maria Goretti and Our Lady of the Assumption churches will be receiving their First Holy Communion.  Due to the pandemic and the temporary closing of churches, this beautiful sacramental occasion had been postponed from earlier dates, but perhaps the delay has built a greater longing for and a deeper understanding of the Eucharist in our children.  I offer this 19^th century explanation of transubstantiation, written for First Communicants:

“Transubstantiation is the change of one substance into another… The thing itself is called the substance; what our senses perceive about it are called the appearances… These appearances are all we can perceive of a thing; the substance we never see – it’s invisible.  We cannot separate them… yet the substance and the appearances are distinct, and if we cannot separate them, God can. When he does it, a miracle takes place – and this miracle is taking place on every altar, at every Mass.”

Blessings to all of you in the week ahead!