Dear Parishioners, After the Covid restrictions on travel, we are all crazy about travelling for different purposes. It can be challenging. We all are pilgrims on a journey of life. It is also important to keep our goals in life. This Sunday’s Gospel gives a strong warning. “Be on guard against all kinds of greed. For one’s life does not consist of the abundance of possessions”. How easily we forget this truth in pursuit of our material possessions when we lose our health and relationships. So, there is a wake-up call, “be rich towards God.”
I am so grateful to all of you as I take my 6 months sabbatical. It is a good opportunity for me to visit the places where I journeyed as a priest and to have another experience of the different churches in other parts of the world. I am also planning to attend a course with some of my Claretian family members in Spain. It was a pleasure to be your pastor as we had some milestones to celebrate, especially the Golden Jubilee of Holy Cross. You had been generous in supporting the Parish during Covid. I ask you to do the same with the new priests, Fr. Tony Diaz CMF, and Fr. Paul Keller CMF. They are here for 3 months each. I will be keeping all of you in my prayers. Thank you for all your well wishes and gestures of appreciation and kindness.
We also participated in the synodal process. As a Church, we are called to listen to each other’s need and to act with a spirit of lifegiving, otherwise, it will remain as a wish list. What God wants from you is not spiritual nuts but fruits! Don’t keep your treasures for yourself but towards God, then we are truly rich.
Let us also pray for Pope Francis as he concludes his trip in Canada. May it bring reconciliation and healing of wounds inflicted on our brothers and sisters.
God bless, Fr. Lukose Kochupurackal CMF