Ascension Cemetery, Airmont, NY

04/27/2026

Good Shepherd Sunday: April 26, 2026

Watch the Holy Mass from Saint Patrick's Cathedral: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ0uoMcsaBE

Good Shepherd Sunday falls on the Fourth Sunday of Easter and it is one of the most beloved and theologically rich Sundays of the entire liturgical year.

What Is Good Shepherd Sunday?
The name comes from the Gospel of John, Chapter 10, in which Jesus declares "I am the Good Shepherd." This Sunday shifts the Easter focus from the appearances of the Risen Lord to His ongoing, personal, and protective presence in the life of each believer. Jesus is presented as both Shepherd and Gate — He guides the flock not through force but through relationship, calling each sheep by name. He also contrasts Himself with "hirelings" and false shepherds who abandon the flock in danger.

The rich echo of Psalm 23 — "The Lord is my shepherd" — runs through the entire day, connecting Old Testament imagery to its fulfillment in Christ.

World Day of Prayer for Vocations
Good Shepherd Sunday is also designated the World Day of Prayer for Vocations by the Church. The Good Shepherd calls his own by name, just as God calls men and women to the priesthood, religious life, and lay service. Parishes worldwide are encouraged to pray specifically for more shepherds — priests and deacons — who will lead God's flock with the Heart of Christ.

The entire fourth week of Eastertide deepens the Good Shepherd theme through daily Mass readings, continuing in John 10. The week invites the faithful to reflect on:

The voice of Christ — learning to recognize and trust it amid competing voices in the world.

The abundance of life Jesus promises: "I came that they might have life and have it more abundantly" (John 10:10).

The communal nature of faith — there are no "lone sheep"; to wander from the flock is to be exposed to danger.

The soul as a temple of the Holy Trinity, adorned with grace received through Baptism and the Sacraments.

This week is a beautiful midpoint of the 50 Days of Easter (50 Días de Pascua) — a season that began at the Easter Vigil and will culminate in the great feast of Pentecost. The Church is, at her core, an Easter people, and the fourth week calls us to live that resurrection hope with courage and trust in the Shepherd who knows us each by name.

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04/24/2026

50 Días de Pascua

Los 50 días de Pascua (Tiempo Pascual) representan una celebración sostenida y gozosa de la resurrección de Cristo, su victoria sobre la muerte y su ascensión, que dura desde el Domingo de Pascua hasta Pentecostés. Conocido como los "Grandes Cincuenta Días", este período simboliza una "semana de semanas" (siete semanas) que refleja la alegría de la resurrección y marca la transición del ayuno de Cuaresma a un tiempo de celebración, culminando con el descenso del Espíritu Santo y el nacimiento de la Iglesia.

Simbolismo y Significado

Victoria y Nueva Vida: Los 50 días simbolizan el triunfo de la vida sobre la muerte, enfatizando que la resurrección de Jesús permite a la humanidad participar en la vida eterna.

La Presencia Resucitada: Es un tiempo para reflexionar sobre la aparición de Jesús a sus discípulos, enseñándoles y ofreciendo paz después de su resurrección.

Celebración Alegre: A diferencia de los 40 días de Cuaresma dedicados al ayuno, los 50 días de Pascua están diseñados para reflejar una "temporada de festín", simbolizando que la redención trae mayor alegría que el dolor de la penitencia.

El Camino a Pentecostés: Los días representan los 40 días que Jesús pasó en la tierra antes de su ascensión y los 10 días posteriores que conducen al empoderamiento de la Iglesia por el Espíritu Santo en Pentecostés.

Una "Nueva Semana": Los 50 días representan aproximadamente una séptima parte del año, de manera similar a cómo el domingo es una séptima parte de la semana, haciendo efectivamente de toda la temporada un "domingo" del año, como lo describe Catholic Digest.

Comunidad y Misión: Es un período para celebrar la nueva forma de vida de los creyentes—"muertos al pecado y vivos para Dios"—y la comisión de la Iglesia de salir y vivir el Evangelio.

04/22/2026

Eastertide: The Great 50 Days!

The 50 Days of Easter (Eastertide) represent a sustained, joyful celebration of Christ’s resurrection, victory over death, and ascension, lasting from Easter Sunday to Pentecost. Known as the "Great Fifty Days," this period symbolizes a "week of weeks" (seven weeks) that mirrors the joy of resurrection and marks the transition from Lenten fasting to a time of celebration, culminating in the descent of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Church.

Symbolism and Significance
Victory and New Life: The 50 days symbolize the triumph of life over death, emphasizing that Jesus' resurrection enables humanity to share in eternal life.

The Risen Presence: It is a time to reflect on Jesus appearing to his disciples, teaching them, and offering peace after his resurrection.
Joyful Celebration: Unlike the 40 days of Lent used for fasting, the 50 days of Easter are designed to reflect a "season of feasting," symbolizing that redemption brings greater joy than the sorrow of penance.

The Journey to Pentecost: The days represent the 40 days Jesus spent on earth before his ascension and the subsequent 10 days leading to the empowerment of the Church by the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.

A "New Week": The 50 days represent roughly one-seventh of the year, similar to how Sunday is one-seventh of a week, effectively making the entire season a "Sunday" of the year.

Community and Mission: It's a period to celebrate the new way of life for believers—"dead to sin and alive to God"—and the commissioning of the Church to go out and live the Gospel.

Happy Eastertide everyone!

04/21/2026

‘Impressions of Joy’ by Diane Monet Brings Vibrant Landscapes to the Sheen Center for Thought & Culture through April 30. The Center is located at 18 Bleecker Street at the corner of Bleecker and Elizabeth Streets. The venue is easily accessed by several subway lines, including the R, W, 6, B, D, F, and M.

Watch The Good Newsroom report here: https://thegoodnewsroom.org/impressions-of-joy-by-diane.../

Ms. Monet is a romantic impressionist painter and a descendant of the legendary Claude Monet — her grandfather Alexandre Monet emigrated from Paris to the United States and was proud to claim kinship with the great master. Carrying on that lineage, Diane channels her faith and a deep love of nature into vibrant oil-on-canvas works depicting luminous landscapes, blooming gardens, and sun-drenched villages, guided by the scriptural call of Philippians 4:8 to dwell on whatever is true, lovely, and admirable. Her current exhibit, Impressions of Joy, on display at the Sheen Center in New York through April 30, 2026, arrives at a profoundly fitting moment — Easter season — as her canvases burst with the same spirit of renewal, light, and radiant life that the Church celebrates in the Resurrection. Just as Easter proclaims that darkness gives way to glory, Diane's brush transforms seemingly simple images into visons of warmth and kaleidoscopes of light, offering viewers a beautiful encounter with what she calls "God's simple blessings here on Earth."

Showcasing the classic impressionist style of the Monet lineage, Diane Monet delivers colorful depictions of God’s world around us.

04/13/2026

Sunday of Divine Mercy: Unconditional Love and Divine Mercy

Dear Beloved in Christ,

Imagine someone who has carried the weight of failures and shame for so long that they have forgotten what it feels like to be loved. Divine Mercy Sunday exists precisely for such a person. At the close of the Easter Octave, Jesus says once more: "Peace be with you." Through St. Faustina Kowalska, He asked that the world know His mercy is not a reluctant pardon, but a torrential love that rushes toward sinners the way a river rushes toward the sea.

What makes this Sunday so breathtaking is the promise He attaches to it. Go to Confession and receive Holy Communion with a contrite heart, and He promises something almost too wonderful to comprehend, and that is complete forgiveness of sins and all punishment due to them — a grace so total that the Church compares it to Baptism itself. You come to Him broken, and He returns you whole.

And so Divine Mercy Sunday is not just about receiving — it is about becoming! Forgive the ones who hurt you. Visit the lonely. Comfort the suffering. Every act of mercy you extend is a ray of divine light passing through you into a world desperately in need of it. This is the feast of the second chance, and the millionth, for it tells us — with the full authority of the Risen Christ — that it is never too late to come home.

May peace be with you...

04/13/2026

Happy Easter!

The Easter Octave/ Easter Week unfolds as a single, radiant day stretched across eight, where the joy of the Resurrection of Christ cannot be contained by time. In the Church’s liturgical heart, each day echoes Easter Sunday itself—bells resound, alleluias abound, and the empty tomb continues to speak its quiet, world-altering promise. It is a sacred prolonging of wonder, inviting the faithful not to rush past the miracle, but to dwell within it: to walk with the Risen Lord, to see with renewed eyes, and to let the light of new life seep gently into every shadow. In this octave of glory, heaven seems nearer, hope grows steadier, and the triumph of life over death is not only remembered—but lived.

04/05/2026

Easter Mass 2026: Hope & Renewal

Watch Holy Easter Mass from Saint Patrick's Cathedral: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64O9WS4e0JI

Dear Beloved in Christ,

On this most holy and radiant morning, when the stone is rolled away and the tomb stands empty, we are invited—not merely to remember, but to encounter. The Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ is not a distant echo sealed in history; it is a living, breathing reality, entering into our present darkness with the radiant splendor of an eternal dawn.

We live in troubled times, yes—wars without end, hearts divided, a world that often seems to have lost its way. And yet, the angel’s voices resound across the centuries with everlasting power: He is risen. This is great proclamation alters everything. Death does not have the final word. Fear does not have the final word. Hatred, despair, and suffering do not have the final word. Christ does.

Into the grief of Mary Magdalene at the tomb, into the fear of the disciples behind locked doors, into our own weariness and uncertainty, the Risen Lord comes—gently, tenderly—calling us by name, bestowing His peace upon us, lifting our eyes to Heaven, renewing our hearts and faith.

Easter does not ask us to deny the harsh realities of our world. Rather, it asks us to believe, with our whole hearts, that the One who conquered death is even now at work—redeeming those who are lost, healing those who are wounded, and making all things new.

So let us rise with Him this Easter Sunday. Let us carry the light of this morning into every shadow. Let us become bearers of light and peace where there is division and darkness, let us bear witnesses to an amazing hope the world can never end.

Amen and may peace be with you this Easter Sunday, and always...

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04/04/2026

In a Historic Procession, Pope Leo XIV Carries the Cross through all 14 Stations of the Via Crucis at Rome's Colosseum

Watch the highlight Vatican News video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oneMwAy5wj4

Watch full Vatican News video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm_D1y5uYeQ

Good Friday unfolded with a quiet gravity that seemed to echo across the centuries. Beneath the ancient arches of the Colosseum, where the memory of early Christian witness still lingers in the stones, Pope Leo XIV chose not merely to preside, but to enter fully into the mystery of the Cross.

Steps Carved in Time
For nearly two hours, the Holy Father bore the weight of the wooden cross through all fourteen stations of the Via Crucis. Step by step, in silence and prayer, he walked the path of Christ’s Passion. It was a gesture unseen for more than a generation—the last being Pope John Paul II, whose own frailty once gave witness to the strength found in suffering. In an age accustomed to delegation, this quiet endurance spoke with rare strength.

Mystery Made Visible
The Via Crucis is not simply remembered—it is entered. In choosing to carry the Cross from beginning to end, the Holy Father did not stand apart from the sorrow it recalls; he took it upon himself. “Christ still suffers,” he reflected, “and I carry all these sufferings too in my prayer.” In those words—and in the steady cadence of his steps, one glimpses a shepherd walking with his people into the depths of a love that redeems.

Words to a Wounded World
Before some 30,000 faithful gathered in reverent stillness, the procession became more than devotion—it became a plea. Each station, guided by meditations from Rev. Francesco Patton, bore the weight of moral truth. The first called leaders to account before God for the burdens of war and vengeance; each that followed traced the cost of hatred and the necessity of mercy. The Pope’s invitation was simple, yet profound: that all people of goodwill might walk with Christ, and become, in a fractured world, bearers of peace.

In the Light of Jubilee
This sacred observance unfolded within a wider season of grace in the life of the Church, as the faithful journey through the Jubilee Year 2025—while also drawing near to the 800th anniversary of the passing of Saint Francis of Assisi. In Francis, as in Christ, suffering is not the end, but the path through which love is made complete.

A Transcendent Moment
For the faithful, the convergence of these signs—the ancient amphitheater, the living successor of Peter, the Cross borne without pause, and the solemn beauty of Good Friday—formed something more than memory. It became a living icon of hope: a reminder that even now, in every age, the Cross is not only carried—it is shared, redeemed, and, in the end, transformed into the light of His Love.

Colosseum, The Way of the Cross presided over by Pope Leo XIV

04/03/2026

Good Friday 2026: A Story of Hope

Dear Beloved in Christ,

On this solemn and sacred Good Friday, we stand at the foot of the Cross—where sorrow and hope meet, where suffering is not the end, but the beginning of something eternal. For even now, in the shadow of Calvary, the promise of Easter quietly unfolds: that light will break through darkness, that life will rise from death, that love will have the final word.

And in a most unexpected and beautiful way, that promise is already stirring.

In the heart of Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, within the walls of St. Joseph's Church, something remarkable is taking place. A quiet resurrection of faith.

Each Sunday, before the bells even call the faithful to Mass, a line begins to form outside its historic doors. The pews fill, the balcony fills, and still they come—young men and women, searching, hoping, returning.

Some arrive carrying grief. Others bring a quiet emptiness that no worldly success could ever satisfy. One young man, with disarming honesty, shared: “The world is unraveling. I felt like I needed something to hold me.”

They were told faith was fading. That God had grown distant. And yet—against every expectation—they are coming.

College graduates, healthcare workers, artists, seekers. Drawn not by argument, but by encounter. Not by certainty, but by grace.
In just one year, the parish’s adult conversion program has tripled, welcoming more than 130 souls into the Church. And at this year’s Easter Vigil, 19 new lives were reborn in the waters of baptism—a living sign that Easter is not just remembered, but lived.

Here, in this sacred place, they have found what so many hearts long for: community, understanding, and hope.

It is a quiet miracle. A Good Friday giving way to Easter.

For this is the truth at the center of our faith: that the Cross is never the end of the story. As Jesus Christ passes through death into life, so too does every soul that dares to hope in Him.

Even in silence, even in hiddenness, God is at work.

As Saint Joseph—the faithful guardian, the quiet protector—reminds us through his life: God often accomplishes His greatest works in stillness, in trust, and in unseen faithfulness. In the hidden years of Nazareth, Joseph witnessed what the world could not yet see: that God’s promises unfold not in haste, but in perfect time.
So it is today.

The Lord is not finished with this generation.
And this generation is not finished with the Lord.

As we move from Good Friday into the radiant joy of Easter, let us hold fast to this truth: that renewal is already underway. That what appears lost is being restored. That what feels broken is being made whole.

And that the same love poured out on the Cross is even now drawing hearts home.

May the quiet strength of Saint Joseph guide us.
May the hope of Easter dwell within us.
And may the peace of Christ be with you—this Good Friday, and always.

You may watch the news report here:

A growing number of young adults are turning back to faith, packing St. Joseph’s Church in Greenwich Village with lines out the door and standing-room-only m...

04/01/2026

Palm Sunday Mass 2026: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mf9KQMB_72E

Dear Beloved in Christ,

On this final Sunday of Lent, we are reminded that the Lord does not stand apart from our suffering, but He enters into it with us. In moments of uncertainty, when His ways seem hidden or difficult to understand, we are gently invited to trust not in our own understanding, but in His presence.

Like those in the Gospel who struggled to believe, we too are faced with a deeply personal question: do we truly trust Him, even here, even now? For it is often in the very places of sorrow and confusion that Christ draws closest, revealing a hope that surpasses all hope.

May we hold fast to this trust, for we walk by faith not by sight, and may we remain confident that even in the darkest moments, He is leading us toward life.

May peace be with you...

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03/23/2026

The Annunciation of the Lord

Dear Beloved in Christ,

On March 25th we celebrate this divine Solemnity: The Annunciation of the Lord. In the midst of our Lenten journey, we pause....so that we may contemplate one of the most wondrous moments in all of human history!

We bear witness in a humble dwelling in Nazareth. The Angel Gabriel appears to the Blessed Virgin Mary and greets her with words that now echo through the ages: “"Greetings, you who are highly favored! Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee."

And in that moment, in her quiet trust—her “yes” to God—the Word was made flesh. Mary's courageous consent and this sacred mystery, observed nine months before Christmas, fills us with intense amazement, reverence and gratitude.

What makes the Incarnation so dear to us is also what it reveals about the heart of God. He did not impose His will; He invited, He waited, and He received Mary's free and loving consent. In that moment, divine grace and free will aligned in perfect harmony, and the course of human history changed forever.

Mary's “yes” would lead her not only to the joy of bearing the Savior, but also to the sorrow foretold: “and you yourself a sword will pierce.” Mary, our Blessed Lady, stands then as the ideal for every soul called to follow God’s will—no matter the cost. Through her unwavering faith, Mary understood the importance of her calling: the promise of humanity's redemption.

And so, dearly beloved, may peace be with you on this solemn day —the deep and abiding peace that comes from knowing that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, and that through young Mary's faithful “yes,” light, love and joy, for all the world, were born.

03/19/2026

March 19, 2026: The Feast of St. Joseph

Dear Beloved in Christ,

Today, we celebrate the feast of Saint Joseph—the chaste spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the foster father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and the patron of the Universal Church. In the quiet humility of his life, Joseph was entrusted with one of the most profound responsibilities ever given to a man: to protect Mary, and to guard, guide, and provide for the Child who is the Son of God. If a saint’s greatness is measured by the importance of the role entrusted to him by God, then none—save the Blessed Virgin herself—stands greater than Saint Joseph.

Within the hidden life of Nazareth, Joseph cared for the Holy Family with steadfast love and faithful obedience. It was in his workshop that Jesus learned the dignity of labor; it was Joseph’s speech that the young Christ heard and imitated; and it was under Joseph’s watchful protection that the Redeemer of the world was sheltered and nurtured. No earthly father ever loved Jesus and Mary more deeply than he did, and for this reason the Church confidently turns to him as a powerful intercessor in heaven.

May Saint Joseph—faithful guardian of the Holy Family and patron saint of the Universal Church—watch over our families, strengthen our faith, and lead us ever closer to his beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen...May peace be with you.