As you have undoubtedly heard, our Holy Father Pope Francis was called to his eternal reward yesterday, Easter Monday (April 21, 2025) after twelve years of papal ministry. We have been blessed by his faithful ministry and leadership - may he now enjoy the blessings of rest & reward with the Lord in heaven. There are many and varied traditions surrounding the death of a pope - our chancery has issued general guidelines and a liturgical guidelines document. Because of the priority of the octave of Easter - the climax of Christ's ministry and mission on earth - all Masses for the Dead must wait until after Divine Mercy Sunday. Already we here on the Olympic Peninsula are preparing several Masses across our parish family - we will have...

At last we arrive at Holy Week - the destination towards which all prior liturgical seasons and celebrations have pointed. The Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the finding of Jesus in the Temple, the Baptism of the Lord, the forty days in the desert, and His all-too-brief three years of ministry among us have culminated in this: Jesus' Passion and death. Though the Triduum takes place over just a few days, the Church will linger on the mystery of God dying - of man killing God - with a mixture of guilt, sorrow, and gratitude. 'By His wounds we are healed', we proclaim - and yet, it is our hand that inflicts them. How can we but tremble at the awesome mercy of the One Who above all others has a claim to vengeance - and wills...

I was away for nearly the entirety of last week and am only just in these last hours of the week finalizing what was supposed to be an early release pastor's post! So much for the plans of this man in the face of those of the Lord. Who needs sleep anyway! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ So what has this pastor been doing so much of away from his parish family this week?!? A reasonable question, that. The first day (Monday) was dedicated to my priest support group, which meets once a month. We spend a holy hour together, spend time catching up over snacks & drinks (typically coffee and sparkling water!), and then go through a formal check-in according to a list of areas we've agreed to be accountable to each other: daily prayer (Mass, the Office, the...

Some weeks are busier than others, but boy has this one been a whirlwind! It is rare that I manage to go to every parish on the Olympic Peninsula in as many days, but that's exactly what I did this week. Mondays are my day each week to spend at Saint Mary Star of the Sea in Port Townsend, offering Mass and checking in with the staff there. I spent Tuesday with my family in Seabeck before returning home to my rectory in Queen of Angels. On Wednesday a couple of the staff and I made our way out to Saint Anne in Forks to complete some projects and check in with Father Ed & the office volunteers there. Thursdays are my day each week to spend at Saint Joseph in Sequim, offering Mass and checking in with staff there. Though I returned to my...

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Annunciation. I am reminded of one of my favorite readings from the Office of Readings. It is a homily by Saint Bernard titled "In Praise of the Virgin Mother" and the caption text in the breviary fittingly reads "The whole world awaits Mary's reply". The imagery of the anticipation all of creation - not just the archangel Gabriel and surrounding (if invisibly so) angelic choir but the heavens, earth, stars, sea, oceans, rocks, trees....everything leaning in as Mary draws her breath to respond. Through her 'yes', the floodgates of graces for which we so long were cast open and the Word of God became man, first in the Virgin's womb and eventually making Himself known to all. The unconscious mirroring...

Wuf. March certainly started with a bang! I'm sorry for the lack of activity here on the blog for the last two and a half weeks. By now most everyone knows that Father Ed had a heart attack, requiring the emergency placement of four stents. He is came back home the Sunday before Ash Wednesday and has been steadily recovering since. The day after that, I came down with some variant of the flu and was laid up with a fever for the first half of the week. Though that broke mid-morning on Ash Wednesday (happy Lent!), neither of us were in any condition to, you know, do priestly things! Happily, Father Gali and our three deacons were ready and eager to pick up the slack, with Father covering the east region and our three deacons covering the...

As some of you may have heard, Father Ed admitted himself into the hospital late this week after experiencing chest pain and numbness in his right arm. Though the local hospital was able to make progress on his blood pressure, it was decided to send him to a larger facility for further evaluation & care. He is currently under their (excellent!) ministrations and is resting comfortably. Please continue to pray for him as he and his doctors work together to bring him back up to full strength. For this weekend, we are temporarily adjusting our Mass schedule (below) so that both Father Gali and myself can offer at least one Mass in each region. At this time we will not be offering Sunday Celebrations in the Absence of a Priest at any...

Well, this is definitely a last-minute posting of my weekly pastor's post. The long and short is that I've been on vacation since Sunday afternoon and despite prepping this post last Saturday, I didn't return to it all week. 'Why?', you ask? Well, I was hosting three other priests for what we have dubbed our 'board game retreat'. All day each day of the week, we chose from among our favorite board games (and a couple new ones) and played them all day. When that got a little overwhelming - especially for those of us who struggle with long-form strategic planning (looking at you, Twilight Imperium), we took refuge in the low-pressure fun of various Nintendo offerings. On that front, we only discovered on the last day that Super Mario 3D...