Left to right: Fr. Peter, Fr. Simon, Fr. Matthew
“Faith is strengthened when it is given to others!” – John Paul II
My big brother, Fr. Matthew, is currently in Romania doing missions with a bunch of young people from Poland. My other priest brother, Big Bro Fr. Peter, is doing the same in Mexico. Holy Saturday, I’ll be in NYC on missions also.
Thanks to our baptism, Jesus lives inside of us. This Holy Week open the doors of your heart and let Christ out! Don’t be afraid to reach out to those around you: invite them to Mass, to go to confession, or just to have a coffee and talk about your friend, Jesus.
God bless you!
Fr. Simon
P.S. Here’s a little more information from Fr Matthew’s expedition:
Fr.Matthew:
I am somewhere in the hills of Northern Romania, not as exotic as these other guys. We are on the eastern side of Transylvania…no sign of old Drac’ along the way. We are about 30km from the southern border with the Ukraine…no signs of Putin down here, thank God.
It is amazing here…the Poles have been here for 180 years…they remain strongly Catholic…and strongly Polish. They pray rosary every day in the Church before Mass…maybe 80 old ladies…totally dressed in black for now…Lenten tradition.
Even though there are so many old women in the Church…it is the young girls from 10 years to 16 that lead the Rosary and the Chaplet of Divine Mercy…and boy do they know how to lead it…with a stronger voice than most men would dare to use in a Church.
We are in a town called Nowy Soloniec (Polish sp), Solonetu Nou (Romamnia sp). Today (Mon) and on Wed we will visit 2 other Polish villages nearby…on the way today we will visit 2 very old monasteries…one is 600 years old…
After the Easter Vigil on Saturday night at 22.30 we will process for half an hour – singing songs as we go, lead by the youth – to the cemetery. There we will sing of Christ’s victory over death and then return singing in procession to the Church. These are Catholic experiences that you don’t experience everywhere, as you all know. Quite a privilege to be here.
It did take us a while. We were in the bus for 17.5 hours (and it was only 900km). I can never complain about things like that…it’s just too good to be here in these places. The last part was thru the falling snow in the Transylvanian mountains. We have a 20 seater and a great driver. He only did half the driving. He had another driver do the first part. We will pick up that driver on the way home. They are strictly controlled here in the UE. Every trip is recorded on a hard disk.
Well that’s about it.
Stay close to Jesus and Mary these day, everyone.
We all need it.
