Have you ever had the experience of getting either to work or getting home and not remembering the drive? I’m sure that this has happened to you. You stroll over to your car, start the engine, and then you realize you’ve made it to your destination without any memory of the commute.
When a priest celebrates an anniversary, it is more than just about him. It is also about God and his people. Having celebrated 50 years as a priest, I am grateful to God, and to all of you, and all of the people in the parishes I served for letting me touch you with my faith, my care and concern, and for allowing me to enter into your lives, sometimes at moments which are personal for you.
Friends, God has work to do in our world generally and in us particularly. If we foreclose on those possibilities by presuming the worst about ourselves and our humanity, how much precious saving grace is lost to us.
Open to children entering Kindergarten to 4th grade. Sign up today! Call (973) 376-2061 or email ncaputo@saintjamesparish.org to register your child.
I have been blessed all these years to serve at Saint James. Preaching God’s Word and administrating the sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist, is nourishing for all involved. This faith community has helped me grow and develop in my faith and in my priesthood.
Fr. John, out of your forty-one years of priesthood, twenty-plus of those years have been shared with us. While ministering as a Priest of Jesus Christ among us, you have done countless “good things” for others.
In our second reading this Sunday, St. John’s vision in the Book of Revelation is a game-changer when he imagines the New Jerusalem devoid of a Temple. John, however, doesn’t simply dispense with the Temple. He conceives that the city itself has become the dwelling place of God.
