St Mary's Church, Swormville

By now I am sure you have heard the announcement that I will be leaving St. Mary’s as your Pastor to become the full time Vicar for the Renewal. This was not a position that ...

Each week at the conclusion of the prayers of the faithful we have been praying our Prayer for Renewal. I hope that the words of this prayer have been sinking in since we began th...

When was the last time that believing in Jesus changed your behavior? Today as Church we celebrate the Epiphany, in which Jesus is reveled to the nations. In other words, Christ i...

We herald the fact that God is no distant lord, dwelling in isolation above the heavens, but love incarnate, born like us of a mother, in order to be a brother to each of us, to b...

Merry Christmas! Today we celebrate a Savior being born for all of us. No matter what brought you to church, remember that the baby Jesus was born to save us from our sins. What w...

The Roman Church has been singing the “O” Antiphons since at least the eighth century. They are the antiphons that accompany the Magnificat canticle of Evening Prayer from Decemb...

One of the great struggles of our western culture is that we are always moving onto the next thing. We rarely appreciate the moment we are in, but are always concerned about ‘what...

It’s the time of year in which we make our lists and we check them twice. Personally, I live off of To-Do Lists and Post-It Notes. If it doesn’t make it onto my electronic calen...

As you can clearly see on the cover of the bulletin, there is a lot going on at St. Mary’s that can make this season of Advent the season of preparation it is meant to be. It can ...

It is good that Thanksgiving is upon us. We are given the opportunity in this holiday to be intentional about our appreciating so that we can respond accordingly to what is indee...

Two years ago, Fr. Luke and I arrived at St. Mary’s to a parish that was struggling in many ways. Deacon Rick had been doing an outstanding job as administrator of St. Mary’s, but...

As the liturgical year in the Church draws to a close with the feast of Christ the King coming up on November 20th, our attention as a Church is drawn to the last things. Last we...

I hope that we are continuing to invite and encourage others to join us at St. Mary’s. We need to actively reach out to those who are missing and let them know they are missed and...

Last year during Lent, you may remember that our parish filled out “Disciple Maker Index Surveys” from the Catholic Leadership Institute and those surveys indicated that at St. ...

‘When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’ (Lk. 18:8) This line from our Gospel this weekend asks a pointed question to all of us. Will Jesus find faith? How is our...

Why is October the month of the Rosary you ask? In the year 1571AD, Europe was under the threat of invasion from the Ottoman Empire. More than a stately affair, in those days Eu...

Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend an evangelization conference in Chicago. The conference focused on a program called Alpha. As I learned more about this evangelizati...

When it was time to go to Church, as kids we were told, “we are going into God’s house.” It meant that we were about to enter into a sacred time and a sacred place to encounter G...

As I return to St. Mary’s, I thought it would be important to share with you the work that has been taking place with the Renewal. As you are aware, our Diocese is in the midst...

It has been 21 years to the day in which occurred the tragic events of 9/11. Imprinted upon many of our minds is where we were and what we were doing when everything happened on ...