April 12, 2020 Easter A

Page 1 S ERVED BY : Easter Sunday ofA theSCENSION Resurrection ofC theATHOLIC Lord C OMMUNITY April 12, 2020 Rev. Eamon Tobin .......................Ext. 3070 Pastor, email: [email protected] 2950 N. Harbor City Blvd., Melbourne, FL 32935 Rev. Martin Fitzgerald ....... 321-254-1595 Tel. 321-254-1595 -Fax 321-255-3490 Assistant Priest www.ascensioncatholic.net [email protected] Deacon Sergio A. Colon ..............Ext. 3082 Bereavement Ministry, Hispanic Community [email protected] Deacon Tom Stauffacher [email protected]—321-242-4504 Deacon Bill Terneus [email protected]—254-1595 Deacon Chris Meehan [email protected] —242-8003 Anita Brady ...................................Ext. 3001 School Principal [email protected] John Baillie ....................................Ext. 3044 Technology Administrator [email protected] Victoria Dunn ...............................Ext. 3003 Director, School Development Office [email protected] Betsy Glasenapp ...........................Ext. 3080 Faith Formation Director [email protected] Shelly Wackley .............................Ext. 3080 Faith Formation Assistant [email protected] Cara Giuliano ................................Ext. 3501 Director of Youth Ministry [email protected] Anna Nagy .....................................Ext. 3501 Associate Youth Minister Katie Gander .................................Ext. 3068 Music/Liturgy Director [email protected]. Laura Dodson ...............................Ext. 3067 Pastoral Associate/RCIA [email protected] ASCENSION CATHOLIC SCHOOL Ashley Breaux ...............................Ext. 3077 SCHEDULE OF MASSES www.ascensioncatholicsch.org Contemporary Music U.S. Department of Education Saturday Vigil Mass [email protected] School of Excellence 4:30 pm Monica Sutton ..............................Ext. 3076 Pre-Kindergarten through Eighth Grade Sunday Masses Volunteer Coordinator FAITH FORMATION 7:30 am [email protected] Religious Education PARISH OFFICE HOURS 9:30 a.m. (free childcare) Monday-Friday - 8:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. Pre-K3– Gr. 3 Tuesdays, 2:00-3:30pm (choir) PARISH OFFICE STAFF Pre-K3– Gr. 6 Tuesdays, 4:00 - 5:15 p.m. 11:30 am (free childcare) Teresa Romano ........................... Ext. 3050 Pre-K3– Gr. 6 Wednesdays, 4:00 - 5:15 p.m. 5:30 pm Front Office Manager Gr. 1-6 Wednesdays, 6:15 - 7:30 p.m. [email protected] (Contemporary Music) YOUTH MINISTRY Mary Russo....................................Ext. 3078 Ascension Catholic Life Teen Weekday Masses Business Manager/Bookkeeper Sundays 6:45-8:30pm Monday-Friday: 7:30 am [email protected] Edge (Grades 7&8) Wednesdays 6-7:30pm Sat. 9:00 am Anne Whelan ................................Ext. 3074 Assistant Bookkeeper Ascension Thrift Store: 259-7291 Sacrament of Reconciliation [email protected] Saturday: 3:15 - 4:25 pm Ascension Social Concerns: 259-5685 Maria Sittig .................................. Ext. 3072 Wednesday: 5:00 pm Religious Articles Gift Shop Secretary/Bulletin Open after all weekend Masses (or by appointment) [email protected] Brian Carley Special Projects Manager As a good steward of the Lord’s blessings, please remember to consider [email protected] your Parish Family or School Endowment in your Last Will and Testament. Page 2 Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord April 12, 2020 Pope Francis used this imagery in his address to the whole world on March 27 (Urbi et Orbi). FAITH IN THE MIDST OF A STORM Pope Francis meditated on the calming of the storm from the Gospel of Mark during the prayer service over which he presided on the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica on Friday evening. Below is the full text. “When evening had come” (Mk 4:35). The A VERY DIFFERENT EASTER SUNDAY Gospel passage we have just heard begins like this. FAITH IN THE MIDST OF A STORM For weeks now it has been evening. Thick dark- ness has gathered over our squares, our streets and BY POPE FRANCIS our cities; it has taken over our lives, filling every- VARIOUS TYPES OF FAITH thing with a deafening silence and a distressing void, that stops everything as it passes by; we feel Easter Greetings to all of you! As we all know, this it in the air, we notice in people’s gestures, their Easter Sunday is like no other Easter Sunday any glances give them away. We find ourselves afraid of us has experienced in our lifetime. On a normal and lost. Like the disciples in the Gospel we were Easter Sunday, large numbers of people would be caught off guard by an unexpected, turbulent in church including many who normally do not storm. We have realized that we are on the same come to church. This Easter 2020, we as a nation boat, all of us fragile and disoriented, but at the are doing something totally new to us: we are same time important and needed, all of us called socially distancing. And most places in our coun- to row together, each of us in need of comforting try are on lockdown, including Florida. the other. On this boat…are all of us. Just like those disciples, who spoke anxiously with one The elderly especially, like myself, are told to stay voice, saying “We are perishing” (v.38), so we too home. School children are home that so many have realized that we cannot go on thinking of parents are faced with the challenge of childcare if ourselves, but only together can we do this. they have to leave home to work. Those parents who can work from home have to deal with young It is easy to recognize ourselves in this story. children who are missing their friends and getting What is harder to understand is Jesus’ attitude. antsy at home. While his disciples are quite naturally alarmed and Some families have loved ones in nursing homes, desperate, he stands in the stern, in the part of the rehabilitation centers or hospitals, but cannot visit boat that sinks first. And what does he do? In spite them. People in retirement centers have to stay in of the tempest, he sleeps on soundly, trusting in their room to eat, and they miss socializing with the Father; this is the only time in the Gospels their friends. we see Jesus sleeping. When he wakes up, after calming the wind and the waters, he turns to the This pandemic has profoundly impacted countless disciples in a reproaching voice: “Why are you lives, most notably of course, the medical person- afraid? Have you no faith?” (v.40). nel at the front lines of this war—God bless them and protect them. A powerful imagery to express Let us try to understand. In what does the lack what we are going through is that of Jesus and his of the disciples’ faith consist, as contrasted with disciples when they were caught in a mighty storm. Jesus’ trust? They had not stopped believing in Page 3 Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord April 12, 2020 him; in fact, they called on him. But we see how thinking we would stay healthy in a world that they call on him: “Teacher, do you not care if we was sick. Now that we are in a stormy sea, we perish?” (v.38). Do you not care: they think that implore you: “Wake up, Lord!” Jesus is not interested in them, does not care about them. One of the things that hurts us and “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” our families most when we hear it said is: “Do you Lord, you are calling to us, calling us to faith. not care about me?” It is a phrase that wounds and Which is not so much believing that you exist, but unleashes storms in our hearts. It would have coming to you and trusting in you. This Lent shaken Jesus too. Because he, more than anyone, your call reverberates urgently: “Be converted!”, cares about us. Indeed, once they have called “Return to me with all your heart” (Joel 2:12). on him, he saves his disciples from their You are calling on us to seize this time of trial as discouragement. a time of choosing. It is not the time of your judgement, but of our judgement: a time to The storm exposes our vulnerability and choose what matters and what passes away, a uncovers those false and superfluous certainties time to separate what is necessary from what is around which we have constructed our daily not. It is a time to get our lives back on track with schedules, our projects, our habits and priorities. It regard to you, Lord, and to others. We can look shows us how we have allowed to become dull to so many exemplary companions for the jour- and feeble the very things that nourish, sustain and ney, who, even though fearful, have reacted by strengthen our lives and our communities. The giving their lives. This is the force of the Spirit tempest lays bare all our prepackaged ideas and poured out and fashioned in courageous and forgetfulness of what nourishes our people’s souls; generous self-denial. It is the life in the Spirit all those attempts that anesthetize us with ways of that can redeem, value and demonstrate how thinking and acting that supposedly “save” us, but our lives are woven together and sustained by instead prove incapable of putting us in touch with ordinary people—often forgotten people—who our roots and keeping alive the memory of those do not appear in newspaper and magazine head- who have gone before us. We deprive ourselves of lines nor on the grand catwalks of the latest show, the antibodies we need to confront adversity. but who without any doubt are in these very days writing the decisive events of our time: In this storm, the façade of those stereotypes doctors, nurses, supermarket employees, cleaners, with which we camouflaged our egos, always caregivers, providers of transport, law and order worrying about our image, has fallen away, uncov- forces, volunteers, priests, religious men and ering once more that (blessed) common belonging, women and so very many others who have of which we cannot be deprived: our belonging as understood that no one reaches salvation by them- brothers and sisters.

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