First Mass at St Mark the Evangelist Parish, Londonderry

A few photos from my friend, and fellow Knight of Columbus, Jean Desrosiers during and after the Mass, including a photo during my first Homily.

During the Homily 

Before Consecration

Deacon Lee Abbott & Msgr Don Gilbert

Kathy and Chris (Mary had to leave for work)

Fr Michael MacInnis & Fr Tom Washburn

Ron & Carrie

A few photos from Ordination.  Been a while since I posted photos, so don't forget to click for full size images.

Ordained Permanent Deacon

I was Ordained a Permanent Deacon in the Diocese of Manchester yesterday with 20 other men.  Rather than sit back and soak it in, I went to 'work' and was able to serve my first masses this weekend as a Deacon.  Served at 4 PM Saturday (hours after being ordained) at a Mass at Blessed Sacrament Parish, where the Mass Intention was for my Brother in Law, William E Clark, Jr, who passed away in December 2013.  Then I was at the 7 AM Mass at Blessed Sacrament this morning (Sunday) which is the Mass I have been regularly attending during my internship year.  Last, I served the 10 AM Mass at my home parish, St Mark the Evangelist, Londonderry, NH.  I was fortunate to be able to preach the homily (posted below) at all three masses.

Coincidentally, this is my 23rd wedding anniversary.  And if that wasn't enough, I was able to wish my lovely wife Happy Anniversary before my first Homily.  The 10 AM Mass at St Mark Parish was particularly special.  There were three priests.  Rev Msgr Don Gilbert, JCL, my Spiritual Director was the main celebrant, with concelebrants Rev Fr Michael MacInnis, OFM and Rev Fr Tom Washburn, OFM.  Eleven years ago today, my daughter MaryCatherine, received her First Communion.  At that Mass, Fr Tom was the Presider, I was the Lector, Chris (my son) was the Altar Server and Kathy was an Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist.  Today at St Mark, Fr Tom was a concelebrant, I proclaimed the Gospel (and the Homily), Chris was again a Server and Kathy was again an Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist.  Quite a special day this May 25th has become!

Below is my first Homily of may more to come.

Homily for the Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 25, 2014:

I'd like to begin by wishing my wife a Happy 23^rd Anniversary.  I couldn't have made it through Formation without her love, support and companionship.  It's a tremendous blessing and very humbling to begin this ministry by telling my wife I love her and wishing her a Happy Anniversary.  There aren't many men who get to do this before their first Homily.  I'm sure I'll never forget our anniversary again.

I’ve known I was going to preach today for several weeks.  I had read the readings several  times over the last few weeks.  I have thought about them and prayed about them for weeks.  Being the first Homily, I wanted something special, something profound to say.  And then a few weeks ago, I was reminded by someone that where we really find God is in the ordinary.  It’s in our everyday lives that we encounter God.  Whether it’s with one another, or in nature, or simply in meditation.   We find God where we would least expect Him, but only if we are looking.  An example of this happened to me last week.

Last week, I was driving to New Jersey to spend a week with my boss.  My boss was staying at Newark Airport and arriving late Sunday night.  Now to be kind, Newark is my LEAST favorite part of New Jersey.  So I opted to stay at another hotel close to Newark, but in an area I had not been to before.  I got started mid afternoon on Sunday to make the 4 hour drive down.  I had all my necessities – MP3 player for the car, my e-reader for the nights, fully charged cell phone and my GPS.  How did we get anywhere before we had GPS? 

So I programmed the GPS for the hotel and followed a very familiar path to NJ.  But once I left the Garden State Parkway, I had to begin traveling on unfamiliar roads to get me to the hotel.  As I was driving, I was paying attention to the GPS and the road signs to make sure I didn’t make any wrong turns and would arrive at the hotel.  I found myself thinking about the readings again and I recognized similarities between the unfamiliar roads and my faith journey, and I think we can all relate to this.

I was traveling on unfamiliar roads.  I knew my destination.  I had seen photos of the hotel on Google Maps, but I had never driven there before.  I knew my destination, but I was unsure of the path that would lead me there.  And I knew I had the GPS to guide me.  But I still had some apprehension.

OK, so you are asking how can unfamiliar New Jersey roads be like a faith journey?  We all know our desired destination – heaven.  But sometimes we need to follow unfamiliar roads to get there.  As we are traveling those roads, we encounter the same things I encountered going to New Jersey.  At times I was traveling fast, probably over the speed limit.  Just like our faith when things are going well.  Other times I was slower, either because of unanticipated turns in the road, or some of the drivers in front of me.  In our lives we encounter unexpected obstacles that may challenge our faith.  Losing a job.  The death of a family member or loved one.  Financial difficulties.  Unexpected things in our lives that may slow us down on our faith journey.  When I was going slower, other cars would speed by. 

Still, there were other drivers going even slower than I was.  But I suspect they all knew their destination too.  There were some red lights.  There were some stop signs.  Things that stop us on our planned journey. 

And what about the GPS?  I looked at the GPS and thought about that with respect to our faith journeys.  As corny as it sounds, I thought of it as a God Positioning System.  We have Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition to guide us on the right path.  And when we veer off a bit too much, when we are perhaps challenged, we have the Sacraments to help us experience visible signs of God's grace in our lives.  And that is what we see in the readings today.  Examples of the sacraments in the early church.

In the first reading today, Philip goes to Samaria.  Philip is a Deacon.  And encouragingly for me, the reading says "the crowds paid attention to what was said by Philip"  They listened to the Deacon!  Philip spoke about Christ and acted in a manner that converted the Samaritans.  Philip baptized them and when the apostles heard of their conversion and baptism, Peter and John went to Samaria and laid hands on them.  The laying on of hands is what we do in the Sacrament of Confirmation and the Sacrament of Holy Orders.  I suspect many of you here today were baptized as infants and confirmed as teenagers.  Still, some of you may have received both sacraments as adults or maybe even not received one or both yet.  But the Sacraments are what God and Jesus gave the church to help us stay on the path, another GPS, to keep us heading toward our destination.

Jesus speaks of this for the disciples in our Gospel today.  I wonder if they understood what he was telling them.  He says, "the world will no longer see me, but you will see me, because I am in you and you are in me." And he tells them "I will not leave you orphans," promising to send the Holy Spirit, the advocate, the paraclete.  Until that day of Pentecost, they must have wondered what he meant by this.

Today's readings bring to mind the sacraments of initiation, that call us to full communion with Christ.  Baptism, Eucharist and Confirmation.  The outward signs of God to keep us guided on the path.  As we move closer to the end of the Easter season, and toward Jesus acsension to the Father, he promises us his love his peace and his continued presence.  He reassures us that he will come to us.  He will not leave us orphans.  We can find God and Jesus in the ordinary and experience his love and presence in the sacraments.

May God give you peace.