May the peace and joy of the Risen Lord and the Power of His Holy Spirit be with you! We have once again celebrated the descent of the power of the Holy Spirit upon the Church; we have once again prayed for more and more of that power in our lives. We have done it before, and we shall do it again, and again, and again, and again. Why?--because, as St. Seraphim points out above, this is something we cannot live without, we simply always need more of God and especially more of the grace and power of the Holy Spirit. We can never have enough and we will never have enough until we finally see Him face to face in glory. In the meantime, it is His Spirit, our Hope of Glory, Who keeps us empowered and walking on this narrow way that Jesus has placed us on. A way that leads us, in the heart of His Church to His Throne in glory. Let us continue to yield to the power that we cannot live without, let us continue, as St. Paul reminds us, to "pray in the Spirit on every possible occasion."

We also celebrate two interesting transitions in the Spirit during this time. A few weeks ago, His Eminence Cardinal Suenens died. Cardinal Suenens was a great friend and champion of the charismatic renewal in the Catholic Church. He was the first major prelate to go on record in support of this great movement of the Lord God to renew His Church in this time. He also had a direct impact on us locally through his dealings with folks from Ann Arbor doing community in Belgium. He will be missed. At the same time, this great churchman of the Holy Spirit gets to go home, we as a parish our celebrating the ordination to the priesthood of several of our brothers. Thus the work of the Holy Spirit continues in the Church as these men of God, yielding to the grace of this wondrous vocation, lay down their lives in the service of the Kingdom of God as priests of the Most High God. It is in some ways a fitting tribute to Cardinal Suenens, that the result of this great charismatic renewal should be an increase in vocations to serve the Church that he loved and served all his life. Let us continue to plead with the Lord Jesus to call men to serve Him in this way, men who will be staunchly loyal to the Church and deeply in love with the Lord Jesus and on fire with the power of the Holy Spirit, that especially during this time at the end of the Millennium, the Church of God would have shepherds after God's own heart.

Whatever else the Lord Jesus may call us to as a Parish, one thing is clear: our identity as a Spirit-filled, in love with and surrendered to the Lord Jesus, loyal to His Church Parish will not change. That is who He has created us to be, and that is who we will remain. May we always be faithful to the grace He has given us to love and serve Him in the power of His Holy Spirit!