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As we have listened to Our Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, these last few months, we have noticed that he quotes often the Fathers of the Church and especially St. Augustine. The Fathers were influential theologians and writers, who lived primarily between the second and the seventh centuries. Pope Leo is particularly fond of St. Augustine, perhaps because he is a member of the Order of St. Augustine.

On Mary’s Hill in Ireland and every place where we meet her, she leads us to the altar where her Son’s Eucharistic Sacrifice is offered and where we are fed with the Body and Blood of the Lamb of God at His Paschal Banquet. For there we encounter the open Heart of Jesus where we find grace, mercy and love as we journey through this life.

We look to the Assumption of Our Blessed Mother as she shows the way to our final destination, and we entrust ourselves to her maternal love and powerful intercession. This great truth of her Assumption body and soul into heaven is a source of great hope for us today. It tells us that God has a plan for us.

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross is a powerful example for us today because of her tremendous faith and holiness that influenced and continue to influence so many. She provides for us a model of complete fidelity to the teachings of Christ’s Body the Church and the creative genius of women in the Church.

August is marked by beautiful feast days on the Church’s calendar: the Feasts of the Transfiguration of the Lord, the Assumption of Our Lady, St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. John Vianney, Pope St. Pius X and the Passion of St. John the Baptist, just to mention a few. They are like oases in a desert of ordinary, day-to-day activity and anticipated responsibilities.

In 2021 Pope Francis established in the Catholic Church the World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly on the fourth Sunday of July. This Sunday was chosen because of its proximity to July 26, the Feast of Sts. Anne and Joachim, grandparents of Jesus. The purpose of this day is to honor the elderly and their role in families and communities.

If we gaze into Mary’s soul, we shall see that grace in her has flowered into a spiritual life of incalculable wealth: a life of recollection, prayer, uninterrupted oblation to God, continual contact, and intimate union with Him…those who want to live their devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel to the full must follow Mary into the depths of her interior life.

It is Simon Peter who clearly declares “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Peter, who is to be recognized as the first in a long line of popes, makes this pronouncement that is the basis of all the Church’s magisterium – the identity of Our Lord as the true God and true man. If we do not get the identity of Jesus right, we cannot understand anything.

Pope Leo remarked, “The Church is extroverted by nature, as were the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. In every Eucharist, you will make his words your own: for you and for all.” He emphasized that priests are called to be “not masters, but guardians of the truth, because the mission belongs to Jesus.”

Pope Leo in his great wisdom and love for the beauty of the treasure of the Faith reechoes what Pope St. John Paul II taught, “The Church breathes with two lungs – that of the East and that of the West.”

Dear Brothers and Sisters, we rejoice in the election of our new Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV and we thank God that the ministry of Peter continues. We pledge to him our love, our unfailing prayers, our filial obedience, and our support.

Hope triumphs over despair! Faith drives away every doubt! Charity destroys all strife! For Christ has risen, defeating death and darkness! At Mass He feeds us with the fruit of the tree of the Cross, His glorified, risen Body and Blood!

We can truly say that the Divine Mercy Image is the mirror image of His Passion. He shows Himself in the Image to be the Priest, Victim, Vessel of Merciful love and Redeemer of us all.

By His wounds we are healed and through them the light of the Resurrection shine brilliantly on us and the whole world. It is the Cross that unlocks the meaning of life, our identity and purpose of our suffering.

As we enter into the last weeks of Lent, we walk with our Lord as He set His face toward Jerusalem where He enters into the unfolding of His Paschal Mystery, the outpouring of His love in His Passion, Death, and Resurrection.

It is through the Passion and Death of Jesus that the whole world is saved and we are reconciled to the Father. It is by His wounds that we are healed. During Lent and throughout the year we should take up the Passion accounts praying with them entering into the mystery of His love outpoured for us.

Our Lenten Season is punctuated with feasts of light and joy. They show us that life, so often a time of suffering and challenge, is a pilgrim’s way to the glory of heaven.

Our own hands must not be thrown up in despair at the suffering of the world or our own brokenness and sin. Rather we should fold them in adoration and prayer and raise them to reach out for the Savior who forgives us, heals us, and gives us hope.

While it is true that Ash Wednesday comes late this year on March 5, the Season of Lent is just around the corner. In just two weeks we will be going to Mass and having ashes put on our foreheads in the form of a cross as we hear the words taken from the Book of Genesis, “Remember that you are dust and unto dust you shall return.”

In our suffering, we can become “co-redeemers” with Christ. We can become those who from our sick beds, our places of persecution, our loneliness, our hardship, transform the world by our offering of love. Offered to God in love in union with the sufferings of Christ, we can bring love and mercy into lives unknown to us.