Elections Postponed Due to lack of a quorum, we were unable to conduct the officer elections for the 2024 - 2025 Columbian year at our last business meeting on June 24th. It was decided that since most of the members attend Sunday mass on a regular basis that we would have a quick meeting after the 9:00am mass on July 7th in the church hall.

Join us for a 12 day Catholic pilgrimage which includes Lisbon, Fatima, Santiago de Compostella, Burgos, Loyola, Lourdes, Montserrat and Barcelona.

Today’s theme in the scriptures points us toward one of my favorite themes from the Bible, i.e., who and when gets chosen to bring God’s message and power to people. It starts with Exodus, the unlikely character of Moses, and then those who are given part of his spirit in the camp as they are in the desert (EX. 16:14-20). This is what happens to the prophets and certainly to the prophet Amos, who recognizes that he is not a learned man, but it is the Spirit of God in him that will speak. The Pentecost moment is the beginning of the Church and gives the vision that we are sharers in the Spirit of God.

Exploring the theme of BELONGING

The requirements for Virtus's Protecting God's Children have changed and you might have to attend the most up-to-date training version.

Enter into a peaceful space as St. James Church will be open to the public on Tuesdays this Summer. Each Tuesday, starting June 18th, St. James Church will be open from 4-7 pm.

Join us under the Tent!

This week we celebrated the founding of the country. In my seventh year here, I have come to appreciate the fanfare and the events that the city uses to celebrate the courage of the founders and the first citizens. In some ways, they deserved the description of “radical people”. Their ideas were about freedom and the desire to rule themselves using a democratic process of governance by qualified elected people. The final lines of the Declaration of Independence come to my mind when I think of what the founders were hoping for and prepared to do for one another. It reads, “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

All volunteers are required by the Archdiocese to complete VIRTUS “Protecting God’s Children” (PCG) training. This is a one-time obligation, unlike the annual CORI process. La Arquidiócesis requiere que todos los voluntarios completen el entrenamiento VIRTUS "Protegiendo a los Niños de Dios" (PCG). Esta es una obligación de una sola vez, a diferencia del proceso anual de CORI.

As I return from a month away from the parish for various reasons, (vacation, conference, and retreat) I am reflecting on the various ways I have encountered the church.

MQOA is committed to the well-being of its community, including the emotional and psychological care of its members. Please join MQOA for the 3rd Annual “The World Needs You Here” 3 Mile Walk to be held on the Salem Common in Salem, MA sponsored by Mental Makeover!

With summer upon us, our main church can get quite hot, and you might be looking for a way to escape the heat during Mass.

It is official! Ten Commandments and Beatitudes Tablets are getting a NEW STANDING STRUCTURE! The “tablets” were picked up today and will be stored at “J.R.Welding & Fabrication” while a new steel stand is being fabricated to hold them. The goal is to get it completed, returned, and erected in its new location (between the large pine and fence along the sidewalk) by the 2nd-3rd week in July. They plan on starting on our project today! We are so excited to see the end result.

This I am writing from the hotel in Harrogate, England where I have been attending a wonderful worldwide conference about Divine Renovation, the parish renewal process we are using in our parish. Some members of the parish also attended, and it was great to be with them and many people I only know from Zoom meetings and emails. The vision of this movement is to inspire renewal in 16% of parishes around the world. That number is 33,000. I had previously written that this big number was 10%, so I want to correct the record and clarify. From statistics, 16% is a tipping point for change in organizational systems like parishes, large groups, and business organizations.

Calling All Alpha Guests (and anyone interested in ALpha)!!

This week’s second collection Promoting the Gospel supports Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) and the Catholic Communication Campaign (CCC).

This Sunday I am returning from England after attending a conference sponsored by the worldwide organization of which we are a part. The Divine Renovation Ministry, started by a priest in Halifax, Nova Scotia, has grown to be a worldwide organization that has the vision to begin a renewal process in the church beginning with thirty-three thousand parishes across the world. Why 33,000? That is roughly ten percent of the number of parishes that exist around the world. The vision of the founder, Father James Mallon, and his team is that by affecting ten percent, the whole world will be affected by the change. What is changing?

We invite you to read through the 4th edition of the Salem Council newsletter. Many thanks to their editor, Richard Olivier, for putting this together!

Wondrous Stories will not happen on Sunday, June 16th

Next week’s second collection will be shared by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) and the Catholic Communication Campaign (CCC).