We are happy to welcome into the Catholic community Kaitlyn Cruz, Wendy Haynes and Andrew Johnson! May they always know the joy of living in the light of the Resurrection.
Welcome to St. Anne's Parish
We are a Catholic Christian community rich in a tradition of giving and caring for its Church and its people.
Through the course of each year, hundreds of parishioners volunteer their time and talents for the many special events and celebrations within our Parish.
In addition, many of our parishioners are active on an ongoing basis in the ministries we see and experience every week as well as in those ministries that are not so outwardly visible.
2 Corinthians 9:6 "Whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully."
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Sunday Masses are streamed live and recorded at 9:00 a.m. on
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I wish you all a blessed and happy Easter. It is a far cry from last year when the church was empty and we played to an audience somewhere out in the ether. I was so happy, and it truly made my heart glad, to see so many come to the Triduum. In this past year, priests had the fear of wondering if the people will come back and I believe we can readily say yes, they will.
Easter is a very special time in the church. At the Vigil Mass we baptized two people and confirmed three. A special day is set aside just for that, because it's the beginning of so much in our theology. It's the end of Lent. Lent this year seems like it lasted about a year and a half!
You have to look at Easter in terms of all three days - Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter - because they all come together and one doesn't make sense without the others. On Thursday, we were given the Eucharist, the priesthood was begun, it was a way of sustaining God's people, of bringing God's people together to pray. It sustained people, especially the apostles, who saw Jesus dragged through the streets and eventually hung on a cross.
Imagine what the crucifixion was to the disciples. All their visions were of Jesus as the Messiah who would lead them forth, a new Moses, who would reinvigorate the whole community of the Israelites, and once again bring them back to authority and power. In the crucifixion, those hopes were dashed and gone. But what the cross really symbolizes (too often we focus on the terrible suffering and death) and what we really have to see in the cross is the sublime act of love - Jesus' love for us, but most especially for the Father. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed "Can this be done any other way?" In His own way, the Father let Jesus know that this was the way it had to be. Jesus then simply said "Your will be done." Why? Because the Father would punish Him? No. Because the Father forced Him? No. But because He loved the Father so much. His whole life and ministry centered around doing the will of the Father. You hear Him say this time and time again. "I come to do the will of the Father." This is what we're supposed to be doing as well, and hopefully we do what we do not out of fear of punishment but out of love, love for God in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and love for the people in our lives.
So where does the Resurrection come in? The Resurrection is the evidence of God's love. That proved to everyone that this was the Father's will that was being fulfilled. The women arrived to an empty tomb believing that Jesus' body had been stolen. They saw the young man sitting with the folded up robes who said to them "Why are you looking for him here? He is risen." When Jesus appeared to the apostles in the upper room, they were frightened, thinking He was a ghost. And Jesus said "Be not afraid. It is I." Jesus was very gentle with them, He knew they wouldn't understand, but over time they would come to know more and more of the risen Christ. For us, we have the benefit of over 2,000 years to think, pray, preach, and teach about it, to come to some understanding that the cross was the fulfillment of the Father's love for the Son and the Son's love for the Father in the Holy Spirit. That was the promise. So this is a joyful day because He is risen, and we have our faith that we, too, will rise again. The promise of baptism is that we will have eternal life. We can't wrap our minds around that. It is so beyond us. What is eternal life? Jesus tells us that no man has ever begun to think about what it is. Baptism is our first real encounter with God. It's the first time we meet Jesus Christ formally. We have been touched by Jesus Christ. Once we have met him, we can never say "I have never met him." The promise of the Resurrection is the promise of baptism.
Let's look forward with hope that the pandemic is slowly coming to an end and that perhaps next Easter, we will have our candles and all the bells and whistles and be together with our families to truly celebrate the Risen Christ.
May you have all of the joy and hope of the Easter season.
God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work.
Author: St. John Henry Newman Source: Seeking Peace
I wish you all a blessed and happy Easter. It is a far cry from last year when the church was empty and we played to an audience somewhere out in the ether. I was so happy, and it truly made my heart glad, to see so many come to the Triduum. In this past year, priests had the fear of wondering if the people will come back and I believe we can readily say yes, they will.
