Dear Parishioners,

Today is the 5th Sunday of Easter. We continue to celebrate with Easter joy the resurrection of Christ our Savior. It is also the second Sunday of May which is Mother’s Day. On behalf of the entire parish staff here at St. Martin dePorres, I take this opportunity to wish all mothers, grandmothers, stepmothers, godmothers and mothers to be, a very happy and blessed Mother’s Day. During this month of May, we as Catholics celebrate the gift of Mary, the Blessed Mother who bore in her womb Jesus Christ the Savior. Ordinarily here at the parish we would have celebrated May Crowning, in which the children of our faith formation program would crown the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary at each of our churches. Today, we would have also celebrated the sacrament of First Holy Communion for our young boys and girls. I ask that you keep these boys and girls in your thoughts and prayers. We have begun the conversation of rescheduling their First Holy Communion. Let us pray through the intercession of Mary our Mother, they will continue to follow after the heart of her son, Jesus.

Today’s gospel speaks to us about faith. Jesus tells us to not allow our hearts to be troubled or afraid, but to have faith in God and to have faith in him. I don’t know about you but that’s easier said than done, especially in the time that we are living in at the present moment. We must never allow ourselves to lose faith. We must hold on to our faith now more than ever. Even in the midst of this most horrific pandemic, Jesus continues to be with us. Philip tells the Lord, “show us the Father”. Jesus tells Philip and he tells us that he is in the Father and the words he speaks comes from the Father. We must not allow our faith to be shaken!

As we enter into another week of lockdown and social distancing, let us continue to pray for one another. We pray that the Holy Spirit will strengthen and guide us closer to Christ the great High Priest. Let us continue to pray for those affected by this virus and for their healing. We also pray for those who have died, most especially parishioners from our parish. As I pen this letter, I was informed of the death of one of our very active parishioners. May his soul and all the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace.

I thank each and every one of you for your support. Both Father Kingsley and I are so grateful for your phone calls, emails and care packages! We think and pray for you each day. As Pastor, I also want to thank you for your financial support. As you know, the Sunday collections that we receive each week go towards paying the ordinary expenses of the parish, which include maintaining each of our three churches. Many of you have mailed in or dropped off your tithing envelopes. From the bottom of my heart, thank you! There is also another way to make your weekly contributions, which is electronically through a program called Give Central. It is an electronic giving program that we as a parish are a member of. It happened to be that we began using GiveCentral at the beginning of the lockdown. All of the money given electronically comes directly to the parish. It is not going anywhere else. Words cannot express how truly grateful I am for your love, support and generosity.

Wishing you a Blessed and Peaceful Week,

Father Alonzo Q. Cox