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April 22, 2025As Catholics we don’t just celebrate a great feast but we celebrate and celebrate and celebrate. So we are now in the Easter season that will last for fifty days until Pentecost Sunday.
In the Eastern Catholic Church it is the custom during these fifty days to greet everyone you meet by saying, “He is risen.” And the other person responds, “Indeed, He is risen.”
St. Paul reminds us that if Christ is not risen, everything else we say and teach is nonsense. Christ conquered death and His promise is that we, too, will overcome death. Death has no more power over us.
I am grateful to our priests, deacons and lay ministers for their hard work in preparing for and conducting our Holy Week Services all around the Diocese. They are beautiful liturgical celebrations but they take a lot of work to prepare and celebrate.
At the Easter Vigil hundreds of people around the Diocese were washed in the waters of Baptism. They have been preparing for almost a year to become daughters and sons of God. Many others were Confirmed and received their First Communion now having received all the Sacraments of Initiation. Still others were received into the Church from another religious denomination. There is much to rejoice about. Congratulations and choicest blessings to each one of them.
I remember one time doing baptisms at the Easter Vigil when I was an auxiliary bishop in Chicago. St.Marcelline in Schaumburg has a pool where baptisms take place. I took off my shoes and socks and walked into the pool. I was given a bucket as the first person stepped in the pool to be baptized. I gently starting pouring the water from the bucket, when the pastor said to me, “Pour the whole bucket!” Sure enough I did and the one receiving baptism was drenched from head to toe. But that is what Baptism is, we go into the water and arise a new person in Christ.
I am grateful to the Catholic Foundation for hosting a brunch at Stillwell House for generous donors to the Diocese. We are blest to have so many people sacrifice to further the work of the Church. Their generosity astounds me. I am especially moved when I meet elders who live on fixed incomes and yet are willing to give what they can, even from their limited resources. I pray our donors know how much their gift means and what good it accomplishes.
We are in the midst of the Annual Catholic Appeal. Over two million has been contributed toward our four million dollar goal. We are a little behind where we were last year but I am confident that we will achieve our goal and maybe even surpass it. But that won’t be possible unless we enlarge the number of donors giving and invite a number of new donors to help make this year’s appeal, “One Body, One Mission, Serving in Christ achieve its goal.
I can tell you that those four million dollars helps us to form seminarians to serve as our future priests, assists our needy parishes and schools, of which there are many, continue the great ministries of Catholic Community Services, strengthen our youth ministry and assistance to our infirmed priests, and many other pastoral initiatives.
Without each of you, we will fall short, but with you we will excel.
We are beginning the Confirmation season in full force this week. I will celebrate Confirmation at Morenci/Clifton on Wednesday and there will be two groups confirmed at Augustine Cathedral on Friday, April 25 (St. Pius X, St. Francis de Sales, Corpus Christi and St. Joseph) and on Sunday, April 27 candidates from St. Joseph, Hayden, Infant Jesus of Prague, Kearney, St. Bartholomew in San Manuel, St. Helen in Oracle and Blessed Sacramen in Mammoth, Holy Angels in Globe and Our Lady of Grace in Maricopa will be Confirmed. On Monday, April 28 Santa Cruz and the St. Thomas More Newman Center’s candidates will be confirmed.
Morenci/ Clifton is still an active mining community. It is about two hours from Tucson and has quite a history. In 1983 the Arizona copper mine strike took place. It was very contentious and difficult. Families were torn apart. It was a labor dispute between Phelps Dodge Corporation and a group of union copper miners and mill workers. It lasted almost three years and ended with many striking workers replaced by others.
In October of 1983, the same year as the strike, a devastating flood took place in the area affecting Clifton but also Willcox, Safford and even Nogales. Between 6 and 7 inches of rain fell in our area. Tropical Storm Octave considered to be the worst tropical cyclone in the history of Arizona struck. The Gila River in Clifton overflowed its banks. Businesses were heavily damaged and most of Clifton’s 4, 200 residents had to be evacuated.
I always enjoy visiting our smaller communities. The faith of the people is strong and they are so appreciative for visitors from the Diocese realizing they are far from the seat of the Diocese.
I enjoy reading the letters students send to the bishop as part of their Confirmation preparation. In those letters they talk a little bit about themselves, their interests and talents as well as the study and service they have done in preparation. They say why they have chosen the sponsor they have as well as the saints name they have chosen.
I am deeply grateful for our Directors of Religious Education and their catechists for all they do to prepare young people tor receive the Sacraments of First Communion, Confession and Confirmation. They are surely heroic messengers of hope introducing the young to Christ. It is not easy but their commitment matters much.
I am grateful to the priests whom I have delegated to celebrate the Sacrament especially our Vicars General, Fr. Edward Lucero and Msgr. Raul Trevizo as well as Frs. Manuel Fragoso and Emilio Chapa in Yuma, Tom Tureman, Patrick Crino. John Arnold and Msgr. Domenico Pinti. Their help is necessary since because of the number of Confirmations and the distances involved no one bishop can do all of them.
This year Archbishop Edward Weisenburger wanted to hold as many Confirmations as possible at St. Augustine Cathedral in honor of the Jubilee Year of Hope called for by Pope Francis. Some of these confirmations will be quite large requiring the assistance of other priests as well. Confirmation by law is the responsibility of the bishop but priests can be delegated by the bishop to assist. They are a big help since our Diocese has a significant number of young people for which I am grateful.
I will be at the Redemptorist Renewal Center on Saturday to celebrate the ministry of Reader with the deacon candidates for the Diocese. There are fifteen currently preparing to be ordained in 2026. There are also 5 lay ministers studying with them to be certified as lay ministers for service in the Diocese.
Deacons receive Certification, the Ministry of Reader and the Ministry of Acolyte prior to their ordination. Our fifteen candidates have been working hard under the leadership of Sr. Lois Paha OP, Deacons Rick Valencia, Pat Abiles and Ofelia James. What a great job they are doing in forming our deacons to be ministers at the altar, ministers of the Word, reading the Gospel and preaching and ministers of Charity, serving the littlest and weakest among us.
On April 29-May 11 I will be traveling with a group of pilgrims following in the Footsteps of St. Paul in Greece and Turkey. Deacon Ed Sheffer of St. Thomas is the organizer for the group of thirty-seven pilgrims from various parishes in our Diocese. Many of the pilgrims have never been overseas, so they are obviously very excited about the trip. Among the places we will travel are Athens, Thessaloniki, Ephesus, Patmos, Philippi, Rhodes and Corinth. One can only imagine the struggles Paul faced in his day traveling to all these places to form Churches and evangelize the community.
Paul, as a zealous Jew, hated this new sect of Christians and sought to destroy them until on the Road to Damascus, he encountered Christ, the experience that radically changed his life. He became the Apostle to the Gentiles risking his life to spread the news about Jesus Christ.
Please pray for the safety of the pilgrims. We will hold all in the Diocese in our prayers.
In your prayers, please also remember the young people and chaperones who left on Easter Sunday for their pilgrimage to Rome as part of the Jubilee Year of Hope. While there they had hoped to witness the canonization of Carlo Acutis, the 15-year-old who will be the first millennial saint to be canonized. Though his canonization has been postponed following the death of Pope Francis we continue to pray for Carlo. One day his image will be added to the angels and saints pictured in our vestibule of St. Augustine Cathedral.
Wednesday, April 23 – 6:00 p.m. Confirmation Mass at Holy Cross Parish in Morenci
Sunday, April 27—10 a.m. Mass for Pope Francis at St. Augustine Cathedral