With the feast of the Baptism of the Lord we have entered into the liturgical time that we call “ordinary.” On this second Sunday, the Gospel presents to us the scene of the meeting between Jesus and John the Baptist at the Jordan River. The narrator is the eye witness, John the Evangelist, who, before he was a disciple of Jesus was a disciple of the Baptist, together with his brother James, with Simon and Andrew, all are from Galilee, all are fishermen. So, John the Baptist sees Jesus, who steps forward from the crowd and, inspired from above, sees in Jesus the one sent by God. For this reason he points him out with these words: “Behold the lamb of God, he who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).

Right on the heels of the feast of the Epiphany, the Holy Roman Catholic Church celebrates the baptism of Jesus, when as the Word of God from Matthew’s gospel, chapter 3: 16 – 17 testifies that after Jesus was baptized, the heavens were opened and the Spirit of God descended on him like a dove, then the voice of God thundered saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.”

The Epiphany of the Lord Today the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Epiphany. "The Lord and ruler is coming; kingship is his, and government and power." With these words the Church proclaims that today's feast brings to a perfect fulfillment all the purposes of Advent. Epiphany, therefore, marks the liturgical zenith of the Advent-Christmas season.

On the last Sunday of each liturgical year, the Church celebrates the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, or Christ the King. Pope Pius XI instituted this feast in 1925 with his encyclical Quas primas ("In the first") to respond to growing secularism. He recognized that attempting to "thrust Jesus Christ and his holy law" out of public life would result in continuing discord among people and nations. Today reminds us that while governments come and go, Christ reigns as King forever.

Cardinal Robert Sarah reflected on the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the meaning of the priesthood in a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica Saturday marking his 50th ordination anniversary. “The priest lives joy in its fullness at Holy Mass, which is the raison d'être of his existence, what gives meaning to his life,” Sarah said in his homily at the Altar of the Chair Sept. 29.

Come join our annual Octoberfest on October 26th Saturday 5:30PM to 9:30PM. Fun activities include dancing, musical chairs, corn hole, yodeling and costumes. This will continue our fundraising to upgrade the cafeteria to accommodate multi-purpose church and school functions. Mahalo for your support!

Many people have difficulty with the Catholic Church’s teaching on sex and gender because they fail to recognize its philosophical dimension. As inheritors of twentieth-century positivism, many today assume that the quantitative sciences are the arbiters of truth, and that any other way of knowing, except that privileged and direct access to one’s own internal subjectivity, can be no more than private opinion or pseudoscience. This philosophical error silences objection and shuts down dialogue by defining disagreement with itself as hateful and anathematizing.

This beautiful video comes from Real Alternatives, a non-profit group which works to support and provide alternatives to abortion for pregnant women to choose life for their babies. The video, a combination of animations and ultrasound images, shows the development of a baby in its mother’s womb and describes the changes which take place at each stage of pregnancy.

Father, you want me to be what? A Eucharistic minister? Oh no, Father, I am not worthy! There were my responses – thirteen years ago – when my parish priest approached me to consider serving the People of God as an extraordinary minister of the Eucharist (the more proper liturgical designation). With his persistence and after the necessary training, there I was at Mass, holding a paten, and in it – the Body of Christ! Naturally shy, my impulse was to pray for communion to get over soon.

A better understanding of the meaning and symbolic language of the Church’s liturgy, especially the Mass, will help Catholics encounter the Lord and grow in holiness, Cardinal Pietro Parolin said in a letter this week. “Concretely, it is a matter of helping communities to better internalize the prayer of the Church, to love it as an experience of encounter with the Lord and with brothers and, in light of this, to rediscover its contents and observe its rites,” the cardinal said.

There are four Marian (related to Mary) Dogmas. Dogmas are those doctrines of the Church which have been defined by the Pope and the teaching authority of the Church. Dogmas are teaching, or doctrines, of the Church that have been bolded, underlined, and italicized, so to speak. They are proposed for our belief and faithful Catholics are not free to dissent from them.

Please welcome Karen Ululani Loebl to our Parish community as our new Youth & Young Adult Minister. Karen was born and raised on O’ahu and grew up in Kaimuki, attending SacredHearts Academy (SHA) for 13 years, graduating in 1986. She is a teacher with 30 years of experience and has taught at Sacred Hearts Academy, St. Francis, and at St. Louis School for their afterschool programs. She is also a professional health educator and has worked for community health centers where she developed creative youth programs which won state awards.

Grace and Peace in our Lord Jesus! Please find inserted in our Parish bulletin the Statutes of the Pastoral Council of Mary, Star of the Sea Parish. Our beloved Bishop Larry promulgated the norms for Parish Pastoral Councils in the Diocese in November of 2018. All the parishes in the diocese are required by the norms to have a functioning pastoral council with statutes by Sunday, June 9, 2019.

Wishing Deacon Raffy and Pinky the warmest Aloha as they join our Mary, Star of the Sea Parish family on July 1, 2019!! Deacon Rafael “Raffy” Mendoza and Maria Sofia “Pinky” Mendoza Raffy and Pinky were married in December 1982 and are blessed with three grown up sons (the first two sons are based in Manila, Philippines while the youngest is in Pasadena, California).

The story of the resurrected Jesus on the shore in today’s Gospel highlights the personality of the fervent, impassioned Peter. Peter, impulsive, the first to approach the Lord; Peter the first to enter the gravesite and behold the cloth wrappings that had embraced our Lord. We ask ourselves, who is this apostle Peter, once informed of the Gospel presence, who rushes to approach the mystery? It is that part of me that, at the urging of another, will rise to greet the Lord, as Peter did also at the beginning of the Gospel when his brother Andrew had informed him of Jesus’ presence.

The Holy Gospel that the Liturgy presents to us on this second Sunday of Easter, is one of the most well-known, discussed, and appreciated — the meeting of the Risen Lord with St. Thomas. Jesus’ response to Thomas, after he recognized Him as ‘My Lord and my God’, has a mysterious fascination that must relate not so much to the disciples—those who ‘have seen’—but rather to those, like us, who were added to their number after- wards. ‘You have come to believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.’ (Jn 20:29)

Dear Sisters and Brothers: A JOYFUL, LIBERATING EASTER! What an extravagant love God has for us, His beloved children! Every year, we are given the grace-filled opportunity to celebrate and enter deeply into the great mystery of Christ’s passion, death and resurrec- tion. This is God’s own doing, the only way He could save us from eternal damnation for disobedience by our first parents that we all share. Jesus Christ was born for us. Jesus Christ lived for us. Jesus Christ died for us. Jesus Christ rose from the dead for us!

As Catholics, we like anonymity. We like to blend into the crowd. We don’t wear yarmulkes like Orthodox Jews, or plain clothes like the Amish. We can generally go unnoticed. Until Ash Wednesday. With that big, ashen cross on our foreheads, everyone knows who we are. It’s a sign that says, “Look at me! I’m a Catholic!” What can you do? You can hide your ashes or wash them off. But, we’re all about seizing the moment here, so I want to challenge you to “rock your ashes” instead. Here are five reasons why you should keep your cross and wear it proudly on Ash Wednesday.

As we look back at the past year, it is a cry of thanksgiving that we have uttered to the Lord from our hearts on the last day of 2018 or on January 1st of 2019. We have all received from God innumerable blessings, grace upon grace most of which I would think we don’t even deserve. But God in His mercy made us worthy, for we are His beloved children in Christ our Lord and Brother. In various ways, we have shared these blessings to others. Blessings in their very nature are meant to be shared.

A BLESSED CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL! A little girl was heard praying the Lord’s Prayer and saying “Forgive us our Christmases.” Perhaps, many of us need to pray that prayer. On the first Christmas, there was no room for the Lord Jesus in the inn. Today, for many, there will be no room for Jesus as well. Do I have room for Jesus? Do our various institutions have room for Jesus? Or do we put up thick walls and say “there is no room in the inn.”? It is that holy time of the year again when God calls us to take time to reflect on all that has gone before and what is to come.