The Gospel is taken from St. Matthew (5:38-48). The lesson we have to learn from today's Gospel hardly needs any emphasizing. We must, if we are truly Christian, forgive those who offend or injure us. We must love all men, whether they be friends or enemies. G. K. Chesterton says : "We are commanded to love our neighbors and our enemies; they are generally the same people. But it is my neighbors, those among whom I live and work, who are liable to injure me and thus become my enemies.”

Jesus said to his disciples: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.” Christ is not abolishing the ten commandments, but he is demanding of his followers a more perfect, a more sincere, fulfillment of them. The whole moral value of any legal observance (the Mosaic law included), comes from the interior disposition of him who observes or keeps the law.

The Gospel is from St. Matthew 5:13-16. No less an authority than Christ himself calls his true followers the "salt of the earth." and the "light of the world." These are titles of honor, surely, and of the greatest distinction. Christ is putting his true follower on almost a level with himself. He was the light of the world; he was the salt of the earth. He it was who gave men the knowledge of the true nature of God, as shown by the Incarnation. He it was who gave this life its flavor, who gave this life its meaning, its preservation. By his death and resurrection he took away the sting of death, and removed its eternal corruption, by the guarantee and promise of a resurrection to an eternal life.

Today the Church celebrates the feast of the Presentation of the Lord which occurs forty days after the birth of Jesus and is also known as Candlemas day. The Presentation of the Lord concludes the celebration of the Nativity and with the offerings of the Virgin Mother and the prophecy of Simeon, the events now point toward Easter."In obedience to the Old Law, the Lord Jesus, the first-born, was presented in the Temple by his Blessed Mother and his foster father. This is another 'epiphany' celebration insofar as the Christ Child is revealed as the Messiah through the canticle and words of Simeon and the testimony of Anna the prophetess. Christ is the light of the nations, hence the blessing and procession of candles on this day. In the Middle Ages this feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or 'Candlemas,' was of great importance.

As He walked by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And He said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." Immediately they left their nets and followed Him. And going on from there He saw two other brothers, James the son of Zeb'edee and John his brother, in the boat with Zeb'edee their father, mending their nets, and He called them.

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.