The Roman Catholic Church has special intentions in different months of the year. For instance, March is consecrated to St. Joseph, the husband of Mary; May is consecrated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and we pray for the missions in October. The Church highlights the importance of praying for our beloved ones who are dead and need our prayers because they may be in purgatory.

The Church teaches that after this life, there are only three “places” where we go: heaven, purgatory, or hell. I write “places” in quotation marks because it is very difficult to explain and describe what heaven, purgatory, and hell really are. EWTN website quotes the explanation that Pope St. John Paul II says about heaven, hell, and purgatory. The website says, “In three controversial Wednesday Audiences, Pope John Paul II pointed out that the essential characteristic of heaven, hell or purgatory is that they are states of being of a spirit (angel/demon) or human soul, rather than places, as commonly perceived and represented in human language. This language of place is, according to the Pope, inadequate to describe the realities involved, since it is tied to the temporal order in which this world and we exist. In this he is applying the philosophical categories used by the Church in her theology and saying what St. Thomas Aquinas said long before him. ‘Incorporeal things are not in place after a manner known and familiar to us, in which way we say that bodies are properly in place; but they are in place after a manner befitting spiritual substances, a manner that cannot be fully manifest to us.’” [St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Supplement, Q69, a1, reply 1]. If you want to read the full text about heaven, purgatory, and hell described on EWTN, you can find it here.

I know that these theological concepts are hard to understand because they surpass our intellect, and it is very difficult to understand these concepts using human language. The most important thing here is to believe that our souls will go to heaven or hell depending on our actions; therefore, we need to fight in our life to reach, as St. Thomas Aquinas says, the supernatural destination that we want: going back to God. We can say in simple words that heaven is simply to stay in the presence of the Lord. We are good people and obey God, so we will go to heaven. On the contrary, if we sin, that means, we disobey God and we will go to hell because we do not want to be in the presence of God. God will not force us to be with Him. It is our choice where we want to be. If we want to be with God, we should increase our relationship with Him through the sacraments, prayers, and works of mercy. On the other hand, if we don’t want to be with God, we just do nothing, and simply focus on ourselves and continue to sin. Therefore, it is our option if we want to go to heaven or hell.

I believe that all of us want to go to heaven. However, nobody is perfect. Only God is. Therefore, we may go to purgatory before going to heaven. In purgatory we clean our souls. For this reason, we pray for the souls in purgatory, not only in November, but the whole year. Our relatives and friends, who died, need our prayers to be purified so they can enter into heaven. But not only our relatives and friends, but also many people around the world need our prayers. Many of them do not have anybody who will pray for them. Hence, the Church has the day of “All the Faithful Departed,” better known as “All Souls’ Day” on November 2nd. When was the last time that you prayed for your beloved ones or for others who you don’t know, because they may be in purgatory?

Let us pray for all souls, not only in November, but every day. People in purgatory will appreciate our prayers. Remember that one day, you and I may be in purgatory as well, and someone will pray for us.

God bless you, and may the Blessed Virgin Mary be with you always!

Fr. Jorge Ramirez

Holy Trinity Parish Youth Depart for the
National Catholic Youth Conference on Wednesday, November 15, 2023

The National Catholic Youth Conference (NCYC), held this year in Indianapolis, invites participants to encounter Christ, experience Church, and be empowered for discipleship. It is an experience of faith that seeks to energize and strengthen the young Church towards fuller participation back home.

NCYC is a “conference” in that the majority of the time is spent between our hotel, the Indianapolis Convention Center, and the Lucas Oil Stadium. The schedule is packed, which makes it a supercharged retreat, taking participants away from their daily routines and immersing them in prayer, community, and sacrament. It makes for an unforgettable experience of Church.

NCYC includes the best Catholic speakers and musicians in the country. NCYC makes it possible to experience them all at once, both in large group experiences as well as smaller group conversation sessions. There is also an “Interactive Exhibit Hall” which includes hundreds of exhibits by colleges, religious orders, ministry organizations, and performers as well as opportunities to play games, participate in service projects, and to listen to even more musical performances.

In addition, NCYC has keynote addresses and workshops, for both youth and adults, addressing a wide variety of topics. Everything begins and ends with prayer, but during NCYC we pray in between as well, making it easy to “pray without ceasing.” We will begin our time at NCYC with a Diocesan Mass on Thursday morning at the beautiful St. John the Evangelist Church in Indianapolis. Perpetual Adoration and the Sacrament of Reconciliation are offered daily as well.

THANK YOU to our Holy Trinity family for your support and prayers over these past 12 months!!

Twelve of our Holy Trinity youth, with YOUR HELP, raised enough money to journey to Indianapolis and have their expenses for tickets, hotel, transportation, breakfast, and dinner each day covered!! These teens put an amazing effort into their Pasta Dinner, Car Wash, Bottles and Cans Recycling, Dino Feeding and other events…and Holy Trinity responded with love! Enough was raised that we were also able to purchase some fun “swag” such as diocesan tshirts, trading hats, and other items for our youth pilgrims. Our Senior Ministry has also offered to send us off with lots of love baked into a variety of homemade treats for us to enjoy for our bus ride, latenight conversations, and snacks throughout each day. Yum!!!

The words THANK YOU are not enough. We are truly BLESSED to belong to such a loving and generous faith community, and our delegation looks forward to sharing our collective NCYC experience with you on our return. Please keep our pilgrims and chaperones in your prayers as we keep all of you in ours at NCYC!!

With love, Mrs. K and our 2023 NCYC Youth Pilgrims & Chaperones

Usually, when we hear the word “vocation,” immediately we think of men or women who chose to become deacons, priests, and religious men and women. And we are right to think about them; however, the word “vocation” has a more profound meaning. In order to understand the real meaning of the word “vocation,” let us see the etymology of this word.

The word “vocation” comes from the Latin word vocare, which means “call.” God calls each of us to have a specific vocation: some people are called to become religious people (deacons, priests, monks, and nuns), and other people are called to become doctors, teachers, lawyers, architects, builders, farmers, and so on. All of us have a vocation, a call which is given by God, and all of them are very important. We cannot say that one job is more important than another, such as when St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians says:

“As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit. Now the body is not a single part, but many. If a foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand I do not belong to the body,’ it does not for this reason belong any less to the body. Or if an ear should say, “Because I am not an eye I do not belong to the body,” it does not for this reason belong any less to the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God placed the parts, each one of them, in the body as he intended. If they were all one part, where would the body be? But as it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I do not need you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I do not need you.’ Indeed, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are all the more necessary, and those parts of the body that we consider less honorable we surround with greater honor, and our less presentable parts are treated with greater propriety, whereas our more presentable parts do not need this” (1 Corinthians 12:12
-24).

All of us are called by God to serve one another with different talents that He has given us. All of us have two common vocations that God gave us. The first common vocation is life. All of us are alive because God gave us life. It is His desire that all of us live and work for the Kingdom of Heaven. Life is the most supreme value that we have because it is a sacred gift and call from God.

The second common vocation is Sainthood. All of us are called to become Holy. Just as God says in the Old Testament, “For I, the LORD, am your God. You shall make and keep yourselves holy, because I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44), and our Lord Jesus Christ says the same in the Gospel, be holy, just as your heavenly Father is holy (Matthew 5:48). The Lord God is inviting us to be holy. Hence, we celebrate All Saints Day on November 1st because we recognize all people who are now in heaven and are holy, (saints) in the company of our God. Besides this, All Saints Day is also an encouragement to continue to work for our own holiness. If St. Mary, St, Paul, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Anthony, and all the Saints could go to heaven following each one of the teachings of the Lord, I am also able to do the same.

My dear brothers and sisters… let us live our vocation to holiness with joy, accepting the Lord Jesus in our lives, embracing the cross in our lives, and believing in the reward that is waiting for us in Heaven.

All of us have a vocation… do you realize how you are living yours?

God bless you, and may the Blessed Virgin Mary be with you always!

Fr. Jorge Ramirez

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

As I told you a couple months ago, October is not only Respect for Life Month, but it is also the Month of the Missions. In the context of Missions, this weekend the Church is celebrating World Mission Sunday. Pope Francis chose the theme, “Hearts on Fire, Feet on the Move.” It reminded us that our fervent love and unwavering dedication should always be present in our mission as Catholic people. I would like to share with you the homily of Father Anthony Andreassi, C.O., Associate Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies of the United States for this Sunday, October 22, 2023.

God bless you, and may the Blessed Virgin Mary be with you always!

Fr. George

Homily – October 22, 2023

Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time
World Mission Sunday

Each scripture reading at Mass today invites us to appreciate the connection between our personal, deeplyheld loyalties and what projects we try to accomplish in life.

The first reading introduces us to Cyrus the Persian, a ruler who ends up being a surprising, yet still very effective, instrument used by the Lord to bring freedom to the Chosen People. (Cyrus, a foreigner and not a Jew, is loyal to his political and military duty, but he achieves what the Lord arranges for him to accomplish because he allows God to work through him.)

In the second reading, Paul and his companions are inspired by loyalty to their mission to proclaim the Good News. But as serious as they are about their own mission, their hearts are open and generous enough to appreciate how other people—the Christians in Thessalonica, specifically—are involved in that same work of proclaiming the Gospel in their own way and in their own place.

Most strikingly, in the Gospel reading, we hear what Jesus does when he knows he is walking into a trap. This trap presents what could be an unresolvable challenge to personal loyalty. What is owed to Caesar and what is owed to God? In response, Jesus speaks the truth in a simple way. He asks those around him to consider the standards by which they owe things to an authority, in other words, where their loyalties lie. Jesus helps them—and us—acknowledge that while we owe our loyalty ultimately to God, we often must honor that by respecting our duties toward others.

Discipleship requires us to consider to whom I belong; where my loyalties lie; and whom I must serve. Surely each of us is called and strives to remain faithful to some duties in our own place—towards our families, jobs, neighborhoods, and friends. But if we are to take our faith seriously, we are also concerned about others who are far away from us. These connections to others pull on us especially when we see them in light of our personal relationship with Jesus.

As Christians, we are invested with duties of love for people we have never met and to places we have never been, which is the theme at the heart of the readings for today, World Mission Sunday. That is part of the work of mission: to deepen the connections that already exist between me and someone far away from me to whom I am united in Christ. Perhaps this person is already a Christian and so we are mystically united by our common baptism. Or maybe this person is just now learning of Christ (or desires to know of Christ) and that introduction will be made possible by the work of people who are sent to share the Good News with them. This appreciation might even help me to find the energy and interest to collaborate in work that I personally cannot do because I have responsibilities where I am and cannot go to those places and meet those people. But I can be part of the work through supportive prayer and practical charity.

May the grace we receive in this Eucharist help us all to learn the truth of these loyalties, responsibilities, and connections. And going from this place of worship may we find the energy to deepen our personal commitment to our common Christian mission to announce Christ and his Gospel to all the world.

Let us join our Holy Father Pope Francis in praying for and sharing resources with the young, persecuted, and poor Church in over 1,100 dioceses around the world that benefit from the World Mission Sunday collection, taken in every Catholic parish today, no matter how big or small.

Fr. Father Anthony Andreassi, C.O.

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

I have been here in our parish family over three months. So far, we blessed the cemetery and animals, prayed for the respect for life, celebrated family Masses, supported the youth car wash for the NCYC, catechesis such as first reconciliation and first communion, confirmation, Sunday classroom program, RCIA and RCIC process, Bible study, family faith formation program, among others, and of course the liturgical celebrations such as Eucharists, Baptisms, Confessions, Matrimonies, Funerals, Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and Benediction.

All of these have been possible with the help of each one of you. Therefore, I want to say, “Thank you very much.” Thank you because little by little all of us have been realizing the importance of participation in our community. We are understanding that “The parish that we dream is the Parish that I help to build”. It is very important to participate in the different activities of our parish because they give us a sense of belonging not only to our Parish, but also to our Catholic Church. We are only one family who worship the Lord in our local church.

Hence, I invite you to participate in the activities that our parish is already celebrating or will start to celebrate. We will start our sleep-in Mass (Youth Mass) this coming Sunday, October 22nd. On November 10, we will pray for our beloved ones who are now resting in the peace of Christ at our Mass of Loving Remembrance, and of course Christmas, which is around the corner.

The CMA Campaign has already started. I am very happy with how many of you have already contributed to this wonderful campaign for the Diocese of Rochester. I encourage all of you to participate, not only economically, but also spiritually in this campaign. Let us pray for the success of the CMA 2023-2024, not only for Holy Trinity Church, but also for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester.

Once again, we will have many celebrations at the end of the year. I ask you to participate in these activities of our Holy Trinity Church family. Let us join with joy in each one of the celebrations. Let us build together this wonderful dream… our dream… our family of Holy Trinity. Let us remember… “The parish that we dream is the parish that I help to build.”

God bless you, and may the Blessed Virgin Mary be with you always!

Fr. George

October is the month of the missions. For this reason, the Roman Catholic Church emphasizes in the constant necessity to proclaim the Gospel for all peoples. Moreover, the Church not only thinks about the missions during this month, but every October. The Church also invites us to defend any life, and to fight for those who are most vulnerable. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops says, “we consider more deeply why every human life is valuable and reflect on how to build a culture that protects life from conception to natural death” (https://www.usccb.org/respectlife).

Usually, when we think that someone is “prolife,” we believe that that person is only against abortion. Of course, abortion is part of being “prolife,” but, in my opinion, it should go beyond that. Defending life in any circumstance should be a priority, because life is the most important value that God gave us. In 1995, Pope Saint John Paul II said, “Man’s life comes from God; it is His gift, His image and imprint, a sharing in His breath of life. God therefore is the sole Lord of this life: man cannot do with it as He wills. God himself makes this clear to Noah after the Flood: ‘For your own lifeblood, too, I will demand an accounting … and from man in regard to his fellow man I will demand an accounting for human life’ (Gen. 9:5). The biblical text is emphasizing how the sacredness of life has its foundation in God and in His creative activity: ‘For God made man in his own image’ (Gen. 9:6)”

We need to have a thanksgiving attitude. We need to express our gratitude to God, the Father, who is our creator, such as is expressed in the book of Genesis (Cf. Genesis 1-2). Therefore, life is sacred because God, who is sacred, gave us His breath of life: “Then the LORD God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7). This breath of life is the Spirit of God who dwells in each one of us since we are born for all the eternity. In words of St. Thomas Aquinas, “We came from God and our supernatural destination is going back to God”. This statement says that our life is sacred because it is in union with God, our creator, since the moment of our conception, and it will receive the plenitude of sacredness in the Kingdom of Heaven.

For this reason, our parish has been praying for “Respect life” during the Eucharists, the Adoration to the Holy Sacrament, the blessing of the pets on October 7th, and so on. I invite you to pray with me for the sacredness of life, so that all of us can realize life as the most important value and gift that God has given us.

Let us pray:

God bless you, and may the Blessed Virgin Mary be with you always!

Fr. Jorge Ramirez

Dear brothers and sisters,

The peace of Our Lord Jesus Christ be with you always!

Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Mark 28: 19-20 commanded us to continue His labor to preach the Gospel to all the nations. The Lord says, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” This commission is the real mission of our Church. Therefore, all of us have the mission to announce the Gospel to all people, especially to those who are not close to the Lord.

The Roman Catholic Church works constantly to achieve this goal; however, the Church emphasizes evangelization and missions around the world during October. The Catholic website mnnews.today wrote an article called “October is Mission Month.” This article says, “Already this month we have celebrated the feast days of two extraordinary missionaries: St Therese of Lisieux, a contemplative nun who spent her life in prayer and heroic personal sacrifice for mission and is now patron of the Missions (Oct 1) and, St Francis of Assisi (Oct 4) who responded wholeheartedly to the Lord’s call to ‘go rebuild my Church, for as you see it is falling into ruin!’ ‘October is an opportunity for us to give particular attention to the work of mission by building a church of living stones, communities who witness to the mercy and unconditional love of God for all people and for all of creation!,’ says Catholic Mission Diocesan Director Mr. Mark Toohey”.

We, as a Holy Trinity family, should also be involved through our support to the missions. I know that it’s hard to go outside to announce the Gospel, but we can announce the Good News of Our Lord Jesus Christ to our children, family members, classmates, coworkers, and all people, who we find in our daily journey. Also, we can support the missions through our economic support. There are a lot of people around the world preaching the Gospel without enough resources. The CMA, for instance, is a wonderful way that we can use to support our mission to spread the Gospel. Another marvelous way we can support the missions is with our prayers. People need our prayers; that means our spiritual help, to continue this beauty and, at the same time, hard task to announce the Gospel to all people.

All of us should have a missionary spirit to announce the Gospel to all regardless of the difficulties that this task could have. Let us pray for vocations. We need to pray so that the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ be announced throughout the world.

God bless you, and may the Blessed Virgin Mary be with you always!

Fr. George

Dear brothers and sisters,

The Diocese of Rochester is starting the Catholic Ministries Appeal for 2023-2024. The Catholic Ministries Appeal (CMA) is the annual appeal inviting Catholics in the Diocese of Rochester to join in a partnership to advance the mission of the Church: ‘Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you’ (Matthew 28:19-20). This year’s mission theme, “Go forth with Christ,” reminds us of Christ’s words to His disciples before He ascended to heaven, commissioning them to teach, serve, and spread the Gospel message. This theme is especially fitting as we enter the second year of our threeyear national Eucharistic Revival.

Our parish family of Holy Trinity did extraordinary work, under the leadership of Fr. Tim Horan, almost achieving last year’s goal proposed by the Diocese of Rochester. Last year our CMA goal was $184,000 dollars, and we were $2,604 short. Even though we did not meet the CMA goal, the CMA Committee of the Diocese was impressed with our participation rates. Any participation in this campaign is very important, even if it is a small one.

All of this was possible because of you. Your participation and hard work during the 2022-2023 CMA reflected your commitment to the Lord and our parish family of Holy Trinity Church. I ask you to continue your donation and, if it is possible for you, to increase it. I hope we can reach the 2023-2024 goal for CMA as soon as possible, hopefully by the end of this year.

Our goal for CMA has increased a little bit for this year. Our goal for 2023-2024 is $185,000 representing an increase of $1,000 dollars.

You and I will receive a letter from Bishop Matano, asking you to participate in this campaign. My wish is that each member in our great family of Holy Trinity Church participates in this campaign. I know that you have a wonderful and beautiful spirit of service and generosity. Let us work together to achieve our goal for CMA. Remember, “Each must do as already determined, without sadness or compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7).

God bless you, and may the Blessed Virgin Mary be with you always!

Fr. Jorge Ramirez

Death is one of the realities that all of us need to face at one point in our lives. At the very beginning of our history, people did not pay attention when someone died but continued their lives. People did not pray nor think about what is beyond death. However, when humans started to think about death and the meaning of life, they not only understood the existence of God, but also started to bury their death in sign of respect for the person. In fact, some archeologists believe the earliest human burial dates back 100,000 years. This tradition of burying our dead continues today. Death is one of the most painful experiences for the family, relatives, and friends of the person who passed away.

The Catholic Church teaches that death is not the end of our existence, but the beginning of something beautiful. Jesus is in heaven preparing a wonderful place for all of us. He says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be. Where [I] am going you know the way” (John 4:14). Jesus is in heaven preparing a place for us, and we need to take care of the body of the person who dies having a funeral and burial. One of the corporal works of mercy is to bury the dead. We bury the person in a cemetery because this is the appropriate place for the body or cremains.

Talking about cremains, we commonly hear people saying that they would like their cremains to be scattered in the ocean or between two places they love, just be kept at home with their beloved ones, or mix the cremains with other cremains. This could sound poetic and beautiful; however, it is not the way to honor and respect our beloved ones who are resting with the Lord.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) in the number 2300 says, “The bodies of the dead must be treated with respect and charity, in faith and hope of the Resurrection. The burial of the dead is a corporal work of mercy; it honors the children of God, who are temples of the Holy Spirit.” Let us honor our beloved ones who are now enjoying the eternal life in company of God, the angels, and Saints.

For this reason, I invite all of you to join me this Sunday (September 17th) at 1:30 pm. to have a prayer and bless our Cemetery. Let us pray for our beloved ones, respecting their memory, and loving them with all our hearts. I am sharing with you an invitation for the blessing of the cemetery from our bulletin archives (September 15, 1963). Let us continue this tradition of blessing our cemetery and praying for our beloved ones.

God bless you, and may the Blessed Virgin Mary be with you!

Fr. Jorge Ramirez

The Lord Jesus, during His public life, had disciples and apostles, who continued with the evangelizing task to preach the Gospel to all people. Since then, the Church throughout her history, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, has ordained priests. They have the responsibility to bring the Eucharist, the real presence of the Lord. There is a special relationship between the priests and the Eucharist. Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J. says about this relationship, “In the Catholic Church, the priest exists for one main purpose: to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass. So true is this that, without the priesthood, there would not only be no Sacrifice of the Mass. There would be no Catholic Church. This may sound strange, even exotic. But the fact of life is that God became man in order to sacrifice Himself on the Cross by dying for the salvation of the world. Having died once on Calvary, He continues offering Himself in every Mass so totally that He would be willing to die every time that Mass is offered” (taken from “The Eucharist and the Priesthood“).

Therefore, I invite each of you to pray for our priests and vocations to the priesthood. Let us pray for our seminarians, who are preparing themselves to become Holy Priests for our Diocese of Rochester, and of course, for our Roman Catholic Church.

Let us pray for all of them because all of us (priests, seminarians, deacons, religious people, and all laity) need to act in persona Christi, to act in the Person of Christ.

You will find an insert in the bulletin with a list of the Diocese of Rochester seminarians for this year.

God bless you, and may the Blessed Virgin Mary be with you!

Fr. Jorge Ramirez

PRAYER FOR VOCATIONS

Heavenly Father, Lord of the harvest, call forth vacations to the priesthood and consecrated life from our parishes.
Inspire men to imitate Jesus Christ the Eternal High Priest in sacrificial service to Your Church.
Move the hearts of men and women to offer themselves wholly to You in poverty, chastity, and obedience.
Send them as laborers for Your harvest.
Inspire the faithful to support them with prayer and sacrifice.
Raise up holy families who foster openness to Your call.
We ask this through Christ, Our Lord. Amen.

Mary Immaculate, pray for us.
St. John Fisher, pray for us.
St. John Vianney, pray for us.

Diocese of Rochester Vocation Website: rocpriest.org