From the Pastor's Desk - May 9, 2025

Dear St. Martin’s Parishioners,

          This Sunday, some of the children who made their first Holy Communion on Saturday will climb the ladder to crown our Blessed Mother. May is the month of Mary, our mother and our queen. It isn’t just a pious devotion that causes us to revere Mary as queen of heaven and earth, but a deeply Biblical truth.

           After the creation of Adam and Eve in the first chapter of Genesis, God instructs them “to have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth” (Gen. 1:28). The instruction to have dominion indicates that Adam and Eve were designated as the king and queen of creation. In the New Testament, Jesus is revealed as the new Adam over God’s new creation. In John’s gospel, Jesus refers to Mary on various occasions as “woman.” This means that he refers to her as the new woman or the new Eve of the Church. She acquires the privileges and dignity that our first mother lost through disobedience. A further indication of Mary’s queenship is that in the Old Testament it wasn’t the wife of the king of Israel who was the queen, but his mother. As Jesus is the king of the new Israel, the Church, so his mother, Mary, is the queen. She exercises her queenship by sharing in Christ’s authority over creation. She intercedes for the Church, and cooperates with the Holy Spirit to bring about the transformation of all of God’s creation in Christ. With Jesus as our king and Mary as our queen, we also receive a royal inheritance: “you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9).

         I would imagine that by the time you receive this letter, we have a new pope. We pray in a special way on this Good Shepherd Sunday for the designated shepherd of the Church who is now entrusted with the responsibility of guiding us to the fullness of truth and life found in Jesus Christ.

We and the media can have all the predictions and preferences and reasons for who should be elected the next Pope, but at the end of the day, the Pope we should want and pray for and the Pope who will be elected will be the one the Holy Spirit calls. This is why we need to pray as a unified Church. There are many different things in play and many different distractions that will happen between now and the election of the new Pope and we as a Church and as the faithful body of Christ are called to focus on one thing, doing the will of God.

Lastly, I invite you to a special concert in honor of Our Lady of Fatima on Tuesday, May 13 at 7:30pm in the parish hall. Choirs from the English, Spanish and French communities will lead us in singing the praises of our mother on this day that we honor her as Our Lady of Fatima.

In Christ,

 Fr. Dave