Dear Parishioners,

Happy Trinity Sunday! We are in ordinary time now, but the Sunday after Pentecost is this special day where we focus on the mystery of the Holy Trinity. The next Sunday after that is Corpus Christi where we focus on the special gift of the eucharist. Jesus offers himself to us in the form of what looks like bread and wine. In reality, the bread and wine become his body and blood. These special Sundays after Pentecost are focused on these central elements of our faith.

Next Sunday after the 10:30 AM Mass we will have a short eucharistic procession around the Crosby Church property. Why process with the eucharist? It is a public act of praise and worship to our eucharistic Lord. There is a eucharistic procession happening right now across our nation and it has been interesting that some people are protesting the procession by trying to disrupt it. These protestors feel we are doing something wrong by worshipping what appears to be bread. Not surprising on the one hand. But the eucharist is scriptural and if we look at all of scripture together, we see many foreshadowings of the eucharist in the Old Testament. This teaching on the eucharist has been with us since the very beginning of Christianity. Only since the protestant reformation have Christians questioned the Catholic understanding of the eucharist.

One last call to invite you to come and celebrate the eucharistic procession in Brainerd with the whole local church. We will come together at St. Francis in Brainerd at 3 PM and process to St. Andrew’s. After benediction at St. Andrews, we will have a meal together at St. Andrews. It will be a very Catholic celebration. I would invite you to come.

This week we have Totus Tuus, which is a youth camp for kids. Check out the details in the bulletin for information. Because of Totus Tuus, Masses are going to be celebrated at SJ at 11:30 AM Mon -Friday this week to accommodate the camp for the kids. Masses will be slightly longer as well. We will still have the regular 9 AM Mass at OLF on Wednesday.

This past Monday I was able to attend the Entombment Mass for Msgr. Joseph Buh at our Cathedral in Duluth. It was a great event, and I saw some of you there! Thanks for making the trek. Part of the process of seeking someone’s cause for canonization is to unearth their body to see what remains. In rare cases they are found to be incorrupt. If they are incorrupt, they are not automatically canonized, nor are they kept from canonization if their body is not incorrupt. However, it is interesting that when Msgr. Joseph Buh was buried, they took special care because the feeling at the time was that some day his cause for canonization would be opened. While his body wasn’t incorrupt, we did find some parts of his body in the grave. We are in the very beginning of the process of canonization. Feel free to ask Msgr. Buh to pray for you or your loved ones. I certainly asked him to pray for us, and for me as I try to shepherd God’s people. He was a great pastor and a natural evangelist.

If you read the bulletin regularly, recently I mentioned we will have a mission speaker the weekend of June 28-29. However, I just found out the mission speaker is now not available. Therefore, we will have him come at a different time. However, it is a special weekend, because we will be celebrating the Chair of St. Peter that weekend. It is a special day to commemorate the office of the Papacy. Normally it falls during the week, so we don’t often celebrate it on a Sunday. When it falls on a Sunday it supersedes the Sundays of ordinary time. I am working on putting together some visuals of the new SJ church. If you drive by the site, you will notice they are doing a lot of the earth work currently. It is very exciting to see them making progress. Please continue praying for the project.

In Christ,

Fr. Eli