A MESSAGE FROM BISHOP DAVID M. O’CONNELL, C.M., FOR THE 4TH SUNDAY OF EASTER AND GOOD SHEPHERD SUNDAY
A few weeks after his election as Pope, Francis famously told priests that they should be “shepherds with the smell of the sheep.”
April 21, 2024, is Good Shepherd Sunday as we continue to celebrate the Easter Season. The Lord Jesus often spoke about sheep and shepherds as images intended to make a point about the relationship between God and his people. Of course, in his day, sheep and shepherds were quite common and the symbolism was easy to understand. Less so today.
When we hear the Lord Jesus using that imagery in the Gospel, most of us need to use our imagination — not too many shepherds or sheep farms around, at least not that I see in our part of the world. And, yet the symbolism of the relationship between the shepherd and his/her sheep has endured through the centuries. One of the oldest drawings found in the catacombs in Rome is that of a shepherd holding a sheep. The image can still speak to us today.
Read more HERE.BISHOP O’CONNELL ANNOUNCED APRIL 19 that the Holy See has approved and canonically established the Oratory of St. Philip Neri at St. Anthony of Padua Parish, Red Bank, as a Congregation of Pontifical Right.
According to Father Alberto W. Tamayo, the Oratory’s provost and pastor of St. Anthony of Padua Parish, the Oratory of St. Philip Neri is a community of priests and brothers who live, pray and work together as a community of brothers and friends after the spirit and rule of St. Philip Neri and the first Oratorians in Rome.
PERSONS WHO DEDICATE THEIR TIME AND ENERGY as caregivers will have an opportunity to be rejuvenated and take time for themselves during a daylong retreat May 1 from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in San Alfonso Retreat House, West End.
An annual event hosted by the diocesan Office of Pastoral Life and Mission, this year’s program will offer a day of self-care for all tending to family members as well as Catholic clergy, religious and laity who work or volunteer in parish caring ministries(visiting the sick, or homebound, bereavement support, addiction and recovery ministry, support groups for separated and divorced and other ministries that provide spiritual accompaniment).