Dear Friends,

Greetings in the Lord from the Franciscan Friars of the Province of Our Lady of Consolation! The Easter Season, a fifty-day journey, is a time of reflecting on the profound experience of the Lord’s Resurrection and the promise of our resurrection. The invitation is to explore and experience the Passover to Pentecost event in our life experience.

I invite you to explore the following reflections and discover your Passover to Pentecost journey. Friar Bob Roddy shares the experience of passovers in his life so that something new may be born. Friar Tom Smith speaks of the desert experience as a call to embrace the coming Pentecost as an invitation to choose a life of evangelization and mission. The article about the friars’ pastoral ministry in parishes of Louisville, Kentucky, reflects the Passover to Pentecost journey, the going forth from the table of Word and Eucharist to healing in a world that suffers. Friar Wayne Hellmann reminds us that the primary celebration of Christians is the gathering on the Lord’s Day, the day of Christ’s Resurrection.

Both Rob Murray, Pastoral Associate, and Rita Burns Senseman, Pastoral Associate & Director of Religious Education, offer reflections for our pilgrim journey that ever continues. Pentecost is the proclamation of new life in the Holy Spirit as we proclaim the Risen Christ with our lives.

What now is your experience of journeying deeper into God’s love?

St. Francis of Assisi and St. Anthony of Padua both lived and proclaimed the Passover to Pentecost truth – He is risen!

We friars will continue to remember you, our dear friends and companions, in our daily prayers and devotions.

May God bless you and fill you with the Peace of our Lord!

Sincerely in Christ, St. Francis, and St. Anthony

Fr. John Elmer OFM Conv.
Spiritual Director