St James Catholic Church

On the night before He died, Jesus assured his disciples that, “in my Father’s house there are many dwelling places and I am going to prepare a place for you.” Jesus knew that their faith would be severely tested and their hope would be dashed in the coming days. Our faith and our hope wavers, as well. May the words of our Lord in today’s Gospel reassure us through our doubts and despair about our future. God’s house has a place for each of us.

     As the early Church grew and grew and grew, especially when        St. Paul or one of the twelve came to preach, with hundreds of people being baptized every day, more ministries were needed to save the church’s many members. In the first reading, Jesus and other Jews from outside Israel who spoke Greek, the more common language at the time, were being overlooked. Clearly the twelve did not want this to continue, but there were only so many of them and they needed to remain dedicated to preaching and teaching the Word of God. So, they appointed seven disciples to take on the task of serving those with material needs. The seven, all with Greek names, are considered the Church’s first deacons, from the Greek word diakonos, meaning servant.

     We are blessed at St. James with the ordination of one of our parishioners, Tom Brefka, as a deacon in October. We continue to pray for him and his family. Thank the Lord for another wonderful servant here at St. James.

Love, Peace, Joy,

Fr. Bob