Buy delicious coffee, tea and chocolate.  Know that your fair-trade purchases are helping to sustain farmers across the globe.  Support the OLOS Youth Summer Mission Trips. What’s not to love?! Peruse the electronic catalog, and contact Teresa Coda (tcoda@olossharon.org or 781-784-2265) to place an order.  Orders are due by April 25th and will be available for pick up approximately the second week of May.

Sunday, April 29th in O'Connell Hall beginning at 12 noon

Please join us for a presentation by Margo Stern Strom, President Emerita of the organization Facing History and Ourselves. Margo worked closely with Father Bullock for many years. A light lunch will be served at noon followed by the presentation and discussion.

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PASTOR’S DESK

 CARDINAL'S VISIT
Today we welcome our Archbishop Cardinal Sean O'Malley to Our Lady of Sorrows. It is an honor to have our bishop visit to celebrate the mass at 11:00 AM with us. In the liturgical tradition of the Church, one of the most ancient of celebrations is the gathering of the faith community with their bishop for Sunday Eucharist.

For me it is also a personal blessing to have Cardinal Sean join us. Without his commitment and tireless effort, I would not have returned to ministry nor be here with you.

ANOINTING OF THE SICK
The Chrism Mass is the mass at the end of Lent where the bishop blesses the holy oils to be used in the sacraments for the coming year and where priests renew their commitment to the church and their bishop. At the chrism mass last year in 2017, the Cardinal joined these two themes by speaking of the important place in ministry of the Sacrament of Anointing of the sick for which one of the oils blessed on that day is used.

Unfortunately, the media and our speech practices still insist on using the shorthand "Last Rites." This has the effect of limiting the use and availability of the Sacrament. All sacraments as well as this one are not simply rites, they are encounters with Christ, the risen Christ, at     crucial moments of celebration and need.

In the Anointing of the Sick, we encounter the healing Christ whom we meet again and again in the gospels. We receive the courage and strength to face the fear, loneliness and worry that so often accompany medical activity and illness.

We should not limit the availability of this sacrament by waiting until the end is in sight. If someone especially but not only someone elderly is sick, do not wait until the last or even the final days. It is not "last rites." It is "Anointing of the Sick." Bring family members around the sick person and gather with the priest so that they can participate especially while the sick    person is alert. It is a beautiful experience of love, support and faith for all involved.

Recently, I anointed two parishioners who were going to the hospital for one day procedures. The Sacrament is even broader in its availability. One of the prayers that can be used in the ritual is designed especially for someone facing surgery.

Thus, you don't have to be a certain age, you don't have to be at death's door, you don't even have to be actually sick but may be facing medical examinations or trials. This sacrament, as all sacraments, is a gift to the whole  Church. We should become more comfortable with it, shed archaic descriptions of it and rejoice that the Healing Christ is so much more available to us than we might have thought.
 
~Fr. Frank