Pastoral Message – October 1, 2023
Hey Y’all!
God bless us all on this Festival Weekend!
As a parish, we’ve been festivalling up for 57 years! (I’m pretty sure I just made up a new verb… “to festival”) No matter the verb, 57 years, that’s impressive. Ever since I got here a few years ago, multitudes of folks, with pride brimming over, speak of how much our community, and really the whole community of Huntington Beach, loves our Festival. Honestly, I never doubted it. Who doesn’t love a party? It’s loud, flashy, dizzying, sugar-coated entertainment. It raises money for the parish operations. And I hope a good, safe, and sane time is had by all.
But for anybody reading what I’m writing here, let me say, the parish Festival is just one weekend a year. As a priest and Pastor, I’m more interested in everything else that has happened in the last 20,805 days (57 years). And I’m even more directed by what will happen in the next 57 years. While the Festival is a weekend’s entertainment, what we as parish offer to our community is Christ’s living Body – in teaching, in worship, in morality, and in individual witness. We offer hope, comfort, forgiveness, challenge, encouragement, faith, grace and love. We offer the experience of a life-time!
Again, I pray that God blesses us on these Festival days. While even more fervently I pray that we’ll continue to reflect God’s love and grace – for the next 57 years and into life eternal.
Fr. Reynold
