Welcome

At 9:45 AM, Cardinal Kevin Farrell, Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church, announced the death of Pope Francis from the Casa Santa Marta with these words:

"Dearest brothers and sisters, with deep sorrow I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis. At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the house of the Father. His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and of His Church. He taught us to live the values of the Gospel with fidelity, courage, and universal love, especially in favor of the poorest and most marginalized. With immense gratitude for his example as a true disciple of the Lord Jesus, we commend the soul of Pope Francis to the infinite merciful love of the One and Triune God."

The Vatican, the Diocese of Arlington, and the USCCB have prepared many materials to help us celebrate this milestone in the Catholic Church.

The Feast Day of St. Philip (and James the Less) is on Saturday, May 3.

We have a full day planned to celebrate as a parish, starting with a special Mass at 10:00 am and a tour of the renovated Cathedral of St. Thomas More in the afternoon.

10:00 am Mass*

11:00 am Potluck luncheon on the St. Francis lawn in front of the convent

1:00 pm Depart in personal vehicles for the Cathedral of St. Thomas More

1:30 - 3:00 pm Special private tour of the Cathedral for St. Philip parishioners only

If you want to participate in the tour, please call the Rectory or use the link below to sign up online. We need to provide St. Thomas More an estimated count of participants so they can arrange a proper number of tour guides. Parishioners are responsible for their own transportation to the Cathedral.

The Cathedral is located at 3901 Cathedral Lane, Arlington, Virginia 22203

*The 10:00 Feast Day Mass is an additional one for the day. The regular daily 8:00 AM Mass and the 5:30 PM Vigil Mass will still be held as scheduled.

Dear Friends in Christ,

Happy Easter! Jesus is risen from the dead, and we say “Alleluia,” the Hebrew word that means, “May God be praised!” Notice that I said Jesus “is risen,” not “was raised,” since He still lives, right now, in heaven, forever at the right hand of the Father in his glorified body. The doctrine of the Resurrection is so vital for our faith that if it were false, then our entire faith would be pointless, as St. Paul points out so clearly to us (1Cor. 15:13-22). But since the Resurrection is the Good News of the Gospel, then our faith is firmly built upon Jesus and his triumph over death. This is truly a blessed season for us!

In this season of Easter, which will last all the way to Pentecost, since we focused our attention throughout Lent on the 7 Deadly Vices, I invite us to explore the 7 Life-Giving Virtues (my own title, not an official Church title), all of which counter the 7 Vices. We will see that each vice that we covered (vanity, gluttony, lust, etc.) each have a virtue that acts as the median between extreme forms of that vice. In discovering the virtues, we will be able to see how God is able to make us into Saints through virtuous actions in a similar way in which a sculptor slowly chips away at a piece of marble to make a glorious statue. 

This week, I invite us to focus our attention on the virtue of humility, the virtue that allows us to see ourselves in light of how God sees us. This virtue is the virtue that counteracts the vice of vanity, which causes us to have a disordered view of ourselves, either by being overly occupied by ourselves, or by thinking ourselves as being unworthy of God’s gift of sanctity. Humility is the virtue that helps us counteract these tendencies of vanity by keeping us focused on our relationship with God instead of being constantly focused on ourselves. 

 To help us gain more understanding about the virtue of humility, it is necessary for us to gain a deeper understanding into our identity. To do this, we go back to the story of the creation of our first parents in the book of Genesis. When we look at the book of Genesis, we find that God makes the first man from the dust of the earth and breathes the breath of life into him (Gen. 2:7). In a manner of speaking, man is glorified dust who possesses the spark of divine life within him. After the first sin, man becomes cursed, and God tells him that he will return to the dust after suffering the consequence of death (Gen. 3:17). 

What is most fascinating is the great significance for the term, “dust.” In Hebrew, the word used to signify “dust” is the word adamah, a term that signifies fruitful ground for plants, and which is very similar to the Hebrew word, adam, the term that signifies “man.” So, when God puts a curse on Adam, he essentially tells him, “Remember who you are and where you came from.” (see The Shattering of Loneliness, Erik Varden, p. 16) When we put this together with Ash Wednesday, we see that our identity is rooted in remembering that we are dust, and unto dust we shall return. 

So how is this all related to the virtue of humility? Great question, I’m glad you asked. The word "humility” comes from the Latin word, humilitas, a word that is closely related to the Latin word, humus, a noun that means “fruitful ground.” Thus, to grow in humility means to remember that we come from the humus, or dust, from which we were formed. However, even after our death, and our bodies have returned to the dust from where we came, God will raise us once again to eternal life. That is what Easter is all about.

May Christ’s Peace be with you,

Fr. Briggs