Sunday's Homily Excerpt -

Human beings need community. We need each other. The Church is called to be a community. Community is at risk in the world. 50 years ago as this parish was growing, we saw transient families undermining natural community. We made a decision to emphasize not a “commune,” but natural human community where families were stable and their children grew up together. People sacrificed to build a sense of community. The same need exists today, but with a new twist with an on-screen generation. The iphone and other screens are eroding childhood and community also. It is as a community that we are acting this morning. Infants are baptized into the Church by the faith of the community. Not the parents and not the godparents by themselves, but within the context of this community these children are born again to become Christians. And the presumption is that they will grow up within a Christian community. It is as a community that about 25 of us stood in the hospital on Friday and prayed and sang together for our friend Bruce who had died. And it is as a community that we will gather on Wednesday and pray for him again and carry him to the cemetery, and in that service we as a community are helping him be borne into the life beyond this life, the life that awaits us all.” Fr. Marc Dunaway, August 17, 2025-