A Letter From Father Rafal
My Dear Friends,
It’s a great privilege to serve you here at Saint Francis Solanus Church. I am so grateful to God for the many friends He has given me through ministering in our parish. Let us keep ourselves in our prayers in our journey of faith. Supporting each other is a wonderful thing that we can do.
I would like to update you about my mom’s health. She is doing much better. She can speak much better now. Zofia, because that’s her name, still has a problem walking. She walks slowly, but with rehabilitation and therapy she has made big progress. Please keep her in your prayers.
My last two years in our parish have been very intensive. I have worked very hard to be in the place I am right now. I have taken a lot of good advice and instructions given to me by Father Arisman. He is always very nice and kind to me. Our pastor is a good mentor to me, probably the best I have ever had. I have learned a lot from him. It’s great to have a person you can talk to, especially about the struggles that you have, and feel supported by him. He is also a wonderful friend to have around. We love going together for a dinner and for shaved ice that we both like so much.
I am going to lead a pilgrimage to Poland next May. It’s my homeland. It will be a great opportunity for me to show you the place where I lived, where I went to the school, the place where God started to speak to me, where my vocation to the priesthood grew in my heart. The pilgrimage will be a good chance to meet my mom and be able to talk to her, and I hope to say only good things about me. We can also visit my brothers who live in my hometown. I have a twin brother, Bart. It will be awesome for you to see if there are any physical differences between us. Some of you may know my youngest brother Karol, who came to visit me last year.
Poland is a great country. We have the Baltic Sea in the north and the mountains in the south. We have a lot of castles and tourist places to visit. Warsaw and Krakow are wonderful cities. There is the old town in Warsaw and beautiful
St. Mary’s Church, Wawel Royal Castle and the Cathedral in Krakow. My favorite place is Zakopane. It’s a beautiful mountain city located in the southern part of Poland. There are a lot of shepherds who shepherd the sheep there. They make a very popular kind of cheese called Ocypek. Zakopane is one of the cities we will visit during our pilgrimage. I will be thrilled to go with you to my home country. I encourage you to consider this pilgrimage. We are going to have time for prayer and have so much fun together.
We celebrate The Most Holy Blood and Body of Christ this Sunday, also known as Corpus Christi Sunday. It’s a reminder for all of us about the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. The gospel of the celebration of Corpus Christi is part of the speech about the bread of life, spoken by the Lord Jesus in the synagogue in Capernaum, after the miracle of the multiplication of bread and fish. In his speech, Jesus refers to the manna that God brought from heaven in the desert for the Israelites. The Book of Exodus tells us that "when the Israelites saw it, they asked one another: ‘What is this?' because they didn't know what it was. Then Moses said to them, "This is the bread that the Lord gives you to eat" (Exodus 16:15). But those who ate the manna in the desert died, so Jesus invites us to thirst for the true bread from heaven, which satisfies souls that thirst for God and gives them eternal life.
I am thankful to be parochial vicar at St Francis Solanus. This parish is a wonderful place, because of you. I cannot do much without you. We are one community of faith, especially to be seen when we pray together the “Our Father” during Mass. We bring to Jesus everything that is a part of our lives; our failures, problems, disappointments, or failed situations. We also bring what is good in us, what happens in our life because of Jesus. Please be open to Jesus in your life. Let Him fulfill your heart with His power. He is the One who loves us and forgives our sins. Let Jesus bless you all and give you the graces that you need.
Yours in Christ,
Father Rafal Pyrchla