From Our Pastor: 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Welcome Steve Agrisano to St. Francis Solanus! This is very exciting. Steve Agrisano is a very big name in Catholic Music, and this is beyond a pleasure to have him here. Many of his songs are in our Music Issue and we sing regularly. Please make sure you take the opportunity to come to his parish mission for us!

We continue with the sermon on the mount today. It’s a six-week sermon, and you think mine are long! Our Readings this weekend are focused on living out the commandments. Plain and simple. The commandments are not requests they are commands. Also, it is not enough to just live out the commandments, but to allow them to shape us in every action. They are more than just not killing, but about harboring anger or resentment or grudges. All these many commandments call us to so much more than just the basic understanding of their meaning. They have a greater depth and give so much more life than just no. BUT the final words of the gospel I think are of the utmost importance today. Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no. Stop being duplicitous. Mean what you say and say what you mean. Anything more Jesus tells us is from the evil one, as it causes division. Be a people unified with the will of the Father in your life.

Lastly, I am going to introduce you to our new parish coat of arms. We are going to begin using it for identification purposes and branding purposes. So here is the short description of this beautiful rendering.

The Violin is a major image of St. Francis Solanus, as he used the instrument to teach the native peoples the faith through music. This image is in the large stained-glass window above the main large west door to the church. The anchor is a nod to the Diocese of Alton, which was the diocese when our parish was founded. The anchor is on the coat of arms of the Diocese of Alton. The anchor is also in our church on one of our confessionals on the southeast side, as it’s part of the image of the immaculate heart of Mary. The shell is a major image of St. Francis Solanus, as he is often pictured baptizing the native peoples with a shell. This image is the central figure of the high altar in the church. This is also found in the entry way on one of the old banners of the parish. The central image of the coat of arms is the arms of the Franciscan Order. One arm is that of Jesus Christ and the other is that of St. Francis of Assisi which both have the wounds from the crucifixion, as St. Francis Assisi had the stigmata, the wounds of Christ. Behind the crossed arms is always the cross and sometimes clouds. This is the central image of the arms as the 160 years of Franciscans were central to our creation and life as a parish. The three plumes of feathers behind these arms are to represent the native people’s that St. Francis Solanus ministered to in Peru. The red, white, and red plumes are corresponding to the flag of Peru, which St. Francis Solanus is often called the Apostle to Peru. The blue field background and the white river are a nod to the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois, which is the diocese we currently reside in. The white river is also representative of the Mississippi river which is so prominent in our lives here in Quincy. The coat of arms in surrounded then in the name of our parish and founding date of the parish which is 1860. This coat of arms was rendered by Enzo Parrino, an artist from Italy that works to create arms for priests, bishops, parishes and dioceses. This coat of arms tells our story.

-Rev. Steven Arisman