Fr. Mel and his team of helpers were at it all day the 23rd and until mid-afternoon on the 24th. By then the chapel and especially the dining room were resplendent. As you entered the dining room for Christmas Day Dinner a huge sparkling tree seemed to rush up and greet you. It reached all […]

Grace follows grace! That is so evident in all we see around us. Yes, this year we have seen a truly BIG GRACE – God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense! We have seen it while getting into the spirit of Advent and then experiencing it blossom into Christmastide. We have seen the depth and wonder of […]

From all normal accounts it might look to you as if nothing is happening in our pandemic afflicted Riverside world. But that is certainly not the case here at Queen of Angels Parish. Since way back in March, the services we render our impoverished, mainly un-documented regulars through our “Food Pantry” program have been steadily […]

Christmas Greetings and Blessings to you all. It is a Christmas like no other. In a time when we look for that uplifting, new light that breaks into a darkened world—as it should do every 25th of December—it seems that in our world today darkness pervades. This unwelcome contradiction is deeply distressing. It envelops us, […]

As SVDs we are fully committed to God’s Mission to the world, but we do this in many different forms. Since June I’ve been the new director of the San Diego Office for the Missions. My job is to promote support for the missions within the diocese, but I see this work as perfectly aligned […]

In 1987 St John Paul II told the native peoples of America, “The cultural oppression, the injustices, the disruption of your life and your traditional societies must be acknowledged.” On Wednesday, the 28th of October, 2020, this acknowledgement was finally made by the Kumeyaay peoples of San Diego Diocese. For the first time in their […]

On Monday Nov. 16, the members of the Divine Word Residence gathered in our Guadalupe Chapel to celebrate the annual Memorial Mass for our deceased USW members. After the Mass we attended the usual Memorial Service at Crestlawn Cemetery. Although small in number, the participants under the cemetery canopy were quite big in Spirit. We […]

Over the course of these past nine months I’ve been anxious and full of doubts. I’ve asked, “Are my people ever going to come back? If they are half as discouraged as I am, how can they sustain their faith? Why do such things happen?” People tend to doubt God in times of hardship and […]

Wordnet recently concluded the series on “Reasons to Believe Season 2” presented by Dr. Matthew Petrusek, PhD. It was an online program every other Friday which ran for the past five weeks at 7 PM. The program was watched live by many on YouTube and Facebook and was live streamed every other week in Spanish, […]

Wow, what a great retreat we had! So many of you commented on how much you liked our zoom retreat. It went far beyond our modest expectations regarding both the method used (zoom) and the content (intercultural spirituality). It also got us thinking about other activities that could be done on zoom, like the First […]