Sunday, September 20th 2026

Dear Parishioners of Pope St. John XXIII Parish Faith Community,

Welcome you to the 25th Sunday of the Ordinary time in the liturgical year. The liturgy of the Word today invites us to reflect on our perspective of lives’ achievements and rewards with the way God perceives it. We are accustomed to measuring life by comparison: who worked more, achieved more, sacrificed more, or deserves more. The Gospel today challenges that instinct. God does not love us according to a human calculation of merit. His mercy is generous, personal, and offered even at the last hour. The landowner goes out repeatedly to search for workers. He does not wait passively for them to come. He goes at dawn, at midday, in the afternoon, and even near the end of the day. This reveals the tireless love of God, who continually seeks those who feel forgotten, useless, or far from him. Pope Leo XIV observes that even when someone believes that very little remains possible in life, God still gives that life meaning because he loves each person. 

Saint Paul gives us the proper perspective of Christian life: “For to me, living is Christ.” Whether in active service or in suffering, our life belongs to Christ and is fruitful when offered to him. For in the Kingdom of God, the last are not forgotten, and the first are not diminished by love generously given to another. Envy turns the heart away from God’s generosity and toward comparison with others. The envious person begins to see another’s blessing as a personal loss. Instead of praising God for showing mercy. Conversion requires turning back to God and allowing him to reveal what must change within us. Envy makes that difficult because it keeps our attention fixed on another person: Why did they receive forgiveness? Why are they honored? Hence, we too are called to increase our standards and look at everything with God’s sight and start living our lives in Christ as St. Paul did.

We sincerely thank Mr. Louie Luong Tran, former Chairman of the Finance Council and Pastoral Council, for his faithful service to Pope Saint John XXIII Parish Family, especially during the challenging time of COVID-19. His generous service included helping keep our churches open, supporting livestream Masses, and overseeing important parish projects. We are also grateful to his wife, Mrs. Thoa Tran, and their family for supporting his service to God and our parish. As Louie steps back from this leadership role, we warmly welcome Mr. Mike Curry as our new Chairman. We thank Mike and his wife for their willingness to give their time, talent, and treasure in service to our parish family. May God bless both families abundantly for their generous dedication.

We are in the middle of our pilot program of checking with these trails what is best for us to go forward as one parish. Please feel free to raise your thoughts and concerns as requested by the PFAC members. We also have several meetings lined up in the week ahead. We meet with the leadership team of St. John of the Woods on Monday, followed by the PFAC meeting on Tuesday to discuss everything that we hear about during this time from all of you. We also have the liturgy committee meeting on Friday at the main campus. I urge you to keep us all in your prayers, so that, we would be able to discern God’s will in everything we discuss and plan.

We have lots of requests for prayers from all our locations in the prayer book that we have mentioned in the bulletin. Please keep them in your personal and communal prayers. It is by praying for and with one another that we grow as faithful disciples of Jesus. I pray for each of you in my daily prayers and in the Eucharistic sacrifice. Keep all of us, the priests, nuns, staff and all the volunteers who serve in this parish. May God continue you to bless and protect each of us.

Please go through the bulletin for the details of all the events of our parish and avail yourselves to be enriched in the care for your souls. I assure my daily prayers for you and your families and request your prayers for one another.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Fr. Tuan Nguyen, D. Min

Pastor