Dear Parishioners, Visitors and Friends,

Last Thursday, I was at Valley of the Temples Memorial, to conduct a funeral service and celebrate the life of our parishioner Leopoldo Sabado who died of failing health at the age of 94. This is an extremely hard time for everyone because the family and friends were not able to come together due to social distancing order by the government. What this ohana experienced is what we all are going through in these challenging days.

Today, the Passion Sunday, we celebrate Jesus’ entry into His own city of Jerusalem to accomplish His Paschal Mystery for our salvation. Today, we stand on the threshold of the Lord’s Passion. And beyond this threshold lie great sorrow and great joy, great obstacles and great freedom, great pain and great victory in the Resurrection of Jesus.

Last Tuesday, at a White House news briefing, the president said, "We're going to go through a very tough two weeks, and then hopefully ... we're going to start seeing some real light at the end of the tunnel.”

This certainly happened to Jesus. That much is true. Jesus came to die and give us life. And in giving up His life, we may have life in, with, and for God for all eternity.

Dear sisters and brothers in Christ:

What we are being invited to do today, and this Holy Week, is to walk with Jesus - not simply in admiration, and certainly not in fear, but in faith. Faith invites us to not simply stand from afar or sadly “stay-at-home”, but to actually embrace whatever happens in life, and actually live it.

And we do so by walking - by walking this same journey with our Lord and our God, our Brother and our Friend. When we walk with Jesus we come to realize how he is walking with us every minute of every day. Faith is our invitation to walk with Jesus each and every day, and especially this week - trusting that Our Lord will make sure we arrive precisely where we need to be.

In conclusion, I’d like to read the following poem, the beautiful Footprints in the Sand by an Unknown Author.

One night I dreamed a dream.
As I was walking along the beach with my Lord.
Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life.

For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand,
One belonging to me and one to my Lord.

After the last scene of my life flashed before me,
I looked back at the footprints in the sand.
I noticed that at many times along the path of my life,
especially at the very lowest and saddest times,
there was only one set of footprints.

This really troubled me, so I asked the Lord about it.
"Lord, you said once I decided to follow you,
You'd walk with me all the way.

But I noticed that during the saddest and most troublesome times of my life,
there was only one set of footprints.
I don't understand why, when I needed You the most,
You would leave me."

He whispered, "My precious child, I love you and will never leave you
Never, ever, during your trials and testings.
When you saw only one set of footprints,
It was then that I carried you."

That’s what this Holy Week is all about - taking Jesus’ hand, walking with Him and letting the Lord carry us up the Calvary hill together, not just this week, or this season, but every single day. Doing so is an act of faith. Doing so is an act of trust. Doing so is an act of love.

Sincerely Yours in Christ,

fr khanh