Fr German’s message
25 YEARS!
THANK YOU
On
June 20th we celebrated the 25th anniversary of my priesthood.
Bishop
Alex Salazar, auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles, presided over the trilingual
celebration at 5:00 pm, along with Fr. John Galvin. Monsignor Salazar wanted me
to preach, and I did. As usual, it was a very short homily.
I
would like to take this time to thank Bishop Salazar for being with us on that
day. His presence shows that the diocese has really made me feel welcome and
that they are pleased with the mission that I am accomplishing here. Thank you
also to Father John who helps me a great deal. He celebrates on the first
Saturday of the month so that I can go celebrate mass in French at Newport
Beach. Every Sunday he celebrates a mass in Spanish or in English. He takes
over Sunday masses when I am not in Los Angeles. Thank you, John, for you
brotherly and unconditional help.
Thank
you to our parish’s trilingual choir. They get more and more professional all
the time. It is a pleasure to me to see the three linguistic communities get
together to sing and help us pray.
After
mass we met again at the school cafeteria. There were more than 250 people
there. I had a lot of surprises. Mariachis came at the beginning of the meal
and they livened up the whole dinner. The party planners had set up a Skype
call with my mother and cousins who are there with her at the moment.
We
were shown a diorama with pictures of my ordination and a little of my journey.
The meal and wine were excellent. There were people from the three linguistic
communities and at dessert time I chose a person from each linguistic community
to help me blow out the 25 candles. I got many gifts and a beautiful poster
with very beautiful words of thanks, friendship, and prayer. Thank you.
A big
thank you to the people who had the idea for this celebration and to the
planners of the evening and all that it entailed. Thank you.
Somebody
told me during dinner that we really should have dinners like that more often.
It
is so wonderful to see the three communities come together and share, as a
community, a time of celebration with children, youths, and adults.
I
think we will need to form a party community so they can find occasions and
plan times of conviviality between the three communities.
A
meal is an important place for building relationships with those with whom we
share a table.
Our
community grows every time we give others the possibility for people to get
together to celebrate a liturgy or a birthday.
THANK
YOU TO ALL OF YOU FOR THE FRIENDSHIP YOU SHOWED, AND FOR YOUR PRAYERS.
Have
a great week
Fr Germán August 2nd 2015