My dear parishioners and visitors;
“Take these things out of here” (Jn 2:16).
We come together faithfully every Sunday and some of you every day to our St. Ann’s parish church, the house of God, to celebrate our love for God and our love for one another as Jesus recommended us “do this in memory of me” (Luke 22: 19). The construction of our parish Church began on June 15th 1959 by the pioneers of the parish also with the help of many peoples of this great community of Quesnel. Bishop Michael Alphonsus Harrington officially blessed our new church, a beautiful place of worship and prayer, on May 31st 1961.
We are here now joining in, at a different times of the last many years, with these courageous and generous pioneers to make our church continued to be a good place of worship for everyone. I thank all of you for your commitment to the spiritual, social, financial and physical well-being of our parish family.
We see in the gospel reading (Jn. 2:13-25) for this 3rd Sunday of Lent how Jesus, out of a great love for his Father, driving merchants out of the temple. He firmly said to them “take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”(Jn. 2: 16). Jesus, through this story, is telling you and me “take out everything” that makes our life and our body, the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19-20), spiritually unclean. “Create a clean heart in me, O God” (Ps. 51:12) is our prayer for one another during this 3rd week of Lent.
Have a blessed week.
Fr. Peter Hoan Nguyen.