This Easter season invites us to continue to reflect with gratitude on the many joyful experiences we have celebrated in our parish community. In particular I want to mention the celebration of the Sacrament of Confirmation on Saturday, April 9th.

After 2 years of preparation, which included monthly classes, community service, a day of retreat and Mass attendance, the 71 candidates seemed eager and ready to step up to Bishop Wang to express their “I do” in response to the renewal of their Baptismal promises.

The occasion was a blessed and joyful one for the candidates, their sponsors, parents family members and our parish community.

I am grateful to all who helped make the occasion a blessed and memorable one for the candidates. In particular I thank their families, teachers and the parish community who supported them through prayer and example.

I want to thank Joanne Bartolotti our Confirmation coordinator, and the Confirmation team: Darlene Esola, Peggy Hart, Mike Herrera, Diana Landin, Michelle Lynch and Leslie Fong our Religious Education secretary. Each person has played an important and effective role in guiding the candidates and keeping them on task.

We hope that these young people will continue to be a vibrant part of our parish community especially by attending Church and becoming members of our parish Youth Ministry.

We Are All The Same: a story of a Boy’s Courage and a Mother’s Love, by Jim Wooten, is the next book for discussion. This is the book Msgr. Dreier mentioned in his homily recently.

SOCIABLES

Let’s try something different.

Dinner

April 24th
At 5 p.m.
El Torita Resaurant
1590 Bayshore Blvd.
Burlingame

Join St. Robert’s TIPPS on
Saturday, April 23rd
Happy Hollow Park and Zoo!!
(located just off Hwy 280 in San Jose)
www.hhpz.org

Happy Hollow has lots of activities for young children and toddlers. The Pirate's Cove picnic area is reserved from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Bring a picnic lunch or enjoy the snack bar. Our group rate is $5 per adult and child over 2. Free for children under 2. Parking is $6. For those wishing to leave together, we will meet in St. Robert's small parking lot at 9:30 a.m.

Please contact Andrew or Ana Kimoto or email ajkimoto@sanbrunocable.com for reservations and directions. Feel free to invite new TIPPSters

§pecial Note:

“Two shall live as one”.

Vallombrosa Retreat Center, Menlo Park.

We list the names of the people that we have been asked to pray for during the week. We continue to ask each week that parishioners pray for the chronically ill of our parish.

If you have a friend or loved one in need of our parish prayers please call the Rectory at 589-2800.

Also, please remember our Emergency prayer network that prays for specific intentions that require a concerted effort due to their critical nature. To facilitate the network, please call Michele Pipinich at 589-4963. The network people then pray frequently for the next 72 hours. We would appreciate a return call with the outcome so we can praise God for His faithfulness.

This week we ask that you please pray for:

The gospel this weekend talks about sheep and shepherds. Interestingly, in this passage, Jesus refers to himself as the gate. (The part we recognize is the next piece of the tenth chapter of John’s gospel, verse 11, where Jesus calls himself the good shepherd.) As night was falling, the custom was for a shepherd to find a cave in which to corral the sheep. The shepherd would then lie down in front of the opening to the cave so that any marauders – human or animal – would literally need to go through his own body to reach the sheep. What a beautiful image for us who have just celebrated Jesus’ laying down his life for us! He has absorbed the sin, the brokenness of humanity into his own body that he may lead us to life.

It is his body now, “blest and broken for us all” as we sing, which continues to give us life in the Eucharist. It is his body we are challenged to see and reverence in each person, no matter her age, his physical condition, her abilities or lack thereof, his race or economic status. Could we begin by consciously looking for the Lord in those sitting next to us in the pew? Do we need to begin even closer to home, to those under our own roof? Might we notice how we treat the gas station clerk, the bagger at the grocery store, the gardener, the waiter or waitress? Would I treat these people differently if I actually recognized Christ in each of them? Shall we try this for a week and see how we do? Perhaps, we shall experience a call to conversion. (Yes, I know that Lent is over, but our need for conversion only stops when we’re six feet under!)

It is providential that we are hearing this gospel of the shepherd the day before the cardinals will be gathering to choose a new shepherd for the universal Church. The qualities the new Pope will need are those indicated in the gospel. He will need to be someone whom the “sheep” will recognize because he knows them and calls them by name. In our worldwide Church of one billion members, that will be a challenge! Hopefully, our new Holy Father will be well-traveled and have a sense of the differences among this vast family of faith from every continent except Antarctica. If he is to lead us to the abundant life Jesus promised, he will need to be a great listener and learner. He will need to be committed to the way of dialogue which John Paul II utilized so fruitfully among nations and faith communities. The new Holy Father, like John Paul II and Jesus himself, will need to lay down his life for us, putting all his gifts and abilities at the service of his people.

CENTER PLATE VOLUNTEERS

 WE STILL NEED YOUR HELP FOR THE FOLLOWING
SF GIANT GAMES IN APRIL:

Help raise funds for:
Classroom supplies, sports program,
parish maintenance fund and out door education.

There are no lives that are not worth living;
there is no suffering, no matter how grave,
that can justify killing a life;
there are no reasons,
no matter how noble,
that make plausible
the creation of human beings,
destined to be used and destroyed.”