Dear Brothers and Sisters of St. Andrew the Apostle,

Please read the bulletin or our parish website for all the St. Andrew's news and events. Here is a glimpse of what is coming up in the coming weeks:

• The second collection this weekend supports the Catholic Home Missions Appeal. Nearly 40% of the dioceses in the United States and its territories are considered home mission dioceses. Home mission dioceses are those Catholic dioceses that rely on outside help for basic pastoral services, including the sacraments, religious education, and ministry training for priests, deacons, religious sisters, and lay people.
• This Sunday is Divine Mercy Sunday. At 3:00 PM on Sunday (April 27), we will have a Holy Hour with Eucharistic Exposition and the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Fr. Wilton and I will hear Confessions during the Holy Hour from 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM.
• Wednesday, April 29, is the final day to turn in your Lenten CRS Rice Bowls.
• May 2 is First Friday. Additional Confessions will take place after the 6:30 AM and 9:00 AM Masses. There will be an additional Mass at 7:00 PM.
• May 3 is First Saturday. Eucharistic Adoration begins at 8:00 AM with Deacon Sobczynski, who will also lead a rosary and offer a spiritual reflection. Fr. Wilton and I will hear Confessions from 8:00 AM until 8:45 AM.
• May 3 is also First Holy Communion for our second graders who have been preparing for the sacrament. This is always a blessed event for the whole parish.
• May is the month of Mary. On Sunday, May 4, we will crown the Blessed Virgin Mary statue in the church before the 9:00 AM and 10:30 AM Masses.
• Our final event of this year's St. Andrew's Concert Series is Sunday, May 4, at 4:00 PM. Northern Virginia a capella group Brethren will sing a performance they are entitling "Come to Me." Admission is free; donations are appreciated. There will be a reception with light refreshments following the concert in Hannan Hall.

Pope Francis entered into eternal life on Easter Monday after a long illness that he endured all of Lent. It is fitting to suffer with Christ and die in the Octave of Easter when we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus and his triumph over death. As you may recall, Pope St. John Paul II also died during the Easter Octave in 2005.

We mourn as a universal Church with the death of the Pope. Bishop Burbidge offered a Mass for Pope Francis on Wednesday at the Cathedral of St. Thomas More. You can watch it here. At our parish, we put up black bunting at the church entrance through the rear vestibule and a photo of Pope Francis in the sanctuary to invite people to pray for his eternal rest. You may have also noticed that the Eucharistic prayers have changed, for at every Mass we pray for the Pope of the Church, and when we have no Pope, that prayer intention is removed. It is a reminder that something is missing: the successor of Peter who binds and looses on behalf of Christ.

This morning, at 10:00 AM Rome time (4:00 AM EST our time), the funeral Mass for Pope Francis took place at St. Peter's Basilica. You can watch the Pope's funeral here. Pope Francis asked to be buried in the Basilica of St. Mary Major, a church where he would go to pray at the Marian image of Salus Populi Romani, which tradition says was painted by St. Luke. The last Pope buried at St. Mary Major was Pope Clement IX in 1669. The last Pope buried outside of St. Peter's Basilica was Pope Leo XIII in 1903. The burial across town certainly adds a complexity to the Pope's burial that has not happened in over a century, but watching thousands of mourners line the streets of Rome to see the Popemobile carrying the casket of Pope Francis from St. Peter's to St. Mary Major is a moving sight.

Here is a primer about what happens in the Church when a Pope dies. The last step is electing a new Pope, which begins at a conclave. The conclave, which starts fifteen to twenty days after the Pope's death, consists of the voting Cardinals of the world (those under the age of 80), who will choose the next Pope. We pray for the Holy Spirit to guide them to choose a holy man of virtue who can follow in the footsteps of St. Peter to lead, teach, and sanctify the Church.

... This Sunday is the Second Sunday of Easter, the last day of the Easter Octave, and the Sunday we call Divine Mercy Sunday. There is a special indulgence offered on this day for those who go to Mass on Divine Mercy Sunday and receive the Holy Eucharist (on that day of in the days to come) for the intention of receiving this indulgence, who pray for God's mercy while also praying for the intentions of the Pope, and also go to Confession in the days leading up to or after Divine Mercy Sunday, will be completely washed free from the temporal punishment of sin. When we go to Confession, we are forgiven of our sins, but the punishment of those sins, the temporal punishment, for which justice must be done, most likely in Purgatory, remains. Jesus told St. Faustina Kowolska that through the Divine Mercy indulgence, temporal punishment is washed away.

There is a unique situation this year with Divine Mercy Sunday coming in the period when we do not have a Pope. As I mentioned earlier, Pope John Paul II, the Pope who declared Divine Mercy Sunday a feast day, also passed away on the Saturday before Divine Mercy Sunday, so the same question arose that day: How can we get an indulgence when we must pray for the intentions of the Pope, and there is no Pope? In 2005, after the death of Pope John Paul II, that question was answered: "Indulgences are still available to the faithful during the interregnum (the time between Popes), since the intentions of the Holy Father perdure past the life of the same Holy Father, therefore prayer for those intentions made known by the Apostolic See remain necessary and efficacious for the purposes of indulgences."

Fr. Wilton and I will hear Confessions tomorrow at 3:00 PM while Deacon Sobczynski leads a Holy Hour with the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Come experience God's mercy in this wonderful sacrament, and set yourself up to receive the Divine Mercy Indulgence.

... Thank you to all who have been praying for my father. He has been in the hospital since Monday of Holy Week. He just moved into his fourth room, which is a sign of how long he has been there. He is slowly improving from all of the symptoms he had when he entered the hospital. When he has recovered enough, they will replace his aortic valve, which is the main reason for all of his symptoms. As you can imagine, it's harder to recover when your heart is not working at full capacity. However, through prayers, patience, and God's grace, he appears to be improving and getting closer to that vital surgery. Once more, thank you for your prayers.

Be assured of my prayers for you and your intentions. Please pray for me as well!

In Christ,

Fr. Wagner