Father Adam Laski
I have been so blessed to be serving in these parishes over the last few years. Gratitude is never out of season. So I want to say thank you for the opportunities I have had to be blessed by my encounters with each of you.
So many of your families have become these sorts of blessings to me, in celibacy you become a father to all, and in the gift of the Holy Mass I get to share the greatest gift which each of you. I am grateful for the “home away from home” I have found with your families, at your tables, and sharing in your family life. This to me is one of the singular blessings in my priesthood, friendship.
Peter asks the Lord: “We have given up everything and followed you.”
Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sistersor mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come.”(Mark 10:32-45)
I have received a hundredfold graces from sharing the sacraments with you, from the joy of encountering your children, and for the spiritual growth I have been privileged to witness in so many of you during my time in these parishes. Just as Jesus multiplies a small and insignificant amount of bread and fish to feed thousands, it seems to me that your faith, your prayers, and your fidelity have been the loaves and fish in my own hands, and God has used them to nourish me in ways I never expected.
The call of the Lord is never just cake and ice cream, it is never just cloudless skies, and rewards in this present life. Squeezed into this promise of Jesus about the blessing of this life is also his insistence that there will be trials. Each of us can see the trials we are in, and working through. The cross is always in the background of every conversation about blessings and joys, because the death and resurrection of Jesus is the source of real life and goodness.
It is impossible for me to put a value on this friendship, and the friendships in Jesus which I have had the privilege of forming with each of you. My desire for each of you is that your charity for one another continues to grow as a family of parishes, and that you grow in your intimacy with Jesus each day.
Let us pray for one another!