Attenzione! Ci sarà (per la seconda volta) una Messa Italiana lunedì, 16 di giugno alle quattro nel pomeriggio, alla Chiesa di San Bartolomeo. Attention! There will be (for the second time) an Italian Mass on Monday, June 16, at 4:00 p.m. at St. Bartholomew Church. There will be a worship aid to follow the parts of the Mass.

We pray for the repose of the soul of +Bishop Brandt, originally a priest of the Erie Diocese. Here is part of an e-mail I received from Fr. Chris Singer, Chancellor: “I regret to inform you of the death early this morning [June 8] of the Most Reverend Lawrence E. Brandt, Bishop Emeritus of the Diocese of Greensburg and native son of the Diocese of Erie…..Eternal rest grant unto him O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon him.”

After 22 years of service as Faith Formation Director for Notre Dame Parish, Joe Ranelli has retired at the end of May. When I arrived last July, he told me that it was likely his final year. I have enjoyed working with him, & I want to thank Mr. Ranelli for all he has done, both seen and unseen, to hand on the faith to our youth for over two decades- thank you!!

We welcome Elizabeth McGoff, the new Faith Formation Director for Notre Dame. Mrs. McGoff has been a long time teacher of religious education. She is a wife, a mom, and she is very excited to be in her new role. Welcome!

Youth and Young Adults (or parents reading this), please check out www.catholicyouthforchrist.com to see all the activities going on over the summer!

Mark your calendars!! We have an outstanding missionary priest coming from Aug. 9 – 12. I had to reserve him last Summer!! More information next week.

You probably remember me talking about the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea (and the Nicene Creed we profess at Mass every Sunday) a few weeks ago. Here is a fantastic article with a lot of important Church history in-formation. It was published on April 9, 2025 in the National Catholic Register, and it was written by Fr. Raymond J. de Souza. Here is the article in its entirety:

The 1,700-Year Quest for a Common Easter

COMMENTARY: The Council of Nicaea gave Christianity more than a creed — it gave the Church a way to calculate Easter. But unity around the great feast of the Resurrection remains incomplete.

This year’s 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea is suitably marked by both the Catholic and Orthodox Easter falling on the same date, which is not the norm. It was at Nicaea that the date of Easter was set; it was one of the most important items on the conciliar agenda.

The anniversary and the joint celebration this year have fostered hopes that a permanent joint celebration of Easter might be possible. That remains unlikely, however, given that relations within the Orthodox world do not permit such a momentous decision to be made.

Nicaea and Easter

While Nicaea is remembered for the doctrinal defense of the divinity of Christ against the heresy of Arianism — which taught that Christ was not fully divine — the date of Easter was a pressing issue.

By 325, Constantine had legalized Christianity and strongly supported it as a unifying force in the Roman Empire. One reason for convening the council was to promote imperial unity by resolving theological disputes. Divisions within the increasingly influential religion could destabilize the empire and potentially threaten the emperor’s authority.

The same was true for religious celebrations, which touched the common life of the people more directly than theo-logical questions. If the entirety of the now-Christian empire could celebrate its most important feast at the same time, it would underscore the unity of far-flung regions under a common rule.

There were already different traditions. Some Christians celebrated Easter at the time of the Jewish Passover. Oth-ers observed it on Sunday near Passover. And how to calculate Passover according to the Roman calendar, not the Jewish calendar?

At the time, the Roman Empire followed a calendar established by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. - the “Julian” calendar. It was a solar-based calendar that remains familiar today: a year of 365 days organized into 12 mon- ths of 30 or 31 days, save for February, which had 28 days. Every fourth year was a leap year, with an extra day added to February, as the actual orbit of the Earth around the sun took about 365¼ days.

The challenge of calculating Easter was how to fit the Hebrew and Julian calendars together. The Hebrew calendar assigns great weight to the lunar cycle. Passover was celebrated on the 14th day of the month of Nisan.

The beginning of the Hebrew months depends upon the phase of the moon. Thus, for Easter to be celebrated in harmony with the recurrence of Passover — as during the original Holy Week — some formula had to be found for a common date for Easter.

That initiative, largely Protestant, met a favorable reaction by those engaged in Catholic-Orthodox dialogue. Despite fervent statements of joint aspirations, and an agreement on the astronomical science of the equinox, it has not pro-duced agreement.

Over the years, the most common proposals have been to fix a certain date, or for the “West” to simply adopt the Or-thodox date. The most common fixed-date proposal has been for the Sunday after the second Saturday in April — which sounds like the way voting dates are set in secular constitutions. The United Kingdom Parliament passed the Easter Act in 1928 legislating that fixed-Sunday-in-April option, but it has never been implemented.

No joint effort on an issue as momentous as Easter can proceed without significant consensus in the Orthodox world. While Patriarch Bartholomew is the spiritual heir to the bishops of Constantine’s capital, his flock is numerically insignifi-cant, numbering fewer than 20,000 souls. The majority of all Orthodox are Russian (100 million) or Ukrainian (28 million), out of some 220 million total.

The Russian Orthodox Church is now allied with an aggressive nationalist imperialism. It does not recognize the au-tonomy of the Ukrainian Orthodox. When Bartholomew recognized Ukrainian autonomy in 2019, Moscow “excommunicated” Constantinople. So regardless of what Constantinople decided regarding Easter, it would not be recognized by Moscow.

Unilateral Catholic action — simply adopting the Orthodox date — is not an option either, for unilateral action claiming universal application is one of the principal objections that Orthodox have to the Catholic approach to governance.

A Spiritual Unity

While ecumenical unity is not likely, Catholics and Orthodox can unite spiritually at Easter, especially when it falls on the same date, as it does this year. Families that include both Catholic and Orthodox can provide a model of how to do so.

In places where Orthodox and Catholic parishes are in proximity to each other, a common Easter offers opportunities for joint prayers and processions. Even if the Orthodox would not attend Catholic Mass, other devotionals might be op-tions. For example, in many places, by local tradition, Catholics and Protestants join together for a public procession of the cross on Good Friday, or sacred music celebrations during Holy Week. Might Catholics and Orthodox do something similar?

The prayer of Jesus that “all may be one” was offered in the Cenacle on Holy Thursday, at a Passover meal. It will find greater resonance this Easter, in the anniversary year of Nicaea. [end of article]

Saint Thomas More and Saint John Fisher, both martyred for the faith by King Henry VIII, pray for us.

Father Miller