Perseverance Shortly after I arrived in the parish last year, I received a book from Dynamic Catholic called 33 Days to Eucharistic Glory. I shoved it into my bookshelf and recently only picked it up because of a friend who is reading it.  As you are probably well aware, there is a huge disconnect with many Catholics when it comes to the Eucharist. Any resource that strives to draw us into a deeper love, belief, and experience of Jesus in the Eucharist is a huge blessing.  My friend pointed out a beautiful mediation/lesson from Day 7 that I would like to share with you in the hopes that it encourages you to persevere in your faith and to allow the Lord to touch you more deeply at each Mass when you come forward to receive our Lord.  Here is the Lesson and the Virtue of the Day from the book.  Lesson Just keep showing up for prayer and your other spiritual practices. Show up each day regardless of how you feel, or if it is convenient, or whether you or not you think it is bearing any fruit. God’s ways are mysterious. He is at work in your soul like the roots of a mighty tree beneath the surface. Just because you don’t know what God is doing doesn’t mean He isn’t preparing you for whatever is next. Just show up and let Him work on you.  Virtue of the Day Perseverance: The virtue of perseverance is essential for friendship and love. Perseverance teaches us to resolve difficulties. Acquiring this virtue requires both grace and significant personal effort. There is no virtue in beginning. It is easy. Many start, few finish. This is true in almost everything. Don’t look at how far you still have to go, look at how far you have come, and consider how your life would be if you had never found this path at all. (p.47) Have a blessed and beautiful “Eucharistic” week!  in Christ, Fr. James Northrop, Pastor

I have frequently shared with you a phrase that surrounded a Christian bookstore in Auburn years ago, when I served my first pastorate at Sacred Heart, Enumclaw, from 2000–2005. The quote ran along the top of the store and said, “ What goes into a mind comes out in a life.” Isn’t that the truth? In this day and age of constant noise and advertisements, Christians must be careful to surround themselves with things that help them put on the mind of Christ  (cf. Philippians 2:5). So many people are anxious and agitated because they take in a steady supply of negative news and spend very little time reading Scripture, devotionals, our other spiritual resource's that help them “ seek that which is above”  (cf. Colossians 3:1). Lately, I’ve been enjoying a number of podcasts (especially while walking or traveling to Eastern Washington) that edify and help build up my faith. Here are just a few of them: Pints with Aquinas  with Matt Fradd: A great show featuring interviews with interesting guests. Matt has a lively faith, a great Australian accent, and a really good sense of humor.  The Lila Rose Show : This is a podcast I recently discovered. It addresses culture, relationships, identity, purpose, faith, and hot-button topics from a Christian, and particularly Catholic, perspective. Lila is a convert to the Catholic faith and is incredibly respectful of her guests. Word on Fire Podcast : If you're looking for a smart, faithful, and inspiring way to engage with Catholicism, check out the Word on Fire  podcast with Bishop Robert Barron. Each episode tackles big questions about faith, culture, Scripture, and the Church’s role in the modern world, all through the lens of Catholic tradition and intellectual depth. Bishop Barron has a gift for explaining complex ideas in a clear and compelling way, whether he's reflecting on the Sunday readings, discussing current events, or exploring the lives of the saints. It’s a great weekly companion for anyone wanting to think more deeply and love more fully as a disciple of Christ. There are many other great resources online to help feed your soul and build up your faith. These are just a few that I’ve really been enjoying. Have a blessed week! In Christ, Fr. James Northrop, Pastor

A Little Humor Many years ago, someone emailed me a list of bulletin bloopers which I shared during a retreat. One skeptical participant approached me after I shared them saying he didn’t believe such mistakes were possible. After 28 years as a parish priest I disagree with him.  I found the list in an archived article from the National Catholic Register. in Christ, Fr. James Northrop, Pastor The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals.. The sermon this morning: Jesus Walks on the Water. The sermon tonight: Searching for Jesus. Ladies, don ’ t forget the rummage sale. It ’ s a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands. Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say ‘ Hell ’ to someone who doesn ’ t care much about you . Don ’ t let worry kill you off - let the Church help. Miss Charlene Mason sang ‘ I will not pass this way again, ’ giving obvious pleasure to the congregation. For those of you who have children and don ’ t know it, we have a nursery downstairs . Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get. Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days. A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.. At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be ‘ What Is Hell? ’ Come early and listen to our choir practice. Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones. Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children. The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility. Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM - prayer and medication to follow. The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon. This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin. Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10 AM. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B. S. Is done. The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the Congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday. Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM . Please use the back door. The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare ’ s Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy. Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance. The Associate Minister unveiled the church ’ s new campaign slogan last Sunday:” I Upped My Pledge - Up Yours.”

You Are a Child of God: But What Does That Really Mean? We hear it often: You are a child of God.  But have you ever paused to truly reflect on what that means for your life? Join us for our Annual Summer Faith Workshop  as we dive into this powerful truth and explore what it means to live out our identity as sons and daughters of God. Together, we’ll reflect on: Our baptismal call to be priest, prophet, and king How to “renew our minds,” as St. Paul teaches in Scripture Practical ways to embody our divine identity in everyday life Date:  July 31 Time:  6:30 – 8:00 PM Location:  Sacred Heart Parish Hall, Enumclaw WA Speaker:   Danielle Curl , Director of Faith Formation at Sacred Heart Come ready to be inspired, challenged, and equipped to walk more fully in the truth of who you are in Christ. All are welcome!

Faith and Freedom: A Catholic Reflection for the Fourth of July As we gather this week to celebrate the Fourth of July, we give thanks to God for the gift of our nation and the many freedoms we enjoy. This holiday invites not only patriotic pride but also deep spiritual reflection. As Catholic Christians, we recognize that true freedom is not merely the ability to do what we want, but the grace to do what is right. In Galatians 5:13, St. Paul reminds us: “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love become slaves to one another.” This is the heart of Catholic freedom: a freedom rooted in truth, ordered toward love, and expressed in service. Our Founding Fathers spoke of certain “unalienable rights” endowed by our Creator—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. As people of faith, we know that the fullness of these rights is realized when they are guided by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Life is sacred from conception to natural death. Liberty is a call to moral responsibility. Happiness is found not in possessions or pleasure, but in a life lived in communion with God and neighbor. This Fourth of July, let us pray for our country: for its leaders, that they may govern with wisdom and integrity; for its citizens, that we may renew our commitment to justice, compassion, and truth; and for our Church, that we may be a prophetic voice in the public square, defending the dignity of every human person. May Mary, the Immaculate Conception and patroness of the United States, intercede for us, that we may always be “one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” Happy Independence Day—and may our true freedom always be found in Christ! in Christ, Fr. James Northrop, Pastor

Benedict XVI On Leisure & Reading The Bible Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Last weekend I spoke on the need for our busy culture to rediscover the value of prayer and leisure. For this week’s bulletin column I would like to share with you a wonderful message from Pope Benedict XVI on how the Lord refreshes our hearts through music, art, and prayer. As I speak about frequently, music has been an instrumental part of my faith journey with the Lord. I remember how happy I was when I read a passage in the Book of Revelation that referenced the “Song of Moses”. Not only will we be with the Lord in heaven with our loved ones, but there will also be music! My dad and I played spoons for two and half hours my first Christmas in Tukwila since we didn’t have a midnight Mass. That is a huge cherished memory of God’s goodness for me.  Have a blesssed week!  in Christ, Fr. Jim  Dear Brothers and Sisters, In this period I have recalled several times the need for every Christian, in the midst of the many occupations that fill our days, to find time for God and for prayer. The Lord himself gives us many opportunities to remember him. Today I would like to reflect briefly on one of these channels that can lead to God and can also be of help in the encounter with him. It is the way of artistic expression, part of that “via pulchritudinis” — the “way of beauty”, of which I have spoken several times and whose deepest meaning must be recovered by men and women today. It may have happened on some occasion that you paused before a sculpture, a picture, a few verses of a poem or a piece of music that you found deeply moving, that gave you a sense of joy, a clear perception, that is, that what you beheld was not only matter, a piece of marble or bronze, a painted canvas, a collection of letters or an accumulation of sounds, but something greater, something that “speaks”, that can touch the heart, communicate a message, uplift the mind. A work of art is a product of the creative capacity of the human being who in questioning visible reality, seeks to discover its deep meaning and to communicate it through the language of forms, colour and sound. Art is able to manifest and make visible the human need to surpass the visible, it expresses the thirst and the quest for the infinite. Indeed it resembles a door open on to the infinite, on to a beauty and a truth that go beyond the daily routine. And a work of art can open the eyes of the mind and of the heart, impelling us upward. However some artistic expressions are real highways to God, the supreme Beauty; indeed, they help us to grow in our relationship with him, in prayer. These are works that were born from faith and express faith. We can see an example of this when we visit a Gothic cathedral: we are enraptured by the vertical lines that soar skywards and uplift our gaze and our spirit, while at the same time we feel small yet long for fullness…. Or when we enter a Romanesque church we are spontaneously prompted to meditate and to pray. We perceive that these splendid buildings contain, as it were, the faith of generations. Or when we listen to a piece of sacred music that plucks at our heartstrings, our mind, as it were, expands and turns naturally to God. I remember a concert of music by Johann Sebastian Bach in Munich, conducted by Leonard Bernstein. At the end of the last passage, one of the Cantatas, I felt, not by reasoning but in the depths of my heart, that what I had heard had communicated truth to me, the truth of the supreme composer, and impelled me to thank God. The Lutheran bishop of Munich was next to me and I said to him spontaneously: “in hearing this one understands: it is true; such strong faith is true, as well as the beauty that irresistibly expresses the presence of God’s truth”. Yet how many pictures or frescos, fruits of the artist’s faith, in their form, in their colour, in their light, urge us to think of God and foster within us the desire to draw from the source of all beauty. What Marc Chagall, a great artist, wrote, remains profoundly true: that for centuries painters have dipped their paintbrush in that coloured alphabet which is the Bible. Thus how often artistic expression can bring us to remember God, to help us to pray or even to convert our heart! Paul Claudel, a famous French poet, playwright and diplomat, precisely while he was listening in the Cathedral of Notre Dame to the singing of the Magnificat during Christmas Mass in 1886, had a tangible experience of God’s presence. He had not entered the church for reasons of faith but rather in order to seek arguments against Christians and instead God's grace worked actively in his heart. Dear friends, I ask you to rediscover the importance of this path also for prayer, for our living relationship with God. Towns and villages throughout the world contain treasures of art that express faith and beckon to us to return to our relationship with God. May the visits to places filled with art, then, not only be opportunities for cultural enrichment — that too — but may they become above all moments of grace, incentives to strengthen our bond and our dialogue with the Lord so that — in switching from simple external reality to the more profound reality it expresses — we may pause to contemplate the ray of beauty that strikes us to the quick, that almost “wounds” us, and that invites us to rise toward God. I end with a prayer from a Psalm, Psalm 27[26]: “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and contemplate his temple” (v. 4). Let us hope that the Lord will help us to contemplate his beauty, both in nature and in works of art, so that we, moved by the light that shines from his face, may be a light for our neighbour. Many thanks.

View the current schedule for this fall on our website at https://www.stbarbarachurch.org/faith-formation-classes Faith Formation & Sacramental Preparation Registration Form: https://archseattle.ccbchurch.com/goto/forms/5343/responses/new

Don't Miss the Celebration! For All Our Volunteers and Ministries  Faith in Action Kick-Off!   May 3-4  Please join in the Narthex and Hall in celebrating St. Barbara ministries and volunteers. This weekend will launch a 2-month movement to share the fruitful works of our ministries and call each of you to serve through your God-given gifts and talents.  For, "the body is not a single part, but many," and each of us are called to nurture and grow the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:14).

Now Accepting Vendor Applications for the 2025 St. Barbara’s Fall Artisan Bazaar Join us for the St. Barbara’s Fall Artisan Bazaar  on Saturday, October 25, 2025 , from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM  at 32416 6th Ave, Black Diamond, WA 98010 . We are now accepting vendor applications! This annual event is a wonderful opportunity for artisans and small businesses to showcase their handcrafted goods in a warm, welcoming atmosphere filled with music, a cozy café, and local promotion. Vendor Fees   (same as last year, no price increase): $50 for one 8 ft. table (provided) $80 for two 8 ft. tables (provided) $40 for one 8 ft. table (bring your own) $70 for two 8 ft. tables (bring your own) To secure your spot, please submit your signed application  and merchandise description  (documents attached). Space is limited and will be filled on a first-come, first-served  basis. Raffle Participation: Vendors are kindly asked to donate an item valued at $10–$15  to be included in our event raffle. Let’s make this year’s bazaar another vibrant celebration of creativity and community. We look forward to having you join us! Contact: Zack Midles 360-789-5589 zmidles@gmail.com

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity   Dear Parish Family, This Sunday, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, one of the central mysteries of our Catholic faith. The Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is not a puzzle to be solved but a divine reality to be embraced. It reveals to us who God is: a communion of love, eternal relationship, and perfect unity. Many of us may remember learning that the Trinity is "three Persons in one God." It's a simple phrase, but it points to an infinite mystery. We believe in one God, not three gods, yet this one God is a relationship of three distinct Persons, each fully God, co-eternal, and consubstantial. While we may never fully comprehend this mystery with our minds, we are invited to enter into it with our hearts. Why does this matter for us? Because we are made in the image and likeness of God. If God is relationship—perfect, self-giving love—then we are most fully ourselves when we live in loving relationship with God and with one another. The Trinity isn’t just a doctrine; it’s the foundation of Christian life. It teaches us that love is not something God does—it is who God is. This solemnity also reminds us that every part of our faith life is Trinitarian. We were baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  We begin and end our prayers with the Sign of the Cross. The Mass itself is filled with Trinitarian language, from the opening greeting to the final blessing. Let this Sunday be an invitation to dwell in the love of the Triune God. May the Father’s providence, the Son’s saving grace, and the Spirit’s guiding presence continue to bless and strengthen our parish family. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit! In Christ,Fr. James Northrop, Pastor

Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ   Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Today we celebrate the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ—a feast that invites us to renew our wonder, gratitude, and love for the great gift of the Eucharist. In his apostolic exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis  (“The Sacrament of Charity”), Pope Benedict XVI reminds us that the Eucharist is not only the source and summit of the Church’s life, but also a mystery that transforms how we believe, worship, and live. The Eucharist: A Mystery to Be Believed At the heart of our faith is the belief that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist: Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. This is not a symbol or a mere reminder—it is Christ Himself, given for us. As Pope Benedict wrote, “The Eucharist is Jesus Christ, who gives himself entirely to us.” Believing this changes everything. When we approach the altar with faith, we are truly encountering the Risen Lord. The Eucharist: A Mystery to Be Celebrated The Holy Mass is where this mystery becomes real among us. It is not just a ritual, but the re-presentation of Christ’s one sacrifice on the Cross. In every Mass, heaven and earth are united. The reverence, beauty, and silence surrounding the celebration remind us that we are standing on holy ground. As we adore and receive Christ in the Eucharist, our hearts are drawn into His. The Eucharist: A Mystery to Be Lived The Eucharist doesn’t end at the dismissal—it begins there. We are sent forth to live what we have received: to be Christ’s presence in the world. Pope Benedict said that the Eucharist “increases our responsibility to the poor and suffering.” Our communion with Christ must overflow in love for our neighbor, in acts of justice, mercy, and peace. On this great feast of Corpus Christi, let us deepen our love for the Eucharist. May it be the center of our parish life, our families, and our personal journey with the Lord. And may we never take for granted this most precious gift: Jesus Christ, truly present in the Blessed Sacrament. in Christ, Fr. James Northrop, Pastor