Dear Beloved of St. Francis Xavier Parish:

Happy Pentecost! Today we celebrate the Spirit of God which energizes and gives life and renewal to us as a people of faith.

Last week we Jesuits received a letter from our provincial which posed a piercing question: We are facing the greatest humanitarian and economic crisis our world has seen since the Great Depression, the largest unemployment in 100 years, and are likely on the verge of wide-spread famine. We are seeing the biggest spending packages ever passed; we are seeing who gets included, and who gets left out in response. In 20 years, what do we want to look back and say we did in this moment? How do we lead our people from a mind-set of recovery and returning to normal, to a mind-set of renewal to a better future?

I share this question with you because I feel it is important that as Arizona begins its cautious reopening, we as a faith community begin to ask ourselves: how will we be different; how do we want to be?