Victory and More!
Jesus won his victory on the cross: Despite torture, mockery, and malice, Jesus persevered in loving obedience to God and in loving mercy toward us. From mankind’s first awakening, we failed to answer God’s call to love, but at Jesus’ death we at last fulfill God’s purpose for us.
Jesus’ victory for us is awesome, but the God goes further by raising Jesus from the dead and restoring him to his human body—glorified in divine life, beauty, and power. Follow Jesus on the way of suffering and death, and you also follow him on the way of glory and resurrection.
Jesus intends his followers to respond through life in his Church. His dying command was, “Love one another, as I have loved you.” And after his resurrection, he bound his disciples to the shared life of the Church and her mission to bring his good news to the ends of the Earth.
So we’re On Mission for The Church Alive! At RocKenRo—the three parishes of St. John of God, McKees ROCks, St. Malachy, KENnedy Township, and Holy Trinity, Robinson—we’re reorienting our institutions, personnel, and resources toward a contemporary expression of our mission:
On February 23, the Diocese of Pittsburgh announced the merger of our two elementary schools, Holy Trinity and St. Malachy, into the new Archangel Gabriel School, with K to 8 at the Robinson campus and the pre-school at the Kennedy campus. The merger will save RocKenRo a great deal of money and, if we can sustain enrollment, will facilitate a broader and better range of programming for the students.
Jacob Williamson joins us May 6 as our new director of engagement, responsible for evangelization, communications, youth ministry, and religious education. Jacob writes:
Happy Easter! I am excited to begin as the new Director for Engagement for the parishes of Holy Trinity, Saint John of God, and Saint Malachy. I was raised in West Kittanning and graduated Kittanning Senior High School in 2006. I have an older brother who lives with his growing family in Bakersfield California and I have an older sister who lives with her daughter in Raleigh, North Carolina. My mom and the rest of my extended family still live in Kittanning. Unfortunately, my dad passed away in 2014.
After high school, I entered Saint Mark Seminary as a seminarian for the Diocese of Greensburg and began my studies at Gannon University. In 2010, I graduated with my B.A. in philosophy and discerned out of seminary formation.
Since college and seminary, I have worked in both business and ministerial roles. Right after college, I worked in administration at Macy’s in the South Hills while, at the same, I volunteered at Saint Anne’s in Castle Shannon on their youth ministry core team. After a lot of consideration, I decided to pursue a career in youth ministry and was hired in 2011 at Holy Sepulcher Parish in South Butler County as the Director for Youth and Young Adult Ministry. During those five years, I encountered God in amazing ways as I was privileged to accompany teens and young adults through some of their most profound joys and sufferings.
In 2016, I ventured to Denver, Colorado to more diligently pursue a graduate degree in theology that I had been working on from the Augustine Institute. While in Denver, I also worked with a small Catholic non-profit called Christ in the City. My time in Denver was short because some people from the Diocese of Pittsburgh and I began talking about the possibility of me moving back home to take on a new role in the Diocese as the Director for Young Adult Outreach, which I did in early 2017. For the last two years I have worked for the Diocese of Pittsburgh assisting leaders in our parishes to re-vision what ministry for people in their 20s and 30s could be and help them to effectively implement that vision. This work manifested itself not only in that consultative work but also through creating leadership development experiences, facilitating large outreach events, leading international pilgrimages, and raising volunteer teams to minister directly to young adults.
Now, I am excited to begin working here with you. I look forward to meeting you, listening to your ideas and stories, praying with one another, and making this parish grouping an authentic place of encounter where strangers do not exist and all grow as disciples of Jesus Christ. Peace, —Jacob R. Williamson jwilliamson@holytrinityrobinson.org
Brendan Barker, director of music at Holy Trinity, departs June 16. Brendan writes:
Beginning this August, I have accepted a position in the graduate program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign under the instruction of Dr. Andrew Megill. There I will work toward a Doctor of Music Arts degree in Choral Conducting, made possible by a teaching assistantship in the choral division. It has long been a dream of mine to have a career as a collegiate conductor, and this is the next step in that long process. My time at Holy Trinity has been an integral part in that development. It has been a privilege to direct the choir here and refine my real-word choral techniques with an amazing group of people. Walking beside the music ministry as it progressed to excellence has been my proudest life achievement thus far, and I will take with me many of the lessons I learned during that process. I knew from the start that this was an outstanding community from the great vigor with which you sing together during the Mass. I hope that this will only continue to grow with my successor. My last weekend at Holy Trinity will be June 16th; it seemed appropriate for me to end on Holy Trinity Sunday as that was my first weekend on the job in 2016. I wish to express my sincere gratitude to the countless people who have approached me after liturgies with kind words of encouragement and appreciation over the past three years. —Brendan
Brendan is a genial man of great talent, and his departure is a loss for RocKenRo, but even so it’s a joy to see him advance and prepare to make even more effective use of his gifts.
Jacob Gruber joins us July 1. Jacob is a seminarian for the Diocese of Pittsburgh and has reached the point (usually three years before priestly ordination) where he is expected to spend an internship year in a parish. It’s an honor for us to be entrusted with a portion of Jacob’s preparation for priesthood. We’ll be looking for ways to provide him with helpful experiences.
I expect to adjust the daily Mass schedule (but not yet the Sunday Mass schedule). Beginning mid-June, I’ll drop the Friday 8:15 a.m. Mass at Holy Trinity Church (except when it is required for the future Archangel Gabriel School). For those who want a Friday morning Mass, I will schedule an 8:30 a.m. Mass at St. Malachy Church, thus extending the Monday-to-Thursday Mass to all weekdays. Watch for future announcements.
Meanwhile, the work of Christ in his Church continues. We worship our Lord and share Holy Communion. We repent of our sins and forgive sinners. We baptize new followers of Jesus, marry those who pledge themselves as signs of Jesus’ love, anoint the sick as signs of Jesus’ loving suffering, and we bury the dead in hope of resurrection. We aid those who appeal to us for comfort, and in all things we proclaim the good news of Jesus, who died and rose from the dead.
Through all these transitions, we hope to sustain the good work of Christ and his Church. We also hope to shift our habits of thought and behavior until all of us are newly and deeply aware of ourselves as followers of Jesus, and newly and deeply committed to helping others follow Jesus, too.
—Fr. Dave
