Michelle Blanchard Ardillo

On the days when I don’t attend daily Mass in my parish, the Shrine of St. Jude in Rockville, Maryland, I watch Mass online via YouTube. Daily Mass is a wonderful way to start the day, and I feel like the rest of the day goes so much better when I begin it that way.

During the COVID pandemic, when the Catholic churches in the Archdiocese of Washington were closed, the Cardinal advised us to watch Mass online. There are many choices to do so, but we quickly centered on one particular church, St. Thomas the Apostle Parish in West Springfield, Massachusetts. While many parishes discontinued the online streaming of Masses once the lockdown had ceased, St. Thomas the Apostle has continued taping Mass each morning and posting it on YouTube. 

The pastor at St. Thomas the Apostle is Fr. John Sheaffer, who is announced before each Mass begins as Fr. Jack. Fr. Jack became pastor of St. Thomas in 2019, and because it was at that time when COVID was just starting up and things were just closing down, perhaps he came up with the idea to tape daily Masses and post them on YouTube. In the FAQ section of the parish website, he responds to the question about when the daily Mass tapings would end by saying that at this time there are no plans to end the tapings.

For this I am thankful. Fr. Jack is a welcome presence when I log on to view the daily Mass. He celebrates Mass in a very straightforward way, doing the priest’s parts as well as the parts of the congregation. He does it all, all alone. No altar server, no lector, just Fr. Jack and the Eucharist. 

Today, June 30, 2026, the Gospel was Matthew, who was one of Jesus’s twelve apostles and later one of the four Evangelists (Gospel writers). Matthew had been the tax collector in Capernaum, but he was called to follow Jesus, and later preached the gospel in Ethiopia.

Today’s Gospel reading was from the Book of Matthew, Chapter 8, Verses 23-27. It is a familiar scene, Jesus on a boat, asleep while his disciples battle the stormy Sea of Galilee.

Here is the text:

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew 8:23-27.

As Jesus got into a boat, his disciples followed him. Suddenly a violent storm came up on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by waves; but he was asleep. They came and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” He said to them, “Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?” Then he got up, rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was great calm. The men were amazed and said, “What sort of man is this, whom even the winds and the sea obey?

The Gospel of the Lord.

Fr. Jack’s homily on this short Gospel really struck me. The world we live in right now is on fire. Wars. Famine. Extreme weather conditions. Immigration battles. High suicide rates. Addictions of all sorts. Economic strife. Massive food insecurity. Countries torn apart from the inside. Civility and respect for others at an all time low. Is today’s Gospel an allegory for the state of affairs of the world today? If so, Fr. Jack’s homily may provide some food for thought. 

The following is a transcription of the short homily delivered by Father Jack during the Daily Mass on Tuesday, June 30, 2026 (4:32 – 5:47), which can also be viewed on YouTube:

“The disciples did nothing wrong to cause the storm in which they found themselves. They were actually on the boat because they followed Jesus there. It’s easy to think that if we pray, attend daily Mass, and live faithfully, our lives will be free from life’s storms. But difficulties and challenges are a normal part of the human journey. Life storms are not a sign of God’s anger. They are the place where our faith can mature and where we can learn to rely on God to save us.

Jesus was asleep in the stern. For the disciples, this silence had the appearance of indifference. When we encounter bad news, difficult relationships, things like anxiety, it can seem as if Jesus is asleep in our lives. But the gospel reassures us that Jesus’ silence is not absence or indifference. He remains with us in the boat. He allows the storm to help us recognize our limitations so that we rely not on our own strength but on God’s. When we are in trouble, may we pray as the disciples cried out, ‘Lord, save us,’ trusting that Jesus is always with us.”

I am fortunate that I currently have very few storms in my life. I am happily married for 37 years, and together we have two wonderful adult daughters who are smart, creative, caring young women. We are in relatively good health for our ages (especially given the low amount of exercise in which we engage, lol). I am retired from not one, but two very different careers I enjoyed that fulfilled me. I have lots of interests to keep me occupied in my retirement, such as writing, reading, cooking for family and friends, travel, and doting on our 9-yr-old rescue Yorkie.

But, I did have storms in my past, and I always turned to my rosary in times of distress, whether it was storms in my personal life, professional life, or more specifically, the prolonged illness of my mother, and later my father. When I first came home from surgery to repair a badly broken ankle in 2019, I was in so much pain, my poor husband — with nothing else to offer as relief — said, “Where’s your rosary?” I truly believe Jesus has helped me steer my boat out of those storms.

On a side note, my parish of St. Jude has been blessed to have many newly ordained priests assigned to our parish as their very first parish. One such priest was Fr. Bill Byrne, who was a breath of fresh air. His homilies were amazing, and he had an electric spark that drew young and old alike to him. We weren’t the only ones who noticed it though, and he was soon sent to the University of Maryland’s Catholic Center where an astonishing number of young men entered the seminary after encountering Fr. Byrne.

He eventually found his way doing special reports on the local radio station providing spiritual commentary in the form of “Five Things” which later became a podcast and then a book he published as a fundraiser.

And, then, in 2020, he was taken from us, such a loss to the Archdiocese of Washington, but such a huge win for the Diocese of Springfield, which coincidentally, is the diocese where Fr. Jack Sheaffer’s church St. Thomas the Apostle is located!

Apparently, there are a lot of good things in western Massachusetts!