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February 25, 2020
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
Every year at the beginning of the Lenten season, the scriptures take us to the desert. As we are made aware by the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is brought to the desert to face temptations from the evil one. The early Church fathers recognized that the temptations were metaphorical for 1: the needs of the body; 2: One’s relationship with the divine and 3: one’s won desire for power and glory. In each instance in the Gospel, Jesus overcomes the temptation. Jesus recognizes that one does not live on bread alone; the one does not put the Lord to the test and that power and glory are not to be had by worshiping anything other than God. Now it is our turn to focus on the lessons in which Jesus give us. As we face our own temptations, we are called to the Holy Spirit to help us over come and move beyond.
With the season of lent, we welcome our Friday Fish Fry sponsored by our Knights of Columbus. Those of you who have attended in the past know that this dinner is not to be missed. Every Friday during Lent, from 5-7:30 p.m., the K of Cs will be serving a delicious fish dinner in the Parish Hall. The K of Cs serve a lot of dinners a night, and the line moves quickly so come early and bring your family and friends. You can also get your meal to go if you’d like. Be sure and thank the Knights for their hard work on the dinners. It’s a great testament to stewardship in action, so thank you brother Knights!
Also following the Lent Fish dinners, every Friday we will have Stations of the Cross in the church beginning at 7:00 p.m. I hope many of you will want to spend 30-45 minutes on Friday nights with this popular Lenten devotion. It’s a great way to spend a Friday evening and come for dinner and stay for Stations.
My Job as Pastor is to encourage you to enter a deeper relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Today, for the beginning of Lent until Easter, I will encourage you to use FORMED.org in which we have provided the password to every parishioner.
There are two studies on FORMED.org for Lent, that I am challenging everyone to be a part of:
The first study is called: Into the Desert: A Lenten Study On Prayer: Our Lord teaches that prayer is a relationship and a vital necessity. And yet, many of us have difficulty committing to daily prayer. Follow Jesus into the desert this Lent and discover intimacy with God in this video-based study with daily meditations in the participants guide. Dr. Tim Gray masterfully uses the discipline of Lectio Divina to show you how to make prayer an effective effort of love and intimacy. This series captures the secret to opening our hearts and minds to Scripture as the means to hear from God and then respond in conversation, basking in his presence and resolving to live in and through his love.
The next offering is: A Lent to Remember, a Lenten encounter with Mercy. This series explores the ways God reaches out to each of us with his mercy. Through Christ’s suffering on the cross in the Paschal Mystery and his perpetual reception of his people in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, God makes his love, his very self, present to us in the world. By reflecting on the Paschal Mystery and making a step-by-step examination of the Rite of Confession, A Lent to Remember communicates God’s invitation to each one of us to come experience his indescribable love this Lent. Our parish Password to FORMED.org is 77GVZ3.
Next, STHY will have our annual Lenten Penance Service on Tuesday March 10th at 7:00 pm in the Church. We will have multiple priest confessors available for the Sacrament of Reconciliation that night.
Finally, This Sunday at the 10:00 am Mass, we will celebrate a major Rite of the Catholic Church: “Rite of Sending the Candidates for Recognition by the Bishop and for the Call to Continuing Conversion.” Or it’s almost always referred to as “Rite of Sending.” This Rite is provided for parishes whose candidates seeking to complete their Christian initiation or to be received into the full communion of the Catholic Church will be recognized by the bishop in a subsequent celebration.
God Bless,
Fr. Reginald Samuels