This weekend we celebrate Laetare Sunday. We have passed the half-way point of Lent. I encourage everyone to stop and consider your Lenten journey. If your Lent has been disappointing so far, there are still two weeks before Holy Week. Our parish penance service will be held at 7 p.m. on Wed., April 9. If you have not yet been to confession during Lent, that is a date you might want to mark on your calendar.
This Sunday is also an important day in the life of our parish. We have a group of five adults who will be making a profession of faith in the Catholic Church and then be Confirmed and received their First Communion at our 9:00 Mass. After a year of preparation, we welcome them into the Catholic Church!
I offer thanks to all those who took part in our 40 Hours Devotion, particularly to those who came to worship in the middle of the night. What a beautiful gift that is to the Lord and also to the parish.
I offer a reminder that we have Adoration in our daily Mass chapel each Wednesday of Lent from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. Stop by any time during the day and spend some quiet time with the Lord.
Those who join us for the Stations of the Cross on Friday evenings will note a change. For the past several years we have combined the Stations with Adoration and Benediction. With a new document from the Vatican and teachings from the USCCB, we are no longer allowed to combine these two. For the rest of Lent, we are simply offering Stations on Fridays at 7 p.m. Once Lent is over, we will return to our Holy Hour with Benediction.
We are finally ready to continue our school window project. We removed one of the portable classroom units and moved the other farther from the buildings. It is hooked up with enough electricity for heat as well as internet service, fire alarm service and a connection to the public address system in the school. As I am writing this column we are awaiting final inspections to get our permits. When we move two classes of sixth-graders into the portable classrooms the construction crews will finally be able to resume their work, two classrooms at a time. The entire project should now be easily done by the end of summer.
