Lent is upon us! This Wednesday! Here we go! It is time for the Church’s yearly retreat where we focus on Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving in our faith lives as we seek to surrender the whole of ourselves to Jesus. I pray we can take our Lenten journey seriously as it is a great opportunity. I am still impacted by Lenten commitments I have made in past years, albeit I have maybe grown lax in some areas. Let’s seize the opportunity to grow greatly! Know that there will be resources forthcoming on entering into the season more deeply.

While we will not have an official parish Lenten Mission this year, there is a mission at St. Joe’s in Strongsville that I would HIGHLY recommend, to the degree that it would be an unofficial mission for us. Mr. Michael Gormley, “Gomer” as he is known, is a popular Catholic podcaster and speaker. He will be giving 3 talks on the Eucharist at St. Joe’s the evenings of March 24-26th. The theme is “E.A.T. Your Way to Heaven”. As a disclaimer, I will say that he is a candid speaker and at times he doesn’t mince words. Yet, I find him to be truthful and compelling. Please consider this mission as an important opportunity. You can find a flyer for the event in this bulletin.

You will notice on Wednesday that the blue Gather hymnals are no longer in the pews. There is an important reason for this. In our effort to promote active participation and the congregation fully singing, we realized that there needs to be enough books available for people to use. Our pews are very long in some places, so at least 3 books in each double holder are needed to provide enough coverage. That said, we have been using the red Breaking Bread books exclusively for some time and they contain the songs that we regularly use. Rest assured, we have plans for the Gather books so that they do not go to waste.