Happy Laetare Sunday! The name comes from the first words of the Entrance Antiphon for Mass, “Laetare Jerusalem” — “Rejoice, O Jerusalem”. This Sunday marks the half-way point of the Lenten season, even though the Thursday before Laetare Sunday is the actual middle day of Lent. Fun fact, The Fourth Sunday of Lent was also previously observed as Mothering Sunday, in reference to Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, where the faithful are called “sons and daughters of God”. Families visited the church where they were baptized, or made offerings to the cathedral, or mother-church, on this Sunday.

Speaking of joyfulness, we have the very exciting official news that parishioner Dale Shafer will be ordained by Bp. Malesic coming up in May!!! He has been in formation for some years and is ready to lay down his life in Diaconal service to the Church. The Ordination Mass will be at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist at 10am on Saturday, May 3rd. If you are interested in attending, but don’t want to have to drive and park downtown, we are looking into chartering a bus from the parish. If you are interested in joining with a return of mid-to-late afternoon (possibility of a lunch stop), please contact the office.

I know that I said that I was going to be launching a podcast from the book series “Why We are Catholic” Trust me in that this will happen, yet it is a busy time of year with all of the Lenten activity. Until then, you can tune into some of the episodes of a podcast that I did at St. Gabriels, “Coffee Conversations”. They have new hosts now, but I helped with the first 70 episodes on a caffeinated smattering of topics. (June 10, 2023 and prior). You can find it here: https://coffeeconversations.buzzsprout.com/1482166/episodes You can also find the episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, etc.