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March 18, 2022March 20 – 22, 2022
Casting Nets – Tony Brandt & Chris Stewart
Lenten Parish Mission
This could well be the best Lent ever for you as an individual and for us as a faith community. I guarantee you’ll rejoice in the witness of Tony Brandt and Chris Stewart. You’ll hear wonderful things about the Mission afterwards and how good it was and how challenging it was and how it helped bring those who attended to a new level of faith commitment. So rather than hearing the buzz afterwards, why not experience it for yourself. I am so very grateful to the Lenten Mission Team for all the hard work they did to prepare for the Mission: Ginny Murphy, Ryan and Tasha Beke, Laura Levy, Mark and Ginger Schroder, Carolyn Williams, Jan Roberts, Scott and Theresa Pottratz, Emily O’Rourke, and Delia Robinson.
Lenten Adoration and Reconciliation
Monday | March 28th | 5:30pm
Holy Hour in Church
A very basic Catholic practice during Lent is to confess our sins and seek out God’s great mercy in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. There will be exposition of the Blessed Sacrament from 5:30 to 6:30 on Monday, March 28th. Since Lent as a spiritual season often gets lost in the midst of a busy and secular culture, I encourage you to be a person who is serious about your faith and focus on Christ for this one hour during which Fr. John Lyons and Msgr. Jim Costigan and I will be hearing Confessions.
“O Lord, make this Lenten season different from the other ones. Let me find you again. Amen.”
-- Fr. Henri Nouwen
March 20, 2022 | Third Sunday of Lent | by the Faithful Disciple
Ex 3:1-8a, 13-15 | 1 Cor 10:1-6, 10-12 | Lk 13:1-9
GROW: Several years ago, my family gave me a blueberry bush for Mother’s Day. It has yet to produce a single berry. However, I can’t bring myself to remove it, and today’s Gospel encourages me to be patient (a Google search reveals that it can take several years for a blueberry bush to produce a harvest!). The parable of the fig tree shows us how patient God is with us. Like the fig tree, we may not bear fruit or feel as if we’re growing spiritually, even as we enter the second half of Lent. Yet Jesus teaches us that if we nurture our faith through prayer and repentance of our sins, we can always grow and blossom. Like the gardener, we need to be patient with ourselves as God is patient with us.
GO: It strikes me that in the parable of the fig tree, the gardener offered to cultivate the ground around it. Just as a tree needs light and water and a little individual TLC, it needs good soil. I think for us Catholics, that can be where our parish community and the broader Church come in. Through small actions such as greeting newcomers at Sunday Mass or volunteering in a parish ministry, we can become the fertile soil that nourishes not only our own faith, but that of the entire community. The 2021-23 Synod on Synodality invites us to share our faith and also to listen without judgment to the experiences of others. In doing so, we as a Church can grow stronger. As Pope Francis said in his opening prayer, “May this Synod be a true season of the Spirit! For we need the Spirit, the ever-new breath of God, who sets us free from every form of self-absorption, revives what is moribund, loosens shackles and spreads joy.”
STUDY: Learn about the Synod on Synodality: www.usccb.org/synod. Check your parish bulletin to see how you can get involved.
