“The Most High is kind to the ungrateful and to the wicked, so be the children of the Most High; be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” Lk 6,35,36

Dear parishioners,

Today is special for four reasons. The first is simply that we have a beautiful gospel from Luke that can be summed up in the verse quoted above. We Christians are called, in imitation of the Father, to a love beyond all measure. What a privilege it is to live our human lives buoyed by such a lofty ideal.

The second is that today, we celebrate the rite of acceptance for those who will be baptized and confirmed at Easter, and the rite of welcoming, for those who are already baptized, and who will be confirmed at Easter. This is momentous. It signifies that these people are saying formally that based on what they have experienced thus far in their journey with RCIA, they want to be baptized, they want to be confirmed, they want to become fully members of the Body of Christ, the Church. It also means that we have determined that the Spirit is indeed at work in them, that they are indeed among God’s elect, and that we are prepared to baptize and confirm them, when the time has come. It is all God’s doing. Let us take pause today to ponder God’s mysterious ways, and to give thanks for the way in which, by the grace of God, “they come to us, they come to our light”.

The third reason today is special is that today is the first monthly collection by the Knights of Columbus of the goods you will provide for the benefit of The Door is Open and the Men’s Shelter. It is a wonderful thing that as a parish, we will be contributing on a monthly basis to these two all-important ministries in our archdiocesan church.

Finally the fourth reason that today is special is that we are officially launching the universal Synod on Synodality itself, in our parish. It’s serendipitous that our parish synod coincides exactly with the season of Lent. Lent is all about listening, to God in particular, but God typically speaks to us through one another, in the Church. How appropriate it is that we will spend this Lenten season listening to one another. The synod will take the form of conversation circles grouping together no more than six or seven people. You will have the options of participating either online or in person. The in-person gatherings will take place in the church basement, entrance through the glass doors on Austrey. For planning purposes, pre-registration will be required for both online and in person gatherings. Just as when we were pre-registering for attendance at mass, the pre-registration page will be accessible on the main page of the parish website effective Monday February 28. The actual conversation circles will begin Monday March 7. They will be offered simultaneously online and in person Monday and Wednesday evenings, and in the morning and early afternoon on Saturdays. The precise times will be on the pre-registration page.  This is assuming we are able to line up enough facilitators to cover all these times. If we were unable to find facilitators for some of these timeslots, they simply won’t appear on the pre-registration page. The focus of these conversations will simply be six questions that have been formulated by the archdiocese, and to which you will be invited to respond. These questions are available on the Synod postcards that we have been distributing for the past two Sundays and that will be available again at this Sunday’s masses. They are available as well in today’s parish bulletin. These conversation circles will be offered until the Saturday before Palm Sunday, or until the pre-registrations dry up! Please say a little prayer to God that our conversations will bear fruit, not just in our parish but in our archdiocese and in our universal Church. See this video of Archbishop Miller presenting the Synod. 

We thought we had an accompanist for the new Sunday 1:00 p.m. choir but apparently we don’t. If this is a ministry that you or someone you know would like to be involved in, email Rosa Kang, the director of the 1:00 p.m. choir, at [email protected]

Finally, a word about Ash Wednesday, which is coming up soon. Please check the parish bulletin for the schedule of Ash Wednesday masses. This year, for the benefit of those who are unable to attend any of the masses, or who are uncomfortable attending the masses, and for the benefit of the school parents who are coming to the parish anyway to pick up their children at the end of the school day, we will be offering distribution of ashes in the church from 2:30-4:00 p.m.

That’s it, I believe, for this week. Have a nice week, keep safe, God bless.
Fr. Guy