Hello, Friends:

Please pray for the confirmation III students who will be on retreat next weekend. Jayne, Anton and several folks will make up the retreat team and have worked hard to put the retreat experience together; they have done a great job. We’ll be traveling up to the Sacramento Mountain Methodist Assembly camp ground on Friday evening and returning on Sunday, after mass. This “mountain top” Experience is usually a turning point in the lives of your young children; please pray that they open their heart to receive the good news of the Holy Spirit.

Thanks to all of you who supported last weekend’s appeal for Food for the Poor. We’re continuing our parish Lenten Almsgiving project and ask for your prayers and support. We’d really like to reach our goal and with your help we will.

In a recent article Pope Francis spoke about the transformative power that confession can be for us. I realize that we’ve already hosted our parish penance service but there are several scheduled for next week, one at Holy Cross and other at Immaculate Heart. Please consider making confession a priority in the next several weeks, before Easter!

​Fr. Ray

Hello, friends:

As some of you know I was on a week-long discernment retreat with the Augustinian’s last week. I met the other two prenovices, Tom and Spencer, who I’ll be living with for a year. Our spiritual director, Fr. Jim, an 87 year old friar, who lives very much in the spirit of Pope Francis led the retreat. The charism of the OSA’s (Order of St. Augustine) is community; so everything, their way of life, is centered on fostering an authentic and genuine community life. The friars are very intentional in what they do in common: eat, pray and work. I discovered that they aren’t rushed in anything that they do, whether that’s praying before the Blessed Sacrament or simply spending quality time at the dinner table, conversing and creating a playful banter that St. Augustine encourages in his rule. The retreat experience was very encouraging and affirming; thanks for all of your prayers and know that you all were in my prayers as well.

Fr. Emmanuel and I will be away for the weekend as we had previously scheduled a priest from Food for the Poor to cover the masses. The parish has been generous in its support of this initiative; if you’re able please consider making a donation to this very important ministry.

I’d like to offer my thanks to all of you who have already made a contribution to our Lenten Almsgiving project or have taken a shopping list home. We’re really excited about the great possibilities that we have to share our resources with those who are less fortunate. I know I told you that I’d write about the last of the Lenten pillars, that of fasting, but I’ll wait to do that next week.

​Fr. Ray

Hello, friends:

We're in just the first of the six week period of Lent. How's it going so far? Last week I recommended a couple of concrete ways to help us along the path to prayer; those being attending daily mass and prayerfully walking through the Stations of the Cross.

This week I'd like to share about our parish almsgiving project. This year's focus is on hunger and how we can better respond to that need in a very practical way. We're inviting folks to become more informed and intentionally engaged; informed about those folks who are hungry to learn more about their particular situations and to offer our assistance. Sometimes it's more convenient to simply write a check and be done with the project, but we're asking you to go a step further and to pick up a list of food items and to shop, purchase and then drop those items off at the church. In doing so, we're hoping to create a more intentional way of reaching out to and assisting a person in need. We're hoping to collect enough food baskets to feed 250 families. If, for whatever reason, you're simply not able to shop for the project, you're free to offer a monetary donation.

​Each week, at the weekend masses, a family will bring up a food basket, as a way to help us grow in awareness and to pray for all those who are hungry. You're able to acquire a shopping list either at the back of the parish hall or go onto our parish website and you can download the information from there. I appreciate your generous consideration for our Lenten almsgiving project. Next week we'll talk about fasting and its importance! Have a blessed week!

Fr. Ray

Dear friends,

Welcome to the Lenten season! Ash Wednesday is the official beginning to this season in which we are called to observe the traditional pillars of the Lenten journey; they are prayer, fasting and almsgiving. I’d like to offer a couple of practical suggestions for each, as a way to better engage this very short pilgrimage to Easter. 

Prayer is sometimes daunting and overwhelming, even as much  as we desire to pray more or better, it’s elusive and can lead to frustration. I might suggest daily mass and Stations of the Cross as a way to enter into the mystery of prayer. The mass is the best prayer of the church; it’s familiar and isn’t that difficult to try and make daily mass once or twice a week. The Stations of the Cross offer us a pattern; we’re able to walk and watch Jesus as he  makes his way to the cross, but we’re reminded that it doesn’t end at the cross. We’re invited to walk with Jesus to the glory of His resurrection on Easter Sunday. I’ll talk about almsgiving and fasting next weekend.

Please keep me in your prayers. I’ll be leaving on Thursday, March 2, for a week long discernment retreat at the formation house that’s housed very near Villanova. I’ll be joining the others who will form the novitiate class that officially begins on August 15, 2017. I’ll be joining the Midwest province, which is named after Our Mother of Good Counsel.

Msgr. John Anderson is offering a six week Lenten series that will follow the Friday Stations of the Cross during the soup supper. If you’re able please plan on attending the series; I’m sure that he’ll offer a great perspective on the ministry of Jesus.

Fr. Ray