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 Dear
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Today we celebrate our Fifth Sunday of our Lenten season.
Next weekend, believe it or not, is Palm Sunday. It really has
been a remarkable past few weeks and I certainly hope and pray
that you are getting as much out of this Lent as I have been.
These have been some very beautiful days of renewal. We thank
God for all of the good that He is doing in our midst! Oh Lord,
reign in me!
We had hoped to take care of a little issue a couple of
weeks ago, by putting out notices on the table in the church
narthex and on the information table in the entrance to the
Blessed Sacrament Chapel, but since these notices haven’t seemed
to have worked, I now find myself forced to address a “little”
thing, that has become a big thing, in the letter this week.
Someone is putting out multiple copies of a piece of paper
entitled “The St. Jude Novena for Desperate Cases”, both in
church and in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel. This is not a
novena and nor is it really a prayer. Instead, this paper
represents superstitious scare tactics that have no place in the
Church. Working on much the same principles as do those chain
letters, these papers try and scare folks into asking for St.
Jude’s intercession. We are asking that whoever is making
copies of and disseminating this false devotion stop doing so
immediately here at St. Maria Goretti. Any copies of the false
devotion are being picked up and destroyed. If you see them
laying around anywhere here, I would ask that you too would
throw them away God’s will cannot be manipulated by making a
number of copies of a paper for several days and then waiting
for the results. We put our trust in God’s Divine will, His
mercy, and His providence. It is my sincere hope, now that all
of us are aware that this is wrong, that this “little” issue
will now go away.
A few weeks ago, while writing on the Church’s on-going
effort to protect children and our Diocese’ new pro-active
approach, I mentioned that we were in the process of inviting an
expert in to speak about what parents and all of us in the
Church need to know about protecting our children on the
computer. I am very pleased to report to you this week that
this program has been finalized, and that on April 12th,
from 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM, in the Parish Hall, our special guest
speaker will be with us with a presentation entitled: “Computers
Don’t Hurt Kids: Predators Do!” Please write this date down and
plan now on attending. I invite you to join us and learn more
about what we need to do to protect our children in 2007,
especially on the Internet. According to the Justice
Department, one in every five children have received unwanted
sexual advances on the internet. Today, another concern is
Internet Bullying. We need to know how to identify it and what
to do about it. Your child could be a target without you even
knowing about it. The time for us all to educate ourselves is
now. Knowledge and empowerment are key to solving this
problem. If you have children, and even if you don’t have
children, please come and join us for this educational and
practical evening to help all of us protect our children.
Working together as Church, we can beat some of these terrible
things going on in our world. But we are going to have to work
together to do it!
I know we mentioned it last week at all our Masses, but
I did want to once again thank all of the men from the Holy Name
Society for three wonderful fish fries that took place this
Lent, including the one this past Friday evening. It was a lot
of work, but the fish was delicious and everybody had a
wonderful time. It seems that each year we get more and more
folks from the local community joining us for the fish fries.
For many of them, it is the first time that they have visited
St. Maria Goretti. Several of the local parishes have fish
fries and Lenten dinners, but almost all of them contract out
the cooking of the fish, because it is not an easy thing to get
right. I am so proud of our guys for doing it all by
themselves. When the Holy Name Society first told me a couple
of years ago that they wanted to try it all on their own, I was
very skeptical at first. I envisioned very greasy, very heavy
fish that would truly be a penance for all of us to eat. Man,
was I wrong! Guys, you do great fish! I don’t think Long John
Silver’s is shaking in their boots yet, but they should be,
because your fish is much better and much lighter. Thanks for
some great meals, guys!
We’ve got just two more Fridays left in Lent 2007.
The season has gone fast this year. This year has gone fast
this year! May each of us stay true to our commitments! Now is
not the time to back off. Now is the time to do even more to
show our love for Jesus. Keep up the good work.
In Christ,
Fr. Kevin
Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.
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