How quickly the Lenten season passes. Next Sunday, March 20th, begins Holy Week. Weather permitting, the 11 AM mass will begin out in the grotto, with the blessing of palm and the triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
Schedule for Holy Week:
Confessions: Mon, Tues, Wed – after the 8am mass until ……
Wed. March 23rd: 2:30 pm – Passion of the Lord
led by the 8th grade. (a variation on the stations)
Holy Thursday:
8:00 a.m. Morning Prayer
10:00 a.m. Chrism Mass –at the Cathedral
7:00 p.m. Mass of the Lord’s Supper
Adoration begins after Mass
11:45 p.m. Night Prayer
Good Friday*
8:00 am: Morning Prayer
7:00 pm: Celebration of the Lord’s Passion
Holy Saturday
8:00 am: Morning Prayer
8:00 pm: Easter Vigil
Easter Sunday
8:00 a.m. Mass
11:00 a.m. Mass
*NOTE:, there are no formal Stations of the Cross on Good Friday. Instead, the church will be open and the booklets there, from noon till 3:30…
Finally, from Bishop Robert Barron, for those who feel outside of the life of grace: “You heard of my former way of life in Judaism,” Paul says with almost comical laconicism. “How I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it.
Let those words sink in. Paul wasn’t just opposed to Christianity; he didn’t simply argue against it or ignore it. He actively,brutally, and violently persecuted it.
The Acts of the Apostles speaks of Paul “breathing murderous threats” and seeking to bring Christians back in chains. He was, in a word, about as far from Christian faith as you could get. He was spiritually dead.
Yet Christ brought him back to life: “When God, who from my mother’s womb had set me apart and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me…” (Galatians
1:15).
God fashioned Paul’s Christian faith from nothing, and here’s the application for all of us: don’t give up hope, evenwhen you are in desperate straits. Don’t surrender, even whenthings seem utterly void of meaning and hope.
You may be on your last legs; you may have nothing left in the tank; you may be moving in the wrong direction. But don’tgive up! God’s grace can bring you back and renew your life
again.”