Holy Week Confessions
Confessions during Holy Week are being held on Monday, 26 March and on Good Friday (30 March) from 5:30 to 6:30 pm; and on Holy Saturday from 3:00 to 4:00 pm.
Good Friday
Please join us on Good Friday for a 3 pm Celebration of the Lord’s Passion. There will be no Holy Mass but there will be distribution and reception of Holy Communion per tradition. Come also at that time to venerate the Holy Cross and partake in the reading of the Lord’s Passion. At 7 pm we will also have the Stations of the Cross so we can further prayerfully unite ourselves to our suffering Lord.
Holy Thursday
On Holy Thursday, 29 March, our parish will celebrate our Catholic liturgy in the morning at 9 am by praying the Divine Office. At 7 pm we will celebrate the Mass of the Lord’s Supper after which the Blessed Sacrament will be reposed in our Eucharistic Chapel for Adoration until 11 pm. At 8 pm parishioners are invited to jump on a bus leaving from our parking lot to participate in the Visitation of the Seven Churches, a tradition that began in the 16th century in Rome by St. Phillip Neri. We will visit seven deanery churches and should return to our parish church by 10:30 pm.
Tenebrae Service
On the Wednesday of Holy Week, 28 March, we will hold our annual Tenebrae Service which begins at 7 pm in the parish church. This is a very solemn service which meditates on Sacred Scripture, especially the Lamentations of Jeremiah, in preparation of the Holy Triduum which begins the next day on Holy Thursday. Don’t miss out on this very beautiful tradition.
Of Invitation
The New Evangelization began with a noble purpose. Bishops, priests, laity were all called to join together in a great project “to deepen our faith, believe in the Gospel message and go forth to proclaim the Gospel”.
This three step process was well-conceived: before one goes out to proclaim the Good News, one must first believe fervently in what one is proclaiming; in order to believe fervently in what one proclaims, one must first deepen one’s faith. Since proclaiming and believing depend heartily upon deepening, it is with deepening that this promising project should have started (and remained).
The problem with deepening, however, is that it takes a long time and much effort. Anyone who has ever done any digging knows that the deeper one goes the harder the soil becomes. Then there are the stones one comes up against. These need to be removed in order to go deeper; and if a stone is big, then one needs not only to deepen but to widen.
And so it goes in the spiritual life. Those who go deep meet with many challenges requiring them to broaden as they deepen. Further, since deepening the faith of one person requires part or all of a lifetime, the deepening of faith for an entire people will take a generation. God himself discovered this with the Israelites in the desert (Dt 1:35).
If only the New Evangelizers had come equipped with the patience of God. But they didn’t. Many have succumbed to the convenience and expediency of the people and the age. Catchy videos, social media, and a plethora of blogs and books which barely break the surface became their spades of choice; while apologetics, homiletics, catechesis, liturgy and daily presence and diligence, the instruments truly needed to deepen the faith, were seen as too cumbersome for a Church pursued hard by bold secularization. Evangelization – too difficult to pursue even in its first stage – was replaced by invitation: just welcome everyone back and we’ll sort it all out later.
Many in the Church were glad and relieved to replace evangelization with invitation. But they didn’t do their research or they would have discovered that this way doesn’t even work for God (Mt 22: 1-14).
In order to form his Twelve Apostles, Jesus poured his new teaching into new wineskins (Mk 2:22), that is, into hearts willing to accept His Passion on the Cross. Initially, they did not understand this new way (Mk 9:32) and some first refused to believe it (Mt 16:22). So Jesus kept on deepening their understanding and strengthening their belief before sending them out to proclaim the gospel of His redemptive suffering (i.e. a three step plan).
All this preparation and formation by Jesus centered on one particular aim: to ready the Apostles to take up their crosses and follow Him and thus serve as an example for the flock to do the same.
Jesus came equipped for a full evangelization, so while deepening the faith of his Apostles He moved on to step two proclaiming, “believe in the Gospel”, while linking this directly with repentance (Mk 1:15). And as far as repentance goes… well… everyone receives an invitation to that.