Pastor's Corner for Sunday, February 23, 2025

Ash Wednesday is March 5th this year and we have many exciting things happening during Lent to deepen our faith, including our small group campaign, our confirmation preparation and our first communion preparation. Please pray for the gifts of the Holy Spirit on all these initiatives!

Small Groups: Our first parish-wide small group campaign begins the week of March 1st. Small groups will begin meeting weekly and will continue for 6 weeks (the week before Holy Week). We have well over a hundred participants and our hosts have been trained and are ready to help facilitate some great discussions. The book that we are giving away, "Rebuilt Faith, a Handbook for Skeptical Catholics," is a great guide for us us on the path of discipleship. I am part of one of the small groups myself and I look forward to the journey with you. I'm very excited to see the transformation that takes place in our parish through the use of this one, common resource.

In addition to the small groups themselves, we have created a small group prayer team, under the leadership of Mariela Nieves-DeSouza and Angelina Carrier. This is one of the reasons we are moving adoration and confession from 5:00 pm on Tuesday to 7:00 pm on Tuesday. Starting Feb. 25th, we have set aside some of those Tuesday evening adoration nights to pray specifically for the success of our small group campaign. Even if you are not part of a small group (yet), please help us pray for its transformative success.

The world needs more faith, more "Jesus" and His saving message. But we also need companionship. As we discussed at our RCIA meeting last week (we have 7 people being received into the church this easter, and one young person being baptized on Saturday March 1st), as our life changes and our faith deepens, sometimes this changes our relationships with our friends who are not on this same journey. This is natural and not to be feared, nor does Jesus want us to go through life alone - we need all our friends! But to paraphrase one young man from RCIA, it's so great to have even just one friend who is on this journey together of faith with me and we can support each other and encourage each other. This is what small groups are all about. And when we change our lives to become more like Christ, we experience a deep inner peace that we need not fear.

Confirmation: Speaking of being baptized, we have one young man in grade 8 in our confirmation program who will be baptized at the 5:00 pm Mass on Saturday March 1st. This is a special Mass because we are introducing all of our confirmation candidates at a special confirmation blessing service. The sacrament of confirmation will be conferred on our confirmation candidates this year is on Thursday May 7th. Please continue to pray for our confirmation candidates.

First Communion: Our first communion candidates are also eagerly preparing, I have invited the families to join us every second Saturday at 4:00 pm for some extra preparation. I have already been reaching out directly to our first communion parents, if you have not received notice about this, please let me know.

Please continue to pray for our parish renewal and especially for all those willing to step forward and deepen their relationship with Christ.

Fr. Paul