News - February 2021 RSS Feed

The Lord’s heart is on fire for you. He wants you to draw close to Him. He wants you to rest next to His Sacred Heart, to hear it beat, just like St. John the apostle did at the Last Supper. God really enjoys Lent. He enjoys it not because He wants to watch you suffer; not because He needs you to obey Him or show how important He is; no, He loves it because He gets to see you drawing closer to Him, even perhaps resting close to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and feeling the intense burning of that love for you. In this season the Lord sees so many trying together (each in their own way) to get closer to Him, and that is exactly why God loves Lent.

I hope your Lent has begun well. Jesus’ time in the desert without eating anything or 40 days may make our Lenten practices seem pretty small, but God is not concerned with your disciplines as much as He is with the spirit in which you do them. If I gave up coffee and wine and chocolate and sweets, only to be a bitter crank all the time, it wouldn’t be an offering pleasing to the Lord. What pleases Him is a contrite heart and afflicted spirit, one that admits sinfulness and honestly is working to grow in holiness, that is, in radical self -gift. May the Lord bless your journeys of 40 days!

Fr. Terry shares some renovation updates and reflections on the beginning of the Lenten season this week.

We are going to look more deeply into each priority of the pastoral plan. Today I want to focus on our third priority, “Accompaniment: Growing Together.” Why “accompaniment?" This pastoral priority (which is also a core value) is something that Pope Francis has stressed since his first days in the role of universal shepherd of the church. He models it beautifully himself, and his teaching in Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), especially paragraphs 169-173, gives us a helpful and convincing picture.