Happy Sunday!

We are very glad to welcome Fr. Dan Estes SOLT, this weekend to preach our Masses in preparation for our parish mission. The theme of the mission is "Hope for our Times". Fr. Dan is a member of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity. He has been ordained for eighteen years and served on the Turtle Mountain Reservation in Belcourt, North Dakota for four years as an associate pastor and as a principal for a small Catholic school. He also served for four and a half years in Benque Viejo del Carmen, Belize, as the Pastor of Mount Carmel Parish which included three missions, four primary schools and a high school with over 2000 students. In 2008, he was assigned to Our Lady of Corpus Christi, a liberal arts institute, as Vice-President. From July of 2010 until July 2017, he was the director of Our Lady of Corpus Christi, which serves as a retreat center. Since July 2017, he has been the director of Santa Maria del Mexicano which is a home for children and elderly serving some 200 children ages 618 and about 25 elderly located in Colón, Queretaro, Mexico.

Fr. Dan has given parish missions, retreats to religious, as well as retreats based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius and healing retreats.

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Happy Sunday!

On this Second Sunday of Lent we hear in our first reading about the call of Abram to become a great nation. God invites and Abram responds. This is a simple but important rule in the spiritual life, to listen attentively to the voice of God and respond. The Collect Prayer for mass this Sunday reads, "O God, who have commanded us to listen to your beloved Son, be pleased, we pray, to nourish us inwardly by your word, that, with spiritual sight made pure, we may rejoice to behold your glory." In this prayer we are acknowledging that God commands us to listen to Jesus, and when we do this we are better prepared to behold his glory. For Abram, this was realized in a material sense as God blessed him with abundance. In our own day, we set our sights, presently, on the glory of Easter, and eternally, on our heavenly homeland.

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Happy Sunday and Happy Lent!

Just like that Lent has begun! Thank you to everyone who helped with our preparations for Ash Wednesday liturgies. Thank you as well to everyone who has volunteered to work at the Fish Fry. Last year I arrived in the middle of Lent and I was so pleased to be able to attend the Fish Fry, eat delicious food, and see how much everyone cares about our amazing parish. I am looking forward to year 2!

Throughout the season of Lent the Church invites us to consider, in a particular way, how to grow in holiness through the practices of fasting, almsgiving, and prayer. Each of these practices helps us to move our hearts and minds closer to the Blessed Trinity. When we fast, whether through days of fasting, or abstaining from certain types of foods, the absence of food is an invitation to turn our thoughts to God. One of my favorite prayers to pray when offering up something, whether in terms of fasting or in another difficulty comes from Our Lady of Fatima. "O my Jesus, I offer this for love of Thee, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary."

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