Dear Parishioners,
I hope these first seven days of Lent since Ash Wednesday have been a good start to Lent 2021 for you. If not, it's never to late to start anew.
The Sierra Family is highlighted this week. They might be on to something with disguised tofu for me to try.
Our parish-wide Almsgiving project this Lent is supporting our sister parish in Peru – Our Lord of Hope! If you do not have a family almsgiving project yet this year, consider watching this video together, print out the picture below, and collect family funds to support the mission. Holy Cross Parish has been helping our sister parish since 1998!
One family is putting “tickets” in that will be added up at the end of Lent and one online payment or check sent to Holy Cross Parish and added to one Parish transfer made to Peru. The Dad gave up Starbucks (so he puts one ticket in every day for $5.00), and one of the teens put a ticket in for an “optional” covid test expense she could have done to return to school instead of doing remote learning after traveling out of state. She choose to give this money to the mission (over $100.00) instead and did remote learning for the day. At the end of Lent, they are going to add up the money they would have spent on such “extra’s” and give it to the mission. We will have boxes available at the back of the church this weekend if you would like to take one home to be a part of this parish mission project! It is a wonderful to highlight our parish tradition of supporting our sister parish, a part of the mission work of the Congregation of Holy Cross.
This week we also posted on the resource page for families with kids ages 3 – 9, Loyola Press' Children's Stations of the Cross. We also added “Children Learn the Rosary” of the sorrowful mysteries! This is a nice companion to the Family Lent Calendar. The booklet has coloring pages and activities for each mystery, and a “how to pray the Rosary” introduction. Praying one decade a day after dinner or before bedtime is a beautiful way to honor Lent in your family. Learn just one mystery a week! If you do not have a printer at home, call Margaret at the office and she will be happy to print out a copy and mail it to you or make it available for pick up.
Don't forget tonight (Wednesdays of Lent) 7pm Adoration & Prayer for an hour in church in person or streamed using the Masses Live button on the homepage.
Friday, 7pm, Stations of the Cross in church and streamed.
Saturday extra Lenten hour for the Sacrament of Reconciliation 11am-noon in church- in person only.
That covers things for this week. Keep enjoying the milder weather, stay well, and keep walking humbly with God.
God Bless,
Fr. Brad