Dear Parishioners,

I pray you are each having a transforming Lenten season and are taking advantage of the additional prayer and confession opportunities offered by our parishes. With Triduum being less than five weeks away, preparations are well underway. If you are currently serving in a liturgical ministry, please be on the lookout for the MSP availability email as I’ll be completing the schedule for Triduum and the Easter season shortly. If you are interested in singing with the choir or playing an instrument for Triduum, there's still time to join us! We rehearse Wednesday evenings from 7:00pm-8:30pm at St. Raymond Parish. For a complete rehearsal schedule, please reach out to me via email. 

If you attend Mass regularly at either parish, you may notice occasionally the Responsorial Psalms do not exactly match the text from the lectionary. This is because within the past few months, we have been incorporating the Revised Grail Psalms into the liturgy. So you’re probably wondering, what does that mean?

When the original Grail Psalms were first translated in the 1950s and early 1960s, the desire to retain strict rhythmic patterns similar to those found in their original Hebrew setting was a primary principle for the translators. In attempting to adhere to these rhythmic patterns, they would often abbreviate or paraphrase a text in preference to a more literal translation. By doing so, some instances of the rich biblical imagery of the Psalter were lost. There also arose a desire to return to a more elevated sacred language, in contrast to the informal and colloquial approach of the 1950s and 1960s. These new revised texts completed in 2010, The Revised Grail Psalms, are permitted for liturgical use by the USCCB and will eventually be incorporated into the Church’s official liturgy books. 

May we continue to grow in charity and be constant in prayer this Lenten season. 

Tyler Andreae

Director of Music & Liturgy 

“God doesn’t give us more than we can handle.”

At least that is what many Christians say in the face of trial or loss. But is it actually helpful? And is it true? I believe it is rather unhelpful, and only partially true.

 

We don’t like to sit with sadness! It’s hard enough when it’s our own sorrow. We’d rather plunge into busyness or fixing or numbing with distractions than face our grief. But it’s especially hard when we are in the presence of other people’s pain. That’s when the advice or clichés come out!

First, we’ll try to fix it – if it seems fixable. We’ll be “generous” and offer to help; we’ll make suggestions for books or podcasts; or we’ll compare this person’s pain with our own or that of a friend – anything to help make the pain go away, because we don’t like to feel it, and we definitely don’t like to feel powerless.

In some cases (tragedies or definitive losses), there is often nothing we can do. When fixing doesn’t work, we start grabbing for clichés. Surely one of them will be the magic wand that will make this feeling of powerlessness go away! Surely one of them will help this person feel better so that I can feel better.

Are these clichés helpful? No, I would say not. They often have the effect of “blaming the victim” or shaming others for feeling the way they feel. Rather than compassion (“suffering with”), clichés are a way of stepping back from the pain of others and leaving them to suffer alone.

I suppose there is a time and a place for distracting or diverting from pain. Perhaps we are in a survival situation and totally lack the time, resources, or energy to face it. If mere survival is the best we can hope for at the moment, then we can indeed turn to our arsenal of distractions and find ways to minimize the pain.

Even when we are ready to face heartache, we are still human, meaning we are limited. We can’t face it all the time. It can be appropriate to take a break from our grieving, laugh together at a joke or a movie, plunge into a hobby or game, and so forth. A cliché could be helpful as permission to take a temporary break from the pain.

But if our Christian families and communities are unable to accompany people as they face pain and heartache, then where can they go? Jesus does not want his Church to be a place of mere survival, but God’s own hospital in which we experience healing, redemption, restoration, and total transformation. That only happens by facing our heartache, taking up our Cross, following Jesus, dying amidst our powerlessness, watching and waiting, and experiencing the newness of the Resurrection. If we desire to be “helpful” to those in pain, we must first walk this path ourselves – as Jesus did. We can’t give what we ourselves have not experienced.

Is there any truth to this expression, that “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle”? Sort of.  Here is what the apostle Paul actually says in Scripture:

“No trial has come to you but what is human. God is faithful and will not let you be tried beyond your strength; but with the trial he will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to bear it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

As you can see, the cliché is an oversimplification and distortion of what Scripture actually says.

Paul doesn’t attribute our trials directly to God’s agency. God permits or allows us to endure trials, but they are human. They are the result of a misuse of human freedom – by our first parents, by others who have caused harm, and by our own sins. Directly or indirectly, all trials in this life are the result of human sin. God allows these consequences because he has entrusted us with dignity, freedom, and true authority in our stewardship.

God is faithful. He is absolutely committed to accompanying us through every trial. He will never abandon us, and will never leave us without every means of assistance that we need to move through the trial.

God provides a way out. There is an actual exit to the trial. We tend to hunker down in our escape rooms, avoiding the heartache – and ultimately getting stuck. But Jesus himself, God’s own beloved Son, has plunged into our trials. He has gone there first, and has opened up a true path to new life. If we follow him faithfully, if we share in his suffering and death, we will experience a radical newness and expansiveness – and not just “one day” in heaven.

As we see in the saints, there is an amazing foretaste of this newness that comes even in this life. If you study their lives, you will find a stunning diversity of human personalities, all with two common features: (1) They endured enormous trials; (2) They were incredibly joyful followers of Jesus.

Like them, we will be able to bear our trials: because God is faithful to his promises, because Jesus has blazed a trail for us, because he accompanies us, and because he won’t allow us to be tested beyond our strength. Therefore, we can hope.

Hope is the answer in the face of heartache. Hope refuses to be killed by suffering (or by clichés!). Hope perseveres – not by naïve optimism, not by secular stratagem to avoid heartache, but by waiting persistently for our faithful God to fulfill all his promises. This is the hope of mother Mary standing at the foot of the Cross on Good Friday and at the tomb on Holy Saturday – believing God’s promise, staying present, enduring, pondering, and waiting. The joy of resurrection always comes to those who abide in hope.

May we be people of hope, this Lent and always!

We need help for various tasks at the parish. Dusting, vacuuming, and washing are just some of the ways we keep our parish a beautiful and welcoming place to worship and gather. Our experience tells us that the best help comes from within the parish. Please contact Bonnie Firkus if interested in helping.

Mar 10. KC Fish Fry. 4pm-7pm. St. Raymond
Mar 10. Stations of the Cross. 7pm. St. Mary

Mar 11 & 12. Marriage Blessings at Masses

Mar 12. Hospitality Sunday. 9:30am-10:30am. St. Raymond

Mar 12. Social Sunday. Noon-1pm. St. Mary

Mar 12. Catechist Master Class. Topic: God, the Father. 4pm. Virtual 

Mar 12. Stations of the Cross. 5pm. St. Raymond

Mar 13. Knights of Columbus Meeting. 7pm. St. Raymond

Mar 14. Catechism in a Year Discussion Group. 9am. St. Mary

Mar 14. Lenten Reflections “How to Pray and Discern God’s Will” 

             Presented by: Fr. Sakowski. 6pm-7pm. St. Mary

Mar 15. SMSR Parent/Child Activity Night: First Communion. 6pm. St. Raymond

Mar 16. Coffee Community. 8:45am. St. Raymond

Mar 16. Catechesis of the Good Shephard. 9:45am. St. Mary

Mar 16. Spanish Choir Rehearsal. 4:30pm. St. Mary

Mar 16. Elizabeth Ministry Ladies Night. 6pm. St. Mary

Mar 17. KC Fish Fry. 4pm-7pm. St. Raymond

Mar 17. Stations of the Cross. 7pm. St. Mary

Mar 19. Stations of the Cross. 5pm. St. Raymond

Mar 21. Catechism in a Year Discussion Group. 9am. St. Mary

Mar 23. Coffee Community. 8:45am. St. Raymond

Mar 23. Catechesis of the Good Shephard. 9:45am. St. Mary

Mar 23. Spanish Choir Rehearsal 4:30pm. St. Mary

Mar 24. KC Fish Fry. 4pm-7pm. St. Raymond

Mar 24. Stations of the Cross. 7pm. St. Mary

Mar 24. Stations of the Cross. 5pm. St. Raymond

There are many ways to financially invest in our communities. Would you prayerfully consider treating one of the parishes as one of your children in your will or estate planning? For more information contact Bonnie Firkus.