LENTEN MISSION AT ST. ELIZABETH 

Friday, March 15, 7-8, with optional Adoration until 8:30. Presented by Deacon Michael. Join us and bring a friend or neighbor.

Lent is the principal penitential season in the Church year. All the Christian faithful are urged to develop and maintain a voluntary program of self-denial (in addition to the Lenten regulations which follow), serious prayer, and the performing of deeds of charity and mercy, including the giving of alms.

Prayerfully consider what your prayer, fasting, and almsgiving will include this year.

1. ABSTINENCE - Everyone 14 years of age and over is bound to abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday and all the Fridays of Lent.

2. FASTING - Everyone 18 years of age and under 59 is required to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. On these two days of fast and abstinence, only one full meatless meal is permitted. Two other meatless meals, sufficient to maintain strength may be taken according to each person’s needs, but together these two should not equal another full meal. Eating between meals is not permitted, but liquids (including milk and fruit juices) are allowed.

3. To disregard completely the law of fast and abstinence is seriously sinful.

STATIONS OF THE CROSS 

Join us for the traditional devotion of the Stations of the Cross in the church at 3 p.m. each Friday this Lent. It takes about 20 minutes, and would be a wonderful addition to your school pickup routine or other Friday afternoon routine. We hope you’ll join us in this prayer this Lent.

Following up on the survey responses regarding outreach: There were parishioners that commented we should be taking Holy Communion to our homebound parishioners.

In fact, we do have an outreach to our homebound that have requested receiving communion. Along with Father Alfred, Deacon Michael, Deacon Daniel, Seminarian Devin, and a team of Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, we take communion through the week and on weekends.

You may have seen the black burses worn around the neck by some Eucharistic Ministers. We wear burses to safely and discretely carry the golden pyxes holding con-secrated hosts to the homebound. The hosts are carried in a small round gold pyx held within the burse to keep Jesus safe on our journey.

We know that we are not worthy to take Jesus out of his home, but we are willing to prepare ourselves to do the service for the Glory of God. The Eucharistic Ministers often take time to visit with the homebound, take them bulletins, and any other handouts: such as prayer books, palms, and sometimes goodies from the Harmony Café.

The homebound parishioners are very humble and gracious, and sometimes feel like they are taking up too much of our time. That is not the case. The blessings we receive by doing this ministry outweighs any loss of time. Everyone who helps with this ministry expresses what a joy and a blessing it is to be able to take part in it, even if they’re just taking Communion to only one person any given Sunday.

If you know of a parishioner that needs this ministry, even if for a brief period after illness or surgery, please reach out to the parish office, and it will be determined if we can add them to our list.

Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion: If you are not doing this ministry yet, please consider getting approved and trained. At this time, we have enough that the rotation is usually once a month to visit a few people, but with addition of new names we may need more to help. Or you could consistently visit one person each weekend and ease the burden on the rest of the rotating team.

LADIES SODALITY KENTUCKY TRIP 

Ladies Sodality is planning a fall trip to the Ark Encounter & Creation Museum in Kentucky. The trip will begin early on September 23 with return home on the 24th. Bus is $120.50 per person; admission tickets are $80. Hotel reservations pending, but the plan is to have breakfast at the hotel and use meal vouchers at the Ark ($16.99) and Creation Museum ($13.77) Interested? Contact Pam Winn at 618-641-7274 ASAP. We need commitments by May 15 and money for bus and admission by July 1.

The Picnic start-up meeting for Chairpersons has been set for Sunday, April 7 from 4-6 p.m. in the Cafeteria. Hope everyone is excited again for three “Fun Days in the Sun.” 

We are in search of chairpersons for the picnic, please consider helping and getting involved.

These are the areas in which we need help:

• We need Dining Room chairpersons, one for both, either Friday or Saturday dinners. This is a cool job! It is in the air-conditioned cafeteria. This job consists of table bussing, light cleaning, drinks and ice replenishing and other small tasks. Basically, keeping our dinner patrons coming in to sit down, cool off and enjoy dinner in a clean environment.

• We need a co-chairperson to help Rosa Luna with the Mexican Food Booth. This is the current top gross revenue food booth at our picnic, is a fan favorite and is a great asset to our picnic

.• We need a co-chairperson to help with Valerie Kohl in the Kids Game Booth’s and to transition taking this Leadership over in 2025. This is a fun and rewarding booth to watch and see the kids play challenging games and win prizes. Kevin has already transitioned to another booth and Valerie would like to join him at that booth, too.

• We need a co-chairperson to help Paul Hellrich with the Parking Lot. This is a vital part for our visiting patrons to leave their vehicles in an organized parking lot, reducing liability damages to vehicles and patrons.

• We need a chairperson, co-chairperson, and team for our ground clean-up day and night. This is an especially important picnic team(s) that are a vital part of a clean successful weekend. The day (operational times) grounds team would keep our trash receptables emptied and do minor details of picking up trash. The night team (after operational time) will clean up the grounds so we can do it all over again the next day.

There is powered equipment that helps with this process during the night and/or early mornings. If these chairperson volunteers are still vacant, by picnic time, we have no other choice but to hire this out, which would affect our profitability. Please consider.

Please call me or any chairperson listed above and let us know your interests. We would love to have new or past volunteers get involved. Thank you to those already involved and thanks in advance to those considering getting involved. Then Join Us for the Start-up meeting for your new endeavor.

Picnic Chairperson, 

Tim Domagalski 

618-304-6074

We want to thank everyone who attended the banquet. Here are the March and ban-quet winners: $150 #5 Cale & Jenny Clem-ents; $1,000 #20 Paul & Joyce Mills; $500 #106 Jean Schwartzkopf; $500 #112 Marilyn Doneff & Ralph Luna; $250 #18 Dennis & Debbie Krystopa; $250 #105 Alan & Christa Willaredt; $250 #41 Joe Schulte; $250 #36 Kevin & Michelle Boschert.We hope everyone enjoyed the evening and hope to see you all next year!

PRO-LIFE MINISTRY MEETING 

Are you interested in pro-life ministry or events in our community? Please join us on Wednesday, March 27th at 6 p.m. in the Harmony Room for a meeting to discuss pro life issues and how we might form a group to pray for and support these issues. Please pray and consider joining us.