Congratulations to the First Communion Class of 2009

Congratulations to the First Communion Class of 2009. First Communion Mass will be celebrated at 10 AM Sunday, May 3, 2009.

Natalie Miranda Albert	Rees James Arceneaux
Sullivan Scout Busby	Christian Paul Calloura
Matthew James Courville	Jean-Luc Elton Doucet
Sam Dalton Hamilton	Ethan Saul Harmon
Gage Michael Joubert	Spencer Lanclos
Luke Christopher Menard	Christian Mark Miller
John Edward Mire III’	Cole Michael Ortego
Sarah Grace Ortego	Mallie Carol Phillips
Adam Michael Purser	Dylan Christopher Reed
Landon Drake Ridenour	Molly Rachal Trahan
Isabelle Julz Zerangue

Bulletin for the weekend of May 03, 2009 has been posted

The bulletin for the weekend of May 03, 2009 has been posted. Click here to see it.

The new calendar on the website has been updated with all events for the coming week along with prayer intention information for all of the masses. Take some time to look at our new calendar here.

Updates are also being made to our new St. Landry Catholic Church blog. You can get to the blog from the church home page under the Bulletins and News section or you can just click here to go to it.

Intentions of the Holy Father - May 2009

Pope Benedict's general prayer intention for May is:

"That the laity and the Christian communities may be responsible promoters of priestly and religious vocations".

His mission intention is:

"That the recently founded Catholic Churches, grateful to the Lord for the gift of faith, may be ready to share in the universal mission of the Church, offering their availability to preach the Gospel throughout the world".

These intentions fit well with the upcoming "Year for Priests" that will begin on 19 June and last until 19 June 2010. In fact, it is the 150th anniversary of the death of the Holy Curé d'Ars, John Mary Vianney, a true example of a pastor at the service of Christ's flock.

During this year, the St. Landry Catholic Church community hopes to emphasize vocations and the importance of the priesthood. This coincidently falls in the 100th year anniversary of the celebration of the first mass within the current church building.

First meeting of the Cemetery Tours group

St. Landry Church Parish has a long history that dates back to 1776. The cemetery on the grounds of the church dates back to that very beginning.

Over the years, the weather and elements have not been kind to the tombs of parishioners that have come before us. And that's where the Cemetery Tours come in.

Each year, on the two middle weekends of October, parishioners, the Opelousas Little Theatre, and other members of the community come together to portray people associated with the families buried in our cemetery. From governors and judges, bakers and soldiers, priests and slaves, house wives and festival queens, the people portrayed cover every nationality, race, and social status found in our parish.

All of the proceeds from our tour are used in restoring tombs of the departed that no longer have families to care for them.

Our first meeting for this year's tours was held tonight. The tentative dates and times of the tours will be:

Saturday, October 10, 6PM, 7PM, 8PM

Sunday, October 11, 2PM, 3PM

Saturday, October 17, 6PM, 7PM, 8PM

Sunday, October 18, 2PM, 3PM

More on the New Life Center

The New Life Center is located at 411 East Landry Street, Opelousas, Louisiana.

The project just completed encompasses the renovation of the fourth floor of the New Life Center, expanding the facility capacity by 20 additional motel style rooms with private bathrooms, to provide transitional housing for homeless women and children. Four of these newly renovated rooms will be used to house homeless female veterans. Additionally, the project included the renovation of space on the first floor to create four new staff offices.

Specific details of the project include the installation of a sprinkler system; individual room A/C and heating units; electrical wiring; vinyl flooring; fire alarm system; bathroom ventilation refurbishing the exterior fire escape and exterior doors; replacement of ceilings; repair and repainting of all walls and doors; installation of two large dehumidifiers to remove moisture from the facility; and the creation of two handicap bathrooms.

Donors who provided funding in the Adopt-A-Room program are:

Dr. and Mrs. Charles Bertrand

Mr. Spencer Boyd

Catholic Daughters of the Americas, Court St. Landry No. 119

Mr. and Mrs. Earl Champagne

Holy Cross St. Vincent de Paul

William and Angela Huckaby

Knights of Columbus Council 11270, Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church

Bryan and Therese LeBlanc

New Acadians Women's Club of Lafayette

Keith, Yvonne, Jared and Anna Normand

Ms. Carol Rice

Rotary Club of Opelousas Sunrise

Ms. Margaret Rucks, Rucks Family Foundation

St. Edmond's St. Vincent de Paul, Lafayette

Ms. Norma Vidrine

Westminster Christian Academy National Honor Society

Dedication of 4th floor renovations at the New Life Center

Bishop Michael Jarrell of the Diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana was in Opelousas today for the dedication of the newly renovated 4th floor of the New Life Center.

The New Life Center, located in Opelousas provides emergency shelter, transitional housing and supportive services for up to 37 homeless women and 31 children per night. All residents participate in case management where they are assisted with applying for mainstream benefits, entering school, obtaining employment and permanent housing. Residents also attend life skills sessions, jobcounseling and are referred to outside agencies for additional counseling. A chemical dependency program is also available for those women recovering from alcohol and/or drug addictions. All residents are provided with three meals a day, transportation, prescription assistance, clothing, diapers and toiletries.

For more information, click here.

From Yvonne Normand: "It brought tears to my eyes as I was there about 17 years ago when we started tearing down walls on the 1st and 2nd floor."

First Friday of the Month

This Friday, May 1, 2009, is the First Friday of the month. First Friday devotions date back to the 17th century within the Church.

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque received the twelve promises of Jesus for those devoted to His Sacred Heart. The twelfth promise is ...

The all-powerful love of My Heart will grant to all those who shall
receive Communion on the First Friday of nine consecutive months the grace of final repentance; they shall not die under my displeasure, nor without receiving their Sacraments; My heart shall be their assured refuge at that last hour.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church has the following two things to say about the Heart of Jesus ...

2669 The prayer of the Church venerates and honors the Heart of Jesus just as it invokes his most holy name. It adores the incarnate Word and his Heart which, out of love for men, he allowed to be pierced by our sins. Christian prayer loves to follow the way of the cross in the Savior's steps. The stations from the Praetorium to Golgotha and the tomb trace the way of Jesus, who by his holy Cross has redeemed the world.

478 Jesus knew and loved us each and all during his life, his agony and his Passion, and gave himself up for each one of us: "The Son of God. . . loved me and gave himself for me." He has loved us all with a human heart. For this reason, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced by our sins and for our salvation,"is quite rightly considered the chief sign and symbol of that. . . love with which the divine Redeemer continually loves the eternal Father and all human beings" without exception.

First Friday adoration begins at 7 AM in the chapel at Valentin Hall. It will continue until First Saturday mass at 8 AM Saturday morning.

To read more about St. Margaret Mary, click here. To read more about meditations, a novena, and an offering to the Sacred Heart, click here.

Festival high note is a French mass

The 23rd annual Festival International de Louisiane is a wonderful free festival in Lafayette. One of the highlights of the event is a mass en Francaise ... a mass celebrated in French. Father Bill Melancon from St. Peter's Catholic Church in Carencro was the celebrant. Read more about it here. J’ai beaucoup amié la messe.

Visit from Christian Foundation For Children and Aging

We had a nice visit at mass this morning from Father Peter Herley, O. P. representing the Christian Foundation For Children and Aging. He spoke about how this work provides a trustworthy way to actively participate in the social outreach of the Catholic Church and answer the Gospel call to serve the poor. CFCA is a lay Catholic organization that has served more than 475,000 children, youth and elderly in 25 developing countries since 1981 – empowering them to make more choices in their lives, live with dignity and reach their potential. To learn more, call (800) 875-6564 or visit CFCA online at http://www.cfcausa.org

Christ Our Light

We really had a beautiful Easter Vigil mass at St. Landry Catholic Church. Monsignor Robert Romero and Deacon John Miller can be seen here with the Easter candle and altar servers.

All new Contact Information page

The Contact Information page for the website has been totally updated. New links to our blog and twitter feed have been added. A link to send a message back to the parish office has been added. Even a Google Map directing you to the church is there. Take a look and drop us a message by clicking here.

Now on Twitter

In the 100th anniversary year of the building of our current church building, St. Landry Catholic Church is now on Twitter. Our account name there is StLandryCath. Follow us here.

Dr. Harmon's book now available

Dr. Richard Harmon’s book, “St. Landry Catholic Church - 100 years” is now available. 106 pages of beautiful photographs of our 100 year old church building along with information and history of the church is contained within. The price is $42 and it is available at the Catholic Booke Store, 2365 Larkspur Lane, Opelousas, LA as well as Andrepont Printing, 5043 I-49 South Service Road, Opelousas, LA.

Dr. Harmon's website has sample photos of the church that you can see by clicking here.

Bulletin for the weekend of April 26, 2009 has been posted

The bulletin for the weekend of April 26, 2009 has been posted. Click here to see it.

The new calendar on the website has been updated with all events for the coming week along with prayer intention information for all of the masses. Take some time to look at our new calendar here.

Updates are also being made to our new St. Landry Catholic Church blog. You can get to the blog from the church home page under the Bulletins and News section or you can just click here to go to it.

A study was run some time back that showed the number of people entering religious life in different dioceses across the nation. The one pattern that was found was that those dioceses that consistently had activity on the internet had a higher number of vocations. I think we have to make an effort here on the parish level. All of these new changes to the website and blog are part of that.

New feedback page

You can now email the parish office directly from the website.

Going to the website and clicking "Contact Info" will bring you to a page where all of the contact information for the church appears ... that's the address, phone numbers, and email address. A link there says, "Or click here to send an email message to the parish office."

Clicking that link brings you to this page.

This will make it easier for folks to contact our parish.

Father Lafleur Monument Photosynth

The Photosynth of the Lt. Father Verbis Lafleur Monument has been updated.

The controls that you click to look around the monument have been improved. Over to the right side are highlight photos. These allow you to quickly jump to certain features of the monument such as seeing it from all 4 directions or going direct to the reliefs sculpted into the base.

Take a look by clicking here. I think you'll enjoy the new features.

Event Calendar added

More updates are happening at the website.

This week, I've added an Event Calendar. This calendar will include the schedule for confessions, events happening around the parish, and the schedule of masses. You can click on each event to find out additional details. For the masses, you can even see the list of intentions --- which will be updated weekly. The calendar is a Google calendar so, if you maintain your own calendar on Google, it's easy to add events from the church calendar to your own calendar.

I've also begun adding the liturgical calendar to it. That way, you can look up a day and find out if it is the Tuesday of the 3rd Week of Easter or if it is the Feast of Justin, Martyr. The liturgical calendar is updated currently through May. I hope to have the entire year updated by the end of the week.

Take a look at the calendar by clicking here.

New look at the website

The website has finally received an overdue facelift.

New functionality will follow in a few days.

See here: the new look.

Monument of Lieutenant Father Verbis Lafleur

There is a beautiful monument erected in front of the church in remembrance of Lieutenant Father Verbis Lafleur.

A description of the monument is here.

A photo gallery of the church and monument is here.

And a new Photosynth of the monument ... a 3 dimensional viewing ... is available here.

Easter Week Mass Times

Mass Times for Holy Week:

Holy Thursday Mass - April 9, 6 PM
Good Friday - April 10, 6 PM
Holy Saturday Mass - April 11, 8 PM

Masses on Easter Sunday - April 12, 8 AM and 10 AM.

NO MASS at 5 PM