Homily for Palm Sunday

Homilies are now available to download and listen to!

As part of our answering the challenge of the Holy Father to go out and evangelize utilizing new technologies, we're now offering the homily each week for download. Clicking the link to the homily should download it and automatically start it playing in whatever music player your computer is set up with.

On the technical side, the file sizes are about 5 megs which means it may a minute or two to download on slower Internet connections. It is also an MP3 formatted file which means that these are essentially podcasts. Don't worry if all the technical words don't mean much to you. It means we're using the latest in technology in order to make sure our church parish can reach the most people.

The current week's homily is available on a link on the front page of the website next to the link for the current week's bulletin. On the page with the prior bulletins, the corresponding homily will be sitting side by side with its bulletin. We started on the anniversary of the start of the Catholic Church, Pentecost Sunday --- over five years ago. This mass, Palm Sunday, is our three hundred and seventy seventh podcast to be posted. The homily is given by Deacon Sammy Diesi.

So, take a listen and let us know what you think. Click here to download the homily from St. Landry Catholic Church, Opelousas, Louisiana.

Bulletin for week of March 29, 2015 and the Pastor's Corner

The Pastor’s Corner 

Today we celebrate Passion Sunday, or Palm Sunday. It marks the beginning of our remembrance this week of the events that give rise to our salvation.  There are several special liturgies and other events this week.  Please take a look at the insert in this bulletin for our Holy Week schedule of liturgies and events.  A special effort should be made by each of us to attend the major liturgies of the Easter Triduum, that is Holy Thursday Mass celebrating the institution of the Eucharist, Good Friday Services commemorating the Lord's Passion and Death, and the Easter Vigil. We are blessed that we will have one new parishioner being received into the Church at the Easter Vigil, as well as two of our brothers receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation.

The Holy Week Liturgies are moving and beautiful, and a fitting way to celebrate these most important events of our salvation.  Easter weekend often begins early, with our children getting out of school and many places of employment closing for the holiday.  This gives us an opportunity with the extra time given to us for the holiday weekend, an opportunity to take part in the Easter Triduum services.  It is understandable that sometimes family celebrations of the holiday weekend begin early, especially when people we love and do not get to see often come from out of town.  However, we cannot understand or fully appreciate Easter if we don't both understand and appreciate Jesus' act of love on Good Friday.  A thought for reflection is that if we can make time for other social events during these holidays, then should we not also be able to make time to attend the Triduum Services, maybe with our out of town visitors?  If we are not able or are not willing to make the time, then we should also ask ourselves if we need to examine our priorities and change them.

This week we also celebrate on Thursday, April 2, the 106th anniversary of the first Mass celebrated in our current church building.  We should take time to give thanks to God for our beautiful church and for the people who in their gifts of time, talent and treasure left such a wonderful spiritual legacy from which we benefit so greatly!

Now is also an appropriate time to look ahead to the Easter Season.  There will be much going on after Easter in our parish, so please mark your calendars and, if possible, attend the following celebrations:

            April 12, 2015 - 1st Communion (10am Mass);

            April 26, 2015 - Annual Parish Easter Picnic following the 10am Mass (alternate weather date is May 3);

            May 24, 2015 - Confirmation (5pm Mass).

These parish celebrations of the sacraments and our parish picnic highlight the joy of the Easter Season in our parish community. As we continue to make our Lenten journey, let us renew our efforts in the discipline of prayer, almsgiving and fasting so we can more deeply appreciate and celebrate the gift of Easter!

      God Bless

      Father James Brady

The bulletin for the week of March 29, 2015 has been posted. Click here to see it.

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

Updates are also being made to our 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.

Don't forget, we're also sending out live updates via Twitter. Our Twitter name is StLandryCath. You can see updates by clicking here.

And we're also on Facebook --- friend us! You can see our updates on our page SaintLandryCatholicChurch.

Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Lent

Homilies are now available to download and listen to!

As part of our answering the challenge of the Holy Father to go out and evangelize utilizing new technologies, we're now offering the homily each week for download. Clicking the link to the homily should download it and automatically start it playing in whatever music player your computer is set up with.

On the technical side, the file sizes are about 5 megs which means it may a minute or two to download on slower Internet connections. It is also an MP3 formatted file which means that these are essentially podcasts. Don't worry if all the technical words don't mean much to you. It means we're using the latest in technology in order to make sure our church parish can reach the most people.

The current week's homily is available on a link on the front page of the website next to the link for the current week's bulletin. On the page with the prior bulletins, the corresponding homily will be sitting side by side with its bulletin. We started on the anniversary of the start of the Catholic Church, Pentecost Sunday --- over five years ago. This mass, The Fifth Sunday of Lent, is our three hundred and seventy third podcast to be posted. The homily is given by Deacon Sammy Diesi.

So, take a listen and let us know what you think. Click here to download the homily from St. Landry Catholic Church, Opelousas, Louisiana.

Bulletin for the Week of March 22, 2015 - and the Pastor's Corner

The Pastor’s Corner 

If all is going well on our pilgrimage to Italy, we will have been to Rome and attended an audience with Pope Francis, visited the four major basilicas  of Rome (St. Peter's, St. John Lateran, St. Paul's Outside the Walls, and St. Mary Major), as well as the Vatican Museum.  Hopefully, I will also have had dinner with our seminarian, Ben Pitre, last Wednesday and was able to drop off a "care" package from his family and our community.  We also will have travelled to the Abbey of Montecassino, the home of St. Benedict, as well as another Benedictine abbey, the Abbey of Santissima Trinita.

Today, we are visiting the Grotto of Michael the Archangel, through whose intercession we pray each day for our protection and care at our daily Mass.  We will also visit the San Giovanni Rotondo, the home of Padre Pio, and have our Sunday Mass in the chapel there.  This week, we will visit Loreto, Florence (famous for its Renaissance art and architecture), and Assisi (the home of St. Francis (Pope Francis' patron) and St. Clare).  We will then return to Rome for one last view of the skyline, and then return home.  Thank you for your prayers for us, and please continue to keep the group in your prayers for a safe return home.  Know that we are keeping you in our prayers as we visit these holy places.  We pray that they, and the saints’  lives that we learn about will inspire us to know God more deeply and to imitate Jesus in our daily lives!

Last weekend, we passed the halfway point of Lent.  Our focus now slowly shifts from the fundamentals of removing sin from our lives and being more fervent in our prayer (Our Love of God), almsgiving (Our Love of Neighbor) and fasting (The discipline necessary to live a Christian life, that is, to Love God and our Neighbor), to the Paschal Mystery (suffering and death leading to new life).  It is a good time to take advantage of Sacramental Confession and to meditate more deeply on the coming commemoration of Jesus' Passion, Death and Resurrection during Holy Week.  If we have not been faithful to our Lenten goals, it is never too late to begin!  If we have succeeded in our Lenten goals, we thank God for the Grace of conversion.  If we have failed in our Lenten goals, then we are humbled (in a good way) and realize our weakness and our need for God's strength.  In any case, we don't give up, but keep trying!  God knows that we all struggle to live a good life in imitation of His Son, and delights in our effort, knowing it leads to a strengthened relationship with Him. Our continuing struggle gives us new life in Christ, and thus we live the Paschal Mystery every day, looking forward to our Easter Resurrection at the end of our earthly life.

I look forward to seeing you next weekend, Palm Sunday, as we begin Holy Week.  May God bless you with the Grace of conversion as we enter these last few weeks of the Lenten Season!

Now is also an appropriate time to look ahead to the Easter Season.  There will be much going on after Easter in our parish, so please mark your calendars and, if possible, attend the following celebrations:

            April 12, 2015 - 1st Communion (10am Mass);

            April 26, 2015 - Annual Parish Easter Picnic following the 10am Mass (alternate weather date is May 3);

            May 24, 2015 - Confirmation (5pm Mass).

These parish celebrations of the sacraments and our parish picnic highlight the joy of the Easter Season in our parish community. As we continue to make our Lenten journey, let us renew our efforts in the discipline of prayer, almsgiving and fasting so we can more deeply appreciate and celebrate the gift of Easter!

      God Bless

      Father James Brady

The bulletin for the week of March 22, 2015 has been posted. Click here to see it.

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

Updates are also being made to our 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.

Don't forget, we're also sending out live updates via Twitter. Our Twitter name is StLandryCath. You can see updates by clicking here.

And we're also on Facebook --- friend us! You can see our updates on our page SaintLandryCatholicChurch.

Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Lent

Homilies are now available to download and listen to!

As part of our answering the challenge of the Holy Father to go out and evangelize utilizing new technologies, we're now offering the homily each week for download. Clicking the link to the homily should download it and automatically start it playing in whatever music player your computer is set up with.

On the technical side, the file sizes are about 5 megs which means it may a minute or two to download on slower Internet connections. It is also an MP3 formatted file which means that these are essentially podcasts. Don't worry if all the technical words don't mean much to you. It means we're using the latest in technology in order to make sure our church parish can reach the most people.

The current week's homily is available on a link on the front page of the website next to the link for the current week's bulletin. On the page with the prior bulletins, the corresponding homily will be sitting side by side with its bulletin. We started on the anniversary of the start of the Catholic Church, Pentecost Sunday --- over five years ago. This mass, The Fourth Sunday of Lent, is our three hundred and seventy second podcast to be posted. The homily is given by Father James Brady.

So, take a listen and let us know what you think. Click here to download the homily from St. Landry Catholic Church, Opelousas, Louisiana.

Bulletin for the Week of March 15, 2015 and the Pastor's Corner

The Pastor’s Corner 

Today is Laetare Sunday, the Fourth Sunday of Lent. It marks "half-time" in our yearly Lenten journey. Laetare means to rejoice, and this Sunday is a time when we, in the middle of our Lenten journey, joyfully anticipate the Easter mystery celebrated in the liturgies of the Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter).  The priests and deacons wear rose colored vestments this weekend, "lightening up" the Lenten violet.

During this midpoint of Lent, we should reaffirm our commitment to our Lenten disciplines of prayer, almsgiving and fasting.  If we have been successful in our Lenten goals, then we should thank God for the Grace to succeed and to continue to recognize that with the help of God's Grace we can overcome sin and temptation.  If we have not been successful, then in humility we should ask God for the graces to succeed and continue to do our part to cooperate with His Grace.  In either case, we have the second half of Lent to grow closer to God.  Know of my continued prayers that all of us have a spiritually fruitful Lent, and please be sure to keep me in your prayers!

Now is also an appropriate time to look ahead to the Easter Season.  There will be much going on after Easter in our parish, so please mark your calendars and, if possible, attend the following celebrations:

            April 12, 2015 - 1st Communion (10am Mass);

            April 26, 2015 - Annual Parish Easter Picnic following the 10am Mass (alternate weather date is May 3);

            May 24, 2015 - Confirmation (5pm Mass).

These parish celebrations of the sacraments and our parish picnic highlight the joy of the Easter Season in our parish community. As we continue to make our Lenten journey, let us renew our efforts in the discipline of prayer, almsgiving and fasting so we can more deeply appreciate and celebrate the gift of Easter!

Parish Pilgrimage

This week,  approximately 20 members of our community and myself, will be leaving for a pilgrimage to Rome and southern Italy.  Please keep us in your prayers.  We hope to get to see our seminarian, Ben Pitre, who is studying for the priesthood in Rome.  I will be out next weekend, returning the following week before Palm Sunday.  Know that you and our community will be in our prayers while on the trip.

Gratitude for the Parish Mission

Many thanks to all for the success of our parish mission last week!  It was great to see so many praying and learning together.  What a great way to strengthen our Lenten Journey!!  We especially thank Mr. Paul George for his wonderful presentations on how to live "Our Lenten Journey," helping us to make Lent a fruitful time of spiritual renewal.  We also thank Deacon Joubert for his efforts in coordinating and providing for the logistics of the mission. The purpose of the mission was to help us come to know Jesus more deeply during Lent.  This is done by acknowledging and accepting the healing power of His Mercy, and so imitate Him more faithfully in our lives.  Properly lived, Lent will bring us greater joy when we celebrate the Easter Triduum on Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday!

      God Bless

      Father James Brady

The bulletin for the week of March 15, 2015 has been posted. Click here to see it.

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

Updates are also being made to our 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.

Don't forget, we're also sending out live updates via Twitter. Our Twitter name is StLandryCath. You can see updates by clicking here.

And we're also on Facebook --- friend us! You can see our updates on our page SaintLandryCatholicChurch.

Lenten Mission - Night 3

The third night of our Lenten Retreat is our three hundred and seventy fourth podcast to be posted. The Retreat is given by Paul George.

So, take a listen and let us know what you think. Click here to download the mission from St. Landry Catholic Church, Opelousas, Louisiana.

Lenten Mission - Night 2

The second night of our Lenten Retreat is our three hundred and seventy third podcast to be posted. The Retreat is given by Paul George.

So, take a listen and let us know what you think. Click here to download the mission from St. Landry Catholic Church, Opelousas, Louisiana.

Lenten Mission - Night 1

The first night of our Lenten Retreat is our three hundred and seventy second podcast to be posted. The Retreat is given by Paul George.

So, take a listen and let us know what you think. Click here to download the homily from St. Landry Catholic Church, Opelousas, Louisiana.

Homily for the Third Sunday of Lent

Homilies are now available to download and listen to!

As part of our answering the challenge of the Holy Father to go out and evangelize utilizing new technologies, we're now offering the homily each week for download. Clicking the link to the homily should download it and automatically start it playing in whatever music player your computer is set up with.

On the technical side, the file sizes are about 5 megs which means it may a minute or two to download on slower Internet connections. It is also an MP3 formatted file which means that these are essentially podcasts. Don't worry if all the technical words don't mean much to you. It means we're using the latest in technology in order to make sure our church parish can reach the most people.

The current week's homily is available on a link on the front page of the website next to the link for the current week's bulletin. On the page with the prior bulletins, the corresponding homily will be sitting side by side with its bulletin. We started on the anniversary of the start of the Catholic Church, Pentecost Sunday --- over five years ago. This mass, The Third Sunday of Lent, is our three hundred and seventy first podcast to be posted. The homily is given by Father James Brady.

So, take a listen and let us know what you think. Click here to download the homily from St. Landry Catholic Church, Opelousas, Louisiana.

Bulletin for the Week of March 8, 2015 and the Pastor's Corner

The Pastor’s Corner 

This week, we welcome Mr. Paul George (no, not the small forward/shooting guard who plays for the Indiana Pacers).  Paul George is a nationally renowned speaker and has given presentations at Steubenville Conferences and other large faith rallies, and he will be presenting our annual parish Lenten Mission.  The theme of the mission is "Our Lenten Journey."  The mission will be Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday beginning with Mass at 5:30pm followed by the mission presentation at 6pm.  Mr. George is a husband, father, and follower of Jesus.  A passionate believer and communicator of the Gospel, he has traveled the world proclaiming God’s love and freedom as a parish youth minister, diocesan director, author, and full-time evangelist.  He holds a master’s degree in theological studies from the University of Dallas.  He currently lives in Lafayette, Louisiana, where he directs the campus ministry program at University of Louisiana/Our Lady of Wisdom Parish and serves as a professor of theology at the Aquinas Institute on campus.  Mr. George also co-founded and directs Adore Ministries, a nonprofit Catholic organization whose mission is to call all people to worship God with their entire lives.  He and his wife have four children.  We are very blessed to have him present our parish Lenten mission this year, and we thank him for being willing to come and help us on "Our Lenten Journey."

It has been heartening to see so many of you make the effort to attend daily Mass and receive the Eucharist, our spiritual food for life's journey.  Many of you have also been attending Stations of the Cross on Friday's at 5:15pm,  when we remember and meditate on Jesus' Passion and Death.  Of course, I want to encourage all to continue these wonderful practices during the entirety of Lent, and also to invite all who have been unable to come to begin to do so.  These are such fruitful ways to observe Lent in the area of prayer. Following the Stations of the Cross on Fridays, we also have a soup and bread dinner in Valentin Hall sponsored by the Parish Advisory Board.  All are invited, and it is a wonderful way for families to observe a Lenten discipline together and at the same time get to know fellow parishioners.

Finally, just a reminder that it is never too late to participate in Lenten activities here at St. Landry.  There are many additional opportunities for prayer and study during this season, and all are invited (feel free to invite others as well, including non-parishioners or non-Catholic friends).  These activities are listed in the calendar in this bulletin and on flyers on the tables in the back of the church.  As mentioned above, it's never too late to start these activities and all are welcome.  We hope you are able to participate in at least some of these activities as we journey through Lent and move towards celebration of the immediate events that led to our salvation, the Death and Resurrection of our Lord and Savior.

- See more at: http://www.steubenvilleconferences.com/team/profile/92/paul-george#sthash.k3y7r2B9.dpuf

      God Bless

      Father James Brady

The bulletin for the week of March 08, 2015 has been posted. Click here to see it.

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

Updates are also being made to our 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.

Don't forget, we're also sending out live updates via Twitter. Our Twitter name is StLandryCath. You can see updates by clicking here.

And we're also on Facebook --- friend us! You can see our updates on our page SaintLandryCatholicChurch.

Homily for the Second Sunday in Lent

Homilies are now available to download and listen to!

As part of our answering the challenge of the Holy Father to go out and evangelize utilizing new technologies, we're now offering the homily each week for download. Clicking the link to the homily should download it and automatically start it playing in whatever music player your computer is set up with.

On the technical side, the file sizes are about 5 megs which means it may a minute or two to download on slower Internet connections. It is also an MP3 formatted file which means that these are essentially podcasts. Don't worry if all the technical words don't mean much to you. It means we're using the latest in technology in order to make sure our church parish can reach the most people.

The current week's homily is available on a link on the front page of the website next to the link for the current week's bulletin. On the page with the prior bulletins, the corresponding homily will be sitting side by side with its bulletin. We started on the anniversary of the start of the Catholic Church, Pentecost Sunday --- over five years ago. This mass, The Second Sunday of Lent, is our three hundred and seventieth podcast to be posted. The homily is given by Father James Brady.

So, take a listen and let us know what you think. Click here to download the homily from St. Landry Catholic Church, Opelousas, Louisiana.

Bulletin for the Week of March 1, 2015 and the Pastor's Corner

The Pastor’s Corner 

We are now a week and a half into the Lenten Season.  Lent is a time of prayer, almsgiving and fasting which helps us to grow stronger in our love of God (prayer), love of our neighbor (almsgiving), and the discipline to love God and our neighbor (fasting).  Lent is intended to help us put ourselves in a position to receive God's Grace of Transformation, that is, the Grace of Conversion, so that we change our lives and live more closely in imitation of Jesus, our Lord and Savior.  During the Season of Lent, we also focus on repentance and the forgiveness of sins.  In its simplest terms, we are relying on God's Mercy to be rid of the bad in our lives, and the Grace of the Holy Spirit to be filled with His Good.

Our individual sins separate us from God and impair our relationship with Him. Sin, whether it be our own sin or the sin of others, is also the cause of suffering in the world, beginning with the Sin of Adam. Suffering caused by the sin of others is "innocent" suffering, whereas suffering because of our own sins can be referred to as "culpable" suffering. We all have a mix of innocent and culpable suffering as we have all sinned and are all burdened by Original Sin. Jesus, Our Savior, had all innocent suffering because He was Divinely conceived and committed no sins. All His suffering was due to the sin of humanity, that is, our sins. Suffering is a mystery and can be difficult to understand, as we discussed in the homily a couple of weeks ago. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do good things happen to people we think are bad? We take solace that Jesus redeemed all suffering, and gave it a purpose, namely our salvation and the salvation of the world.

A reminder that there are many additional opportunities for prayer and study during Lent here at St. Landry, and these activities were listed in a bulletin insert over Mardi Gras Weekend (additional inserts are on the tables in the back of the church). It's never too late to start these activities. We hope you are able to participate in at least some of them as we journey through Lent and move towards two of the immediate events that led to our salvation, the Death and Resurrection of our Lord and Savior.

      God Bless

      Father James Brady

The bulletin for the week of March 01, 2015 has been posted. Click here to see it.

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

Updates are also being made to our 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.

Don't forget, we're also sending out live updates via Twitter. Our Twitter name is StLandryCath. You can see updates by clicking here.

And we're also on Facebook --- friend us! You can see our updates on our page SaintLandryCatholicChurch.