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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
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.
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.
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