Homily for the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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 six years ago. This mass, 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, is our four hundred ninth 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 October 25, 2015 and the Pastor's Corner

The Pastor’s Corner 

As mentioned last weekend, I will be in Philadelphia this weekend to participate in my brother, Ed's 25th Jubilee of his priesthood.  Many of you have commented on your good wishes and prayers for him.  Be assured I will carry them with me and give them to him.  I will be out most of this coming week, returning Thursday afternoon.  Your prayers for safe travel are appreciated, and I look forward to being back next weekend to celebrate All Saints and All Souls Day with you.

Next weekend we will celebrate All Saints Day on Sunday and the following Monday, November 2, is All Souls Day.  There will be many activities in our parish during this time, and we hope you are able to attend as many of them as possible.  Over the weekend, our Sunday Mass schedule will remain the same as usual for All Saints Day.  After the 4 pm Mass on Saturday, October 31, we will have our annual cemetery blessing beginning at about 5:15 pm.  On Monday, All Souls Day, in addition to our usual 12:05 pm Mass, we will also have our annual Memorial Mass for those who passed away this year at 6 pm, at which our adult choir will provide the music.  The list of names of those of our community who have gone on to the next life is located on a poster by the Marian Altar in the church.  Please keep them and their families in your prayers.

All Saints Day is the celebration of what is commonly referred to as the "Church Triumphant," those people who have gone before us from this life to the next, and whose souls are now in heaven living in eternity with God. We hope many of our family members and friends are members of Church Triumphant, and we celebrate them because while living here on earth, they gave us an example of living a life in Christ, which is the greatest gift any of us can give to another.  All Souls Day celebrates what is known as the "Church Suffering," meaning that they have passed from their human life on earth and are now in purgatory.  They "suffer" not because they are in pain as we think of it, but because they have not yet reached fullness of union with God.  One day, we pray, they will be in heaven. Praying for the dead is a good and pious act as taught to us in the Second Book of Maccabees, and is one of the traditional Spiritual Works of Mercy.  Both these pious devotions (All Saints and All Souls) are good for us and help us to grow in our knowledge and love of Jesus, so I encourage everyone to not only attend our Masses and blessings, but also to participate in other prayer services and memorials during these days.

St. Landry Church given Preservationist of the Year Award!
The Board of Directors of the Preservationists of St. Landry, Inc. has chosen St. Landry Catholic Church to be this year's recipient of their annual Preservationist of the Year Award.  The award was made in light of the renovations to the church made during The Sanctuary Project.  The award will be presented at their general membership meeting on Sunday, November 8, 2015 at 4 pm at the Michel Prudhomme home located between the church grounds and the hospital.  All are invited to attend, and we hope you are able to do so.  We thank the Preservationists of St. Landry, Inc. for their kind recognition of the beauty of our church and our community's effort, in good stewardship, to preserve it for generations to come.

God Bless

            Father James Brady

The bulletin for the week of October 25, 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 Twenty Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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 six years ago. This mass, 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, is our four hundred eighth 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 October 18, 2015 and the Pastor's Corner

The Pastor’s Corner 

What a wonderful weekend we had for the inaugural Festival de la Grande Eglise!!  The weather cooperated and we had good crowds.  All seemed to enjoy the festivities.  My first time participating in the 2 Mile Color Run was great fun for me, as well as the other activities of the day, especially Bishop Jarrell joining us at the 4 pm Mass.  There are many thanks that we need to make, and there is an insert in this bulletin acknowledging those who helped to make the day possible.  We especially thank our sponsors, without whose support the day would have never gotten off the ground.  Please patronize them if you are able.  We will be providing an accounting of the festival as soon as the numbers are available.  Thanks again!!

 Bishop's Services Appeal 

This weekend we will introduce the annual Bishop's Service Appeal (BSA), and a message from Bishop Jarrell will be presented at all of our weekend Masses. The Bishop's Service Appeal funds services and programs that we, as a parish, cannot afford to pay on our own. By pooling the resources of all the individual church parishes in the diocese, services can be provided to the poor and vulnerable that would not be feasible for any individual church parish to provide. In addition to aiding the poor and the vulnerable among us, the appeal supports other diocesan works, such as the education and support of our seminarians and the continued education of our priests. St. Landry is blessed to have a seminarian studying for the priesthood, Ben Pitre (as always, please keep him in your prayers) who directly benefits from the donations made to the BSA. St. Landry could not afford to pay for his education and training, but with funding from the BSA, his education and training is possible.

The BSA pledge cards/envelopes will remain in the pews and at the doors of the church for your use. Donations to the appeal can be made in the same manner as last year. First, for those who use offertory envelopes, you will receive special envelopes for the appeal in the mail with your regular envelopes, and the donations can be placed in the offertory at any Mass. Second, for those who do not use envelopes for the regular offertory, the envelopes in the pews and at the church doors can be used and placed in any offertory at any Mass. Third, for those who prefer to send the donation directly to the diocese, there are instructions on how to do so on the same envelopes located in the church. When making a donation in this manner, please make sure that St. Landry is marked on the envelope so that we are able to track whether or not we have met our goal for the appeal. Finally, donations can be made online at www.diolaf.org.

 Last year, we made our goal for the appeal and we hope to do so again.  Many thanks to all those who gave to the appeal in support of the many good programs provided by the diocese to St. Landry and to the people of our diocese!!

 Next Weekend:  Fr. Ed Brady's Silver Jubilee

As many of you know, my older brother, Ed, is also a priest for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Next weekend, we are celebrating his 25th Jubilee at his parish, St. Anne's in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he serves as pastor.  I will be travelling to participate in the jubilee celebration, so I will not be here for our weekend masses.  As always, your prayers for safe travel are very much appreciated, but also please especially keep Father Ed Brady in your prayers this week in thanksgiving for his priestly vocation and the continued success of his ministry.

God Bless

            Father James Brady

The bulletin for the week of October 18, 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 Twenty Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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 six years ago. This mass, 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, is our four hundred seventh podcast to be posted. The homily is given by Monsignor Louis Melancon.

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 October 11, 2015 and the Pastor's Corner

The Pastor’s Corner 

This weekend we welcome Bishop Jarrell to our 4 pm Mass concluding the Festival de la Grande Eglise.  As a native son of St. Landry Church, the Bishop himself is "coming home" to enjoy good food and fun as well as being the main celebrant and homilist at the Mass.  We hope that the festival was a good experience for all who attended and for the many volunteers who made the day possible.  We will be listing a number of people to whom we owe a debt of gratitude in the bulletin next weekend, but for now we would like to thank the following sponsors whose support made the festival possible:

The St. Landry Club
Lafond Ardoin Funeral Home
Courvelle Toyota
Roy Motors
Ignatius "Iggie" Castillle
Tony Chachere's
The Friends of Fr. Lafleur

The Valentin Club
Our Lady of Prompt Succor Nursing Home
Carpetland, Inc.
Ortego Oil
American Bank and Trust

T-Shirt Patrons
Piggly Wiggly of North Opelousas
LHC Group
Derek Faust, Knights of Columbus Agent
Bellevue Animal Clinic
Kelly's Country Meat Block and Diner
Shute's Good Neighbor Pharmacy
Sandoz Law Offices
Two Sisters on a Mission

Many thanks to our sponsors and their willingness to help the festival get off the ground!!

Just a reminder that October and November are months devoted to our appreciation of those who have gone before us into the next life. After the Festival de la Grande Eglise and Cemetery Tours this weekend, the Cemetery Tours will continue next weekend as usual.  Our celebrations will culminate with All Saints Day on November 1st and All Souls Day on November 2nd. We will have our annual blessing of the cemetery on October 31st after the 4 pm Mass, and our annual Memorial Mass for those recently deceased on Monday, November 2nd at 6 pm (All Souls Day), at which we will remember some 75 or so of our brothers and sisters who departed from us last year.  Please mark your calendar and plan to join us!!

            Father James Brady

*** Note: NO CONFESSIONS WILL BE HEARD on OCT. 10^TH  BECAUSE OF CHURCH TOURS DURING THE FESTIVAL***

FESTIVAL de la GRANDE EGLISE – SAT. 10/10!

The bulletin for the week of October 11, 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 Twenty Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

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 six years ago. This mass, 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, is our four hundred sixth 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 October 4, 2015 and the Pastor's Corner

The Pastor’s Corner 

What an exciting week is coming up!  The inaugural Festival de la Grande Eglise will take place this coming Saturday, October 10.  Many hours of planning, preparation and work have been done, and we pray for good weather and the success of the festival.  If you have not yet signed up and are able to help out, please remember to volunteer to work at the festival.  The response has been great so far is much appreciated!

In that regard, many thanks to all who came for our parish work day last Saturday.  There were some 50 people who were able to volunteer their time to spruce up the buildings and grounds in preparation for the festival.  Our three deacons (Deacon Miller, Deacon Diesi and Deacon Joubert) planned and coordinated the event, and we also thank them for their work.  Much more was accomplished during the day than we thought possible, and the  work was done well, so it will be nice to welcome home people for the festival to a place that is clean and well maintained!

Many thanks also for all who helped support our church community by providing funds for items that were on our "gift list."  Funds sufficient to purchase all of the items on the list have been received and we look forward to the remainder of the items being shipped to us and placed in our sanctuary in the near future.  Several of the gifts were given as memorials, so we are preparing the appropriate acknowledgments for publication in the near future.

We also welcome as a new Trustee Richard Leblanc.  Richard will begin his service as Trustee this week for a term of three years.  He replaces Yvonne Normand, who has been a Trustee for the last six years and whose term ends this week.  Many thanks to Yvonne for her years of service to our community in many capacities, but especially today for her service as Trustee and providing me with sound and prudent advice in the administration of our parish.  The other Trustee is Ed Moise, who just completed a three year term and has agreed to serve another three years.  Many thanks to Ed for his service and his willingness to continue to serve.

Finally, two things of note,   Many of you benefit from the daily meditations in "One Bread,One Body," which we place in the back of the church each month.  We received notice that the publisher can only send us 80% of our requested copies because they are having financial difficulties.  The publisher covers its cost of publication and distribution with donations received.  St. Landry Church makes a donation to the publisher each month, and in light of the financial difficulty it is having, we have increased our monthly donation.  In each of the booklets there is information on how to donate, so if you use and benefit from the publication, please consider donating to the publisher to help defray the cost of the booklets.

Lastly, don't forget that Hunter's for the Hungry is having its food drive today (Sunday, October 4).  This is a program where local sportsmen and their families are invited to "clean out their freezers" and donate frozen processed game and fish to help provide meals to those in need.  The collection point in Opelousas is Nissan of Opelousas from 10am until 4pm.

            Father James Brady

*** Note: NO CONFESSIONS WILL BE HEARD on OCT. 10^TH  BECAUSE OF CHURCH TOURS DURING THE FESTIVAL***

FESTIVAL de la GRANDE EGLISE – SAT. 10/10!

The bulletin for the week of October 04, 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.