Posts
The Pastor’s Corner
This past week we began the Lenten Season, a time of prayer, almsgiving and fasting. During the Season of Lent, we focus on many things, such as repentance and the forgiveness of sins, and increased prayer (Love of God), almsgiving (Love of Neighbor) and fasting (Discipline). We try to put ourselves in a position to grow closer to God and each other by the gift of His Grace. Lent is a time when we reflect on our struggles to follow Jesus, and we watch Jesus show us The Way to eternal life so that we can imitate Him in our own lives. I once again look forward to making this Lenten Journey with you.
Lent recognizes the reality that we still struggle in our earthly life despite the fact that our Savior died and has risen from the dead. Salvation is ours, but we still struggle in this life to be rid of sin and to do what is good. We will have this struggle our entire lives. The reason for this is that God will not impair our freedom and make us follow Him and we have a Fallen Nature which can make us inclined to selfishness and sin. Our love of God and Neighbor is a choice, and a choice is no choice if we are not free to make it. Therefore, we are always free to accept or reject the promptings of the Holy Spirit and the Grace to do what God asks of us. In our Fallen Nature, we struggle with making the right choices. Scripture tells us that we are all sinners, and our sins always affect us and others negatively. Sin produces our struggle in this life, whether it be our own sins or the sins of others. During Lent, we try, with the aid of God's Grace, to rid sin from our lives and be filled up with the Grace of Goodness.
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 last weekend (additional inserts are on the tables in the back of the church) and are listed in the calendar in this bulletin. 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 the immediate events that led to our salvation, the Death and Resurrection of our Lord and Savior.
We hope that these activities can help all of us grow closer to Jesus during the season of Lent so that we can celebrate the joy of Easter more deeply. In recognizing our own sinfulness during Lent, we better understand the Love God shows us in the life and death of our Savior. Therefore, in His Resurrection that we celebrate at Easter we can better appreciate the gift of eternal life despite our unworthiness. Hopefully, we will then be more open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit to live better lives!
Lent recognizes the reality that we still struggle in our earthly life despite the fact that our Savior died and has risen from the dead. Salvation is ours, but we still struggle in this life to be rid of sin and to do what is good. We will have this struggle our entire lives. The reason for this is that God will not impair our freedom and make us follow Him and we have a Fallen Nature which can make us inclined to selfishness and sin. Our love of God and Neighbor is a choice, and a choice is no choice if we are not free to make it. Therefore, we are always free to accept or reject the promptings of the Holy Spirit and the Grace to do what God asks of us. In our Fallen Nature, we struggle with making the right choices. Scripture tells us that we are all sinners, and our sins always affect us and others negatively. Sin produces our struggle in this life, whether it be our own sins or the sins of others. During Lent, we try, with the aid of God's Grace, to rid sin from our lives and be filled up with the Grace of Goodness.
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 last weekend (additional inserts are on the tables in the back of the church) and are listed in the calendar in this bulletin. 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 the immediate events that led to our salvation, the Death and Resurrection of our Lord and Savior.
We hope that these activities can help all of us grow closer to Jesus during the season of Lent so that we can celebrate the joy of Easter more deeply. In recognizing our own sinfulness during Lent, we better understand the Love God shows us in the life and death of our Savior. Therefore, in His Resurrection that we celebrate at Easter we can better appreciate the gift of eternal life despite our unworthiness. Hopefully, we will then be more open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit to live better lives!
Father James Brady
The bulletin for the week of February 14, 2016 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.
0 comments:
Post a Comment