Picnic moved to May 8, 2016

Because of the predicted rain... Our Parish Picnic scheduled for Sunday 5/1 will be RESCHEDULED for NEXT Sunday 5/8!!!! Please help us spread the word.

Bulletin for the Week of May 01, 2016 and the Pastor's Corner

PASTOR’S CORNER:

Today we celebrate Easter with our annual parish picnic after the 10am Mass.  I hope that you are able to join us, as it is always wonderful to see our children having such a good time and our adults visiting in a "no stress" environment.  Our picnic is our "Easter Party" as a parish, a time when we simply celebrate the gift of our salvation given to us by Jesus in His Life, Death and Resurrection.  There is no other way to salvation except by the gift of God's Grace...we cannot earn it nor do we merit it, except by the gift it is to us by God and given in His Mercy.  Therefore, we rejoice that we have such a wonderful, merciful and loving Savior!  Alleluia, Alleluia!!

Update on Fr. Tremie
Many of you have asked over the last week about the well-being of Fr. Gene Tremie, our pastor here at St. Landry from 2000 to 2005.  For those who do not know Fr. Tremie, he is a retired priest of our diocese and served at Sacred Heart Church in Ville Platte and St. Marcellus in Rynella after leaving St. Landry.  Fr. Tremie was diagnosed with jaw cancer, and underwent a rather extensive surgery on his jaw last week at Our Lady of the Lake Hospital in Baton Rouge.  Although it was a long, complicated surgery, it was a success with minimal complications.  His recovery so far has been good, and our hope is that he will have a full recovery.  However, his recovery will be a long process requiring much rehabilitation as he will have to be taught to swallow and talk again.  With therapy, there is hope for a full recovery.

Please remember Fr. Tremie in your daily prayers.  In addition, some of you who have asked about him have also asked for his address.  Certainly a note of encouragement would be very nice.  For those of you who would like to do so, Fr. Tremie's mailing address is:

Reverend Eugene Tremie
c/o Nativity of Our Lady Church
130 N. Richelieu
New Iberia, LA  70560

Sanctuary Lighting Completed!
The new lighting for the sanctuary was completed last week.  Now that the lights have been installed, it really highlights how badly we needed to replace the old lighting.  The beauty of the sanctuary area has really been enhanced with the new lighting.  We want to thank all who were involved in the project and Mike's Electric, who installed the lighting.

With the installation of the lighting, the long road of the Sanctuary Campaign and related construction has ended.  We renovated the bathrooms and sacristies, installed the altar, historic sanctuary lamp and tile flooring, installed new carpet in the aisle, and have been able to purchase new appointments.  Who would have thought that it would take longer to do the construction than to raise the money for the construction?!?  Seeing the final product, there is no doubt the wait was worth it!!  In the coming weeks we have a few acknowledgments to make for donations for appointments for the sanctuary and then then our work in the church building will be finished for now.  

As you know, we are now moving to the Valentin Hall renovation.  Please keep the success of the work and the safety of the workers in your prayers.  Thanks again for all the support to make these much needed projects possible!

Father James Brady

The bulletin for the week of May 01, 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.

Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Easter

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, Fifth Sunday of Easter, is our four hundred forty 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 April 24, 2016 and the Pastor's Corner

In the coming weeks, we will begin a more visible and active phase of our construction in Valentin Hall.  Our original plans had to be modified to meet our needs and budget capabilities, and we have been able to work out the major details.  After the remaining minor details are ironed out, we hope to sign the construction contract and begin work in earnest.  Needless to say, the new windows that have been installed have been a great improvement, and when all the windows are installed and the frames restored and painted, the building will certainly look much better from the exterior and be much more energy efficient.  When our parking lot, handicapped entrance and other exterior improvements are made, the building and corner will be not only more functional, it will be much more attractive.  

The interior renovations have been long needed, and will restore the building and improve functionality for parish use.  The interior portion of the work will improve the building infrastructure, including an electrical upgrade and wiring, lighting, air conditioning, bathrooms (including handicapped accessibility), more meeting rooms, more office space and a newly renovated kitchen/small reception area.  The hall will serve us better as our parish center not only for offices and meeting space, but also for the education of our children in CCD and sacramental preparation programs, and will provide adequate space for bible study and prayer groups.  It is indeed a very exciting time for us, and our hope is that the newly renovated building will serve our parishioners needs for years to come.

In that regard, financing for the building has been made possible by your generous donations to the regular offertory.  When we began planning the project and announced the plans last fall, our plan was to not have a capital campaign to finance the project, but rather to save the money needed by achieving our goal for the regular offertory.  Your response has been to do that and then some, and I want to express my thanks to you for your generosity and kindness.  Truly, this project is a community project, and all of us have been a part in its success to this point.  Let us pray that the project continues to go smoothly.  Again, many thanks to all of you for your generosity, and let's hope we are able to keep up!

As we move forward in the Easter Season, I want to remind you once again of a couple of dates.  Our Easter picnic will be on May 1 after the 10am Mass.  I hope you are able to come with your family.  It is such a joy for our parish to come together, to see our children playing games and enjoying the fun jumps, and for us to simply spend time together as community rooted in the joy of Christ's love for us.  Please make plans to come that day and enjoy the food, drink and fellowship.

Another exciting announcement is that Bishop Deshotel is going to be the celebrant for our Confirmations, which will take place on May 15 at the 5pm Mass.  I know that our Confirmation candidates are excited about his visiting our parish for the first time as Bishop on their Confirmation day.  I hope you are able to join us in welcoming Bishop Deshotel on that day, and please keep our candidates and their families in your prayers as they approach this special day.

Finally, we have reached the halfway point of the Easter Season.  Hopefully, we continue to reflect and have great joy in God's Love for us in giving us the gift of eternal life with Him.  We should continue to thank God for that gift, which is our Hope.  One of the themes of Easter is that we become more motivated by Love of God, and less by fear of Him.  In other words, because of the great Love He has shone for us, we should not live our life of faith because we are afraid of Him, but rather as a response in Love to the Love He has already shown us.  Of course, throughout our lives we can be motivated by fear, duty, and obligation.  All of these work in the sense of bettering our lives.  However, the highest and most perfect motivation is Love, and our Hope is that we can be motivated by Love more and more in our daily living.  Let us make that our goal for the remainder of the Easter Season!  

Father James Brady

The bulletin for the week of April 24, 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.

Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Easter

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, Fourth Sunday of Easter, is our four hundred fortieth 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 April 17, 2016 and the Pastor's Corner

PASTOR’S CORNER:

This weekend we celebrate what is commonly referred to as "Good Shepherd Sunday." It is called "Good Shepherd Sunday" because of the Gospel readings of the day (there are three readings that are rotated yearly) which are taken from the 10th chapter of St. John's Gospel.  In the 10th chapter of John's Gospel, Jesus describes himself as the Good Shepherd who will lay down His life for His sheep.  He also tells us that He knows His sheep and they follow Him, that He will give them eternal life, and that no one can take them out of His hand.  Jesus' willingness to lay down His life for us (specifically for our salvation) derives from the fact that if we choose to be, we are the sheep of His flock, and He has real love for us as a shepherd has for his flock. If we remain in His flock, we will remain safe from harm (spiritual harm) and will receive the gift of eternal life.  During this Easter Season we continue to marvel at how good God is to us in giving us His Only Begotten Son, the Risen Christ, Our Lord and Saviour, and our Good Shepherd. Thanking God for such a Good Shepherd, we continue to celebrate our Easter Joy!

Speaking of Shepherd's, our diocese has a new one!
As I mentioned in February, Pope Francis named the Most Reverend J. Douglas Deshotel the seventh Bishop of the Diocese of Lafayette. Bishop Deshotel has been serving as Auxiliary of the Diocese of Dallas since 2010, and he was installed as our bishop on Friday.  
Certainly, we are sincerely grateful for the devoted service of Bishop Michael Jarrell who has served as our Ordinary for the last fourteen years, but at the same time we are very excited to welcome our new shepherd.  We remember in Matthew's Gospel at the end of chapter 9 when Jesus felt pity for the people, as they were "like sheep without a shepherd."

So Jesus immediately gathered the disciples, gave them authority, and named the twelve apostles, which is recorded at the beginning of chapter 10 of Matthew's Gospel.  Simply put, Jesus gave the people shepherds.  Today, our bishops are the successors of the apostles, and we celebrate the continuing gift God has given to us in providing shepherds for his flock. 

As way of background, Bishop Deshotel was born on January 6, 1952 in Basile, Louisiana, as the third of eight children to Welfoot Paul Deshotel and Luna Marie Manual. After attending Immaculata Minor Seminary High School in Lafayette, he went on to attend Holy Trinity Seminary in Texas, where he earned a B.A. in Philosophy, and a Masters of Divinity from the University of Dallas. On May 13, 1978, he was ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of Dallas by Bishop Maurice Schexnayder in his hometown church of St. Augustine’s in Basile. On April 27, 2010, he was ordained as Auxiliary Bishop of Dallas by Bishop Kevin J. Farrell in the Cathedral Shrine of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Guadalupe.

Bishop Deshotel's assignments have included associate pastor and pastor of various church parishes throughout the Diocese of Dallas, as well as Vice Rector of Holy Trinity Seminary in Irving, Texas. Additionally, he has served on the Diocesan Presbyteral Council; Diocesan Priests’ Personnel Board; Diocesan Finance Council; Bishop’s Senior Staff; Diocesan Review Board; Diocesan College of Consultors; and Region X Chairman, USCCB.

Again, we welcome and celebrate Bishop Deshotel as our new Bishop!!

Father James Brady

The bulletin for the week of April 17, 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.

Homily for the 3rd Sunday of Easter

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, Third Sunday of Easter, is our four hundred thirty ninth 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 April 10, 2016 and the Pastor's Corner

PASTOR’S CORNER:

With Divine Mercy Sunday last weekend, we ended the Easter Octave and now enter into the regular Easter Season, which will last until Pentecost Sunday, May 15, 2016. Last weekend was highlighted by our children receiving their First Holy Communion at the 10 am Mass.  The liturgy went beautifully, and we are reminded that God teaches us through our children.  Our children reminded us last week how special the Eucharist is and the reverence with which we should approach the Blessed Sacrament. Our children were dressed for the occasion, had their hands folded and approached their First Holy Communion with reverence and awe.  The same should be true for us each time we approach the altar for Holy Communion.  Sometimes in our fallen human nature we can allow repetition to make us treat the extraordinary in an ordinary way.  We should be on guard each time we receive The Blessed Sacrament to make sure we dispose ourselves to treat it as our First Holy Communion, our Last Holy Communion, and indeed, the only Holy Communion we will receive!!

Thanks again to Phyllis Guidry and Mary Joubert for leading the First Communion Program and the parents of the children who taught them at home.  Proper preparation takes a team, and it was evident throughout the program that our children were well prepared for their First Confession and First Communion both in the classroom and at home. Many thanks to all our good parents who made our job that much easier and made last Sunday such a special event.

Please remember that our young adults are continuing to prepare for Confirmation, the last of the Sacraments of Initiation, which will take place on Pentecost Sunday.  Be sure to keep them in your prayers.

Update Valentin Hall Project
No, we are not shutting down Valentin Hall!  We've had more than one such inquiry about the boarding up of the hall windows over the last week.  As I mentioned in previous Pastor's Corners, the first step of the Valentin Hall construction is to replace/restore the windows, and the temporary boarding of the windows is the first step in the window work.  Soon new windows will be installed and the frames will be restored and painted.

We are also in the final stages of the plans and financing of the interior of the hall and the parking lot construction.  At this point, we are very pleased with the way things are working out and we believe the hall will definitely fulfill many of our needs, including adequate space and facilities for our CCD and youth programs, enough meeting rooms for our many different activities during the week, more adequate office space for our staff and clergy, and better kitchen facilities for our social gatherings.  After the construction, we look forward to Valentin Hall being able to better serve our community for many years to come!!  

We hope that in the next few weeks the final plans will be completed, and we will get our final approval and begin construction shortly thereafter.  Please keep the safety of the workers and the success of the work of their hands in your prayers!

Father James Brady

The bulletin for the week of April 10, 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.

Homily for Divine Mercy 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 six years ago. This mass, Divine Mercy Sunday, is our four hundred thirty 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 April 3, 2016 and the Pastor's Corner

The Pastor’s Corner 

Today is Divine Mercy Sunday, marking the end of the Easter Octave. The Easter Octave is the eight day celebration of Easter from Easter Sunday until today. We continue the Easter season until Pentecost Sunday on May 15th.  Looking back over the last couple of months, we have so much to be thankful for as a church parish, especially to those who made our Lent and Easter so beautiful and spiritually meaningful. We are blessed to have Msgr. Melancon living in our parish. He took on extra duties during Lent here at St. Landry and at Opelousas Catholic School, helping to lead both us and our children through Lent. We are also blessed with three deacons, Deacon Diesi, Deacon Joubert and Deacon Miller, who took on extra duties joyfully and without reservation. Our parish staff, both office and maintenance, did an outstanding job in cheerfully handling the extra work that always comes during this time of year. If you have the opportunity, please express your appreciation to them.

However, without the support of so many of you, the celebration of Lent and Easter would not have been as beautiful and meaningful as it was. It began with Ash Wednesday and our Altar Society appropriately decorating our church. The Altar Society worked throughout Lent and Easter to make our church look more beautiful for our spiritual benefit. A generous parishioner provided the "Little Black Books" which so many of us found spiritually fruitful in preparing for Easter, and our Parish Advisory Board sponsored a "soup and bread" dinner after Stations of the Cross on Fridays. Our choirs and music ministers did an outstanding job during the seasons, but especially during passion-tide and the Easter Triduum. Our sacristans, altar servers, readers, and extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion served reverently and competently. Our blog was most informative about what was going on in our church parish for those who may not have been able to attend services. Some cut palms for Palm Sunday, while others cultivated our gardens around the church. Our suppliers ably and competently provided things we needed (obviously, we thank Jim Durio Florist for the beautiful flowers). So many people helped in so many ways. We thank and appreciate all of you!

I also want to thank all of you who participated in our liturgies and activities during Lent and Easter. Good attendance is usual during Lent at daily Mass and Stations of the Cross, especially at the beginning of the season. After a few weeks, however, attendance usually shrinks a bit. This year, though, attendance stayed steady over the season and even got bigger at the end of the season! Our confessional was very busy, enough so that despite expanded confession times, we many times heard confessions both before and after our daily Mass! Attendance for the Triduum and Easter Masses was significantly increased this year.  These things indicate a healthy spiritual life within our parish and a living out of the Lent and Easter seasons within our hearts. It also encourages others by example and solidarity in our faith. This is most important to our community, and makes for a most joyful Easter in the most important way, in our hearts and souls!

Thanks again to all! May God Bless you during the Easter Season, Alleluia, Alleluia!!

First Communion Today! 
This morning, approximately 20 of our children will receive their First Communion at the 10am Mass. It is my favorite day of the year. I am always moved by the excitement and reverence of our children in receiving First Communion. We should all be reminded that we ourselves should always be excited about the prospect of receiving the Grace of Christ in the Eucharist as well as the reverence that we also should show in receiving the Eucharist. 

Congratulations to the children and their families on this special day!!

Father James Brady

The bulletin for the week of April 03, 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.