Bulletin for the Week of June 12, 2016 and the Pastor's Corner

PASTOR’S CORNER:

At St. Landry Church, our patron St. Landry serves as a "father" of sorts to our church family. We celebrate the feast of our patron, St. Landry, on June 10. However, the pastor has the option to move the celebration of the patron saint of a parish to Sunday, which we are doing today so that we can celebrate the occasion as a full parish community.

St. Landry is a wonderful patron for us in both his teaching and example, and as we learn more about him, we can learn more about what our goals should be as a church community.  His life has a great similarity to what Pope Francis is calling us to be, servers of God's people both in word and in deed.

History is an important thing for us to remember.  It reminds us of where we came from and can keep us rooted in the things that are truly good and time tested, and helps us not to repeat things that are not truly good.  Here at St. Landry, we have a rich history of in excess of 250 years.  We've had our share of ups and downs, our sins and our charity.  However, we've never had a Church Crest to signify our history and heritage.  We are pleased to introduce this weekend our newly adopted Church Crest!  This design was approved by myself and the Parish Advisory Board as our official crest.  A copy of the design and an explanation of its meaning is included in this bulletin as an insert.

We thank John Harper for his work in coordinating the project of creating the Church Crest, and his generous gift of time, talent and treasure.  We also thank James H. "Jimmy" Granier, Jr. of Baton Rouge for his gift of the artwork and graphic design services.

Speaking of History - Our Patron, St. Landry
There are actually four St. Landrys: (1) Saint-Bishop Landry of Sées (c.405 – 480), located in the Basse-Normandie region of France; (2) Saint Landry of (Soignies) Belgium, also known as Saint Landry of Metz (c. 622 – 700); (3) Saint Landry of Savoy (1012 – 1050), who was a Benedictine monk of Novalise in Savoy; and (4) Saint Landry, Bishop of Paris, also known as St. Landry the Confessor, who died in 661 after serving as Bishop of Parish for some eleven years. Our church in Opelousas is named after this fourth St. Landry.

In 650, during the reign of Clovis II, Saint Landry succeeded Audobertus as Bishop of Paris. During the famine of 650-51, Saint Landry sold all of his personal possessions, as well as some of the furniture and sacred vessels of the church, to feed the poor. In 651, Saint Landry, Bishop of Paris, founded a hospital, dedicated to St. Christopher, near the Cathedral of Notre Dame (which hospital later developed into the Hôtel-Dieu de Paris). This hospital was still in operation on our parish pilgrimage four years ago, and we were able to see the building.  However, shortly after our visit, it was decided that the building could no longer be used as a hospital, so it will serve another purpose in the future.

Saint Landry built the original church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, which became the parish of the kings of France. Saint Landry served as Bishop of Paris until his death, which occurred in 661. He was buried in the Church of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois in Paris, and today you can see his statue and frescos painted in St. Landry’s Chapel at Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois (we saw these on our pilgrimage as well).

Let us remember to ask our patron to intercede for us in prayers for our church parish, as well call upon his intercession in time of need.  St. Landry prayers cards are located at the doors of the church.  St. Landry, pray for us!!

Father James Brady

The bulletin for the week of June 12, 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.