Dear Parishioners:
We rejoice that hundreds of people came to Our Lady of Mercy last Saturday for All-Day Confessions. As the Gospel of Saint Luke reminds us: “I tell you, in just the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance.”
We thank the volunteers who helped greet people and welcomed them to OLM. We also thank the priests who helped to hear Confessions, some for two or three hours! Truly it was a great day full of mercy and forgiveness for so many! If you couldn’t make it to All-Day Confessions, there is one more opportunity before Easter. This Holy Week, we offer Confessions on Wednesday night, not the usual Monday night, due to the Chrism Mass at the Cathedral on Monday evening. Four priests will be available from 6:00 pm until 8:00 pm for Confession on Wednesday.
Our forty days of Lenten prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are ending. We begin Holy Week on Palm Sunday by recalling Christ’s entrance into Jerusalem to accomplish the Paschal Mystery. At the heart of our faith is the Paschal Mystery: the Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus Christ. All of salvation history leads to and goes forth from these saving events.
We call this “Holy Week” because it is the holiest week of the Church Year. It is the Week that Changed the World! St. Josemaría Escriva said: “The tragedy of the Passion brings to fulfillment our own life and the whole of human history. We can’t let Holy Week be just a kind of commemoration. It means contemplating the mystery of Jesus Christ as something which continues to work in our souls. The Christian must be altered – Christus, ipse Christus: another Christ, Christ Himself. “
Our celebration of Holy Week begins this Palm Sunday as we remember in faith the triumphal entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem to begin his final week and initiate his Passion. Today, as we receive the palm branches, we may consider ourselves part of that vast crowd. How will we journey with Jesus this week? Let the palm remind us to praise Christ with our prayerful presence during the Sacred Triduum. Join us this week for the Sacred Triduum. Our celebration is a powerful and profoundly prayerful expression of our faith.
Holy Thursday begins the Sacred Triduum with the Mass of the Lord’s Supper at 7:00 pm. At this Mass, we recall the institution of the Eucharist and the Sacred Priesthood by Jesus Christ. The Church remains open until Midnight for private prayer and devotion before the Eucharistic Lord at the Altar of Repose.
On Good Friday, we recall the Lord’s Passion and Crucifixion. It is a day of prayer, fasting, and abstinence from meat. We are urged to keep Good Friday free of work, social activities, and unnecessary distractions like phones, TV, radio, the internet, and social media. Rather we should devote ourselves to private prayer and reflection as well as communal prayer and worship. On Good Friday at 3:00 pm, we pray the Stations of the Cross, and at 7:00 pm, we celebrate the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion and venerate the Cross.
In our prayer, devotion, and veneration of the Cross, we echo St. Francis of Assisi, who said: “We adore you, and we bless you, Lord Jesus Christ, here and in all the churches which are in the whole world because, by your holy cross, you have redeemed the world.”
On Holy Saturday, we recall Jesus in the tomb as we pray and prepare for the Easter Vigil. The Easter Vigil Mass is at 7:30 pm and is the only Mass allowed on this day. We begin in total darkness as we recall the death of Christ, and then the Church comes alive with light as we recall his glorious Resurrection. We will baptize and receive several people fully into the Catholic Faith at the Easter Vigil. Pray for them as they join our Church. They have been preparing for months by studying the Catholic Faith. We congratulate them, welcome them, and promise our prayers for them.
On Easter Sunday, we rejoice at Masses at 7:30 am, 9:00 am, and 10:30 am. There is no 5:00 pm evening Mass on Easter Sunday. Join us this Holy Week and enter fully into the Sacred Mysteries of our faith. Let the Week that Changed the World change your life! Be well. Do good. God Bless! Have a Blessed Holy Week.