Faith in Action is the focus of this year’s Diocesan Partners in Charity appeal. You will find an insert in this weekend’s bulletin in which we all are reminded and called to experience and express our love of God by serving others. A spokesman for our parish team facilitating our participation in this year’s campaign and the “in-pew” option envelopes mark the beginning of our response. Many of us receive our materials directly from the Diocese of Worcester based on previous participation. I want to encourage you all to assess your participation to date, and to consider as generously as possible the Church’s ministry as part of this year’s effort now underway.
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You will notice perhaps that Fr. Tom and Deacon Vincent are wearing new, rose-colored vestments this weekend, as we celebrate Laetare (Rejoice!) Sunday. These new vestments, used twice each year, on Laetare Sunday during Lent and Gaudete Sunday during Advent, are an anonymous gift to the parish for which we are grateful.
It is, indeed, Laetare Sunday – 4th Sunday of Lent which marks an important milestone in our Lenten journey, and calls to us to find cause for rejoicing in the unique Scripture readings and prayers of the Mass of the 4th Sunday.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” John3:16-17
Following and then leading into weeks during which we focus faithfully and hopefully on the darkness into which we pray for light, the sin for which we pray for forgiveness, the brokenness of the world within us and around us for which we pray the wisdom and the courage to be instruments of change A in the midst of all of this we take this moment, this day of grace to recall with joy the reason we have hope, the person in whom forgiveness lives, the Spirit who grants both wisdom and courage. Much can make us happy, but THIS is reason to rejoice!!! Fr. Tom