Lenten Season

02-25-2022Weekly Flocknote MessageFr. James Aboyi, VC

Have you made any plans yet for the Lenten season this year? Remember, Lent begins next week on Ash Wednesday, March 2. The season of Lent is not the most favorite season for a number of people. This is generally because they consider Lent as a time to give up something or a time of self-discipline. This is generally true, however, the best way to look at the season of Lent is to consider it as a period of renewal, a period of spiritual fruitfulness, and a period of spiritual growth. The most common way many people make plans for the season of Lent is by making Lenten promises.

The tradition of making Lenten promises is a very good strategy that helps us to be able to keep up with personal disciplines. As you do so this year, I encourage you to consider including the three pillars of Lent: prayer, fasting and almsgiving in your Lenten promises. When we include these three pillars of Lent, we will see that Lent will become for us a period of “giving up, taking up, and lifting up.” In fasting, we give up attachment to bodily needs like food and material things. By setting aside quality times for personal prayers, we take up new habits to strengthen our relationship with God. When we give alms, we are lifting up our brothers and sisters who are in need of our love, prayers and support. May God give us His grace and strengthen us to be able to carry out our Lenten promises faithfully to the end. 

This year, due to limited space and complicated logistics, we are not able to have a Lenten Mission in our parish. However, in place of that, Fr. Manasseh will be holding a weekly program called, “Back to Basics During Lent.” We will be utilizing the DVD series, Symbolon: The Catholic Faith Explained. There are five sessions in total which begin on Thursday, March 10th at 6:30 pm in Annex 1. I encourage everyone to take advantage of this opportunity for spiritual growth and nourishment. Please visit our parish website and bulletin for more information. 

Resignation of the Music Director and Liturgy Coordinator

As we announced at all Masses last weekend, I am again sorry to inform those who are not aware that our St Benedict Music Director, Nick Garza and our Coordinator of Liturgy, Nikki Garza resigned from their positions last weekend. On behalf of the parish community, I thank them for their wonderful service to our parish community over the past three years. I will personally miss them and their children and I know you all will too. I sent them a thank you letter during the weekend and reminded them that St Benedict is always their home and they are always welcome to come and worship with us anytime. Please remember to keep their family in your prayers for God’s blessings. 

We currently have about eight Music Ministers from parishes in the Valley willing to help cover weekend and school Masses during this transition period. This includes our substitute Music Minister, Suzanne Bell, and our SJB Music Teacher, Dr. Luis Rodriguez. We will be placing the job opening next week. Please pray with me for God to bring another wonderful Music Director our way. 

Parish YouTube Channel

I apologize that our St. Benedict YouTube channel and live-streaming was unavailable last weekend. This was because we lost access to the channel and some audio/video equipment. We are working on it and hope to be able to return everything back to normal soon. 

St. John Bosco School Annual Gala Event

I invite you to pray with me for the success of our St. John Bosco Annual Gala Event taking place tomorrow, Saturday February 26th beginning at 6:00pm. I thank God we are now able to resume the in-person Gala after two years. However, we are still having a virtual silent auction this year. The good news is that the silent auction has actually already started. Please use this link to participate in the silent auction. This provides us all with a wonderful opportunity to support our St. John Bosco Students, Teachers, Staff, and Community! 

Our virtual Gala was quite successful last year, raising over $69,000 net. We are counting on your prayers and support and I look forward to another successful Gala this year. Please visit the SJB Website for more information on the Gala.