Monday Message, March 21, 2022
KNOW
There is a Parish Leader Check In tomorrow. Link is here.
If you would like to see your catechists, etc. as a Local Leader, let Carmela know. We are in demo mode between now and Tuesday but we are happy to let you in a little early.
There are few slight changes in the Confirmation Norms for the spring. Please see this Memo and the updated Directives for Confirmations.
We had a great meeting about legal issues last week with Anne McCrory. Details will follow next Monday and then we’ll discuss the proposed form at our check in tomorrow. Note that this meeting’s video is by request only.
The People of Hope flyer is ready for you to share. Registration opens this week.
Confirmation Request Form Fall 2022 are available and were sent to all pastors a few weeks ago.
Have you advertised this event to your parish yet? Have you asked via your parish bulletin if anyone is missing (only) Confirmation?
Foundations in Faith is excited to promote applications for parish support grants from the St. John Paul II Fund for Faith Formation. These grants support faith formation efforts that emphasize creativity, innovation, and youth engagement in planning. Applicants can request up to $10,000 in funding for a program to run from September 2022 to June 2023. Applications open February 15 and will close on April 1. To learn more or to apply, visit this link.
Want to go to the movies? We are hosting a special screening of Fr. Stu. More information and tickets here.
REFLECT
The acting out of love to the extent of dying on a cross is a mystery I have never been fully able to understand. My limited ability to love stands embarrassed at such extravagance. My daily attempt falls short of my dreams. I carry my crosses carefully, trying to make sure they don’t take too much out of me.
I always leave a little pink around the edges of my crosses. I can not bear unpleasant things. I honestly don’t know how Jesus did it! I can hardly accept WHY he did it. The why he did it always makes me feel guilty about the pink around the edges.
During Lent, at least, I’d like to let the pink go. I’d like to be content for forty days with a cross that is not pretty. But I am so young in my faith. It is hard not to cheat a little and search for soft, easy, pretty crosses.
O God of Lent, remember me. Help me to take all the clutter that I try to decorate my crosses with, all the ways I try to camouflage your death and dying because my faith has not grown enough and to look at death as it really is: an emptiness that brings me face to face with LIFE.
And yet, within my fragile, questioning heart I know that if I would ever dare get close enough to dying, to death, it would fall over into life.
O God of Lent, Your love has opened my eyes. It is my own pink edged crosses that have broken my heart.
But your cross has saved me.
(from Seasons of Your Heart by Macrina Wiederkehr, OSB)
LAUGH
