Fast

Dear sisters & brothers in Christ,

I pray that you are blessed and are sheltering from these winter storms. Personally, I don’t mind the snow, especially if I don’t have to go anywhere, but I hate ice and the bitter cold and wind. Besides the winter weather I hope you are prepared for Lent. We are called each year to use these weeks to prepare ourselves for the celebration of The Passion, Death & Resurrection of our Lord and Redeemer. A time during which we recommit ourselves to living the Gospel more faithfully through prayer, fasting and acts of love & charity.

While it is popular to fast for 40 days from something we enjoy, like chocolate, or soda, or TV, while others fast from such unhealthy things as smoking or the lack of exercise. I like to encourage people to fast from something that is unchristian. Consider fasting from gossip or anger or something similar. Try giving up judging other people. When the 40 days are over, instead of gorging yourself on Easter candy or drowning in soda, giving up something like gossip is something that you can continue to fast from and you will find yourself to be a better Christian. Rather than going through Lent each year and basically remaining the same, we can use this annual Lenten season to continue to grow year upon year, and ever closer to our Lord.

Bishop Walkowiak shared some of his own thoughts in an email this week. He reflected on the fact that it was during Lent last year that he had to suspend the public celebration of mass, which as you know, is at the very core of our Catholic Faith. Fortunately, we have been able to return to mass, even if it is with a number of restrictions. Lent is a time when we all recommit ourselves to a deeper practice of our faith. It is also a time when many people who have been away from The Church return home again.

While many of us have been able to return to more and more of our daily routines, for some mass is still an unsafe place. For those of you who have been returning to activities outside your home, like restaurants and shopping, the bishop has asked me to extend an invitation to return to mass where we have been commended on our safe practices of social-distancing, while still celebrating the unity we have with our God and one another.

For those of you who are still in a high-risk category and are nervous about returning, the dispensation from the obligation of attending Sunday Mass has been extended until further notice. As more and more people get vaccinated, my hope is that we will be able to return to a more normal celebration of the mass. But for now, the bishop and I want to assure anyone who is apprehensive about the safety of returning to mass that they are free of any legal obligation. I urge you to continue to watch the online version of our liturgy. For those of you who are healthy and want to start making the transition, you may want to consider what others have done: they started to come to daily mass where the numbers are smaller and they were able to spread out and sit a bit further from one another.

Until then, we have been very fortunate here at St. Alphonsus to be able to live stream our daily masses, as well as, other liturgies and religious materials. I want to assure all of you that we will continue to do so, even after the pandemic. This is a marvelous way to spread The Gospel and to reach people who would otherwise not be able to come physically to church, like our sick and shut-ins or even those who have moved away from our parish. Again, I want to thank those who were so generous in making this possible.

I also want to thank Licari’s for their generosity and support in our recent fundraiser, as well as, all of you who participated, or at least tried to participate. Yes, so many people placed orders that they literally ran out of food and were simply overwhelmed by the numbers. In an attempt to let as many people participate who wanted to, they extended the fundraiser through the following day. Thanks to all of you who placed an order we raised almost $1200, which is just utterly amazing for such a short time. It just shows the love and support that people have for St. Alphonsus. The other great thing about this event is that it also supported a parishioner owned business. It may have even introduced Licari’s to a few of you for the first time and I hope you continue to support them. Hopefully we will be able to do it again. I’d like to add that if any of you own your own business and have a creative way in which we can support it, you can contact one of our parish council members with your idea. I would also encourage all of our parishioners to check out the back of our bulletin where you will find a number of parishioner owned businesses.

In the Redeemer, Fr. Rick