Dear Friends,

Someone asked me yesterday if I would be skiing this weekend because they didn’t see my name on the Mass schedule.  Actually, I’ve gone in the other direction.  If all has gone as expected (since I’m writing this on Tuesday), I should be in the Turks and Caicos Islands for the weekend with Archbishop Myers.  He will be celebrating Confirmation for almost twenty people.  He and I will be back in New Jersey on Monday.  But next weekend I will be heading north, hoping for good conditions and a great time.  But I will be around this week for Ash Wednesday. 

I leave you with a couple of thoughts.

Last Sunday was Pledge Sunday for the Archbishop’s Annual Appeal.  For those who were elsewhere, or those who are still thinking about supporting this appeal, I want to sum-up what I said in my talk (not a homily because it wasn’t based on scripture).  Basically I tried to point out the fact that whether a person was homeless or hungry or in need of medical attention, it didn’t matter where they were, they were just as homeless or hungry or in need.  The video this year stressed how the campaign assists local people with these basic needs.  We who are blessed shouldn’t close our eyes to these people with these needs simply because the magnitude of their numbers doesn’t get the media attention other disasters do.  Though they may be invisible to us, they are just as homeless and hungry.  I also reiterated the point that we’re not looking for extraordinary gifts, just manageable gifts from each and every parish household that can do something, given the economic times in which we are living.  Please fill out a pledge envelope, which are still in the pews, and drop it off in the boxes at the doors of the church.

As I already mentioned, this Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent.  When I think about Lent, I think about “giving up,” about fasting, about the other “color purple,” about A & P Catholics (ashes and palms) and, for folks my age, “hot cross” buns, from a real bakery.  Lent is filled with so many images. 

But Lent is really a journey.  Theologically and liturgically it is a remembering of the 40-day journey of Jesus through the desert, itself a remembering of the 40-year journey of the Hebrews through the wilderness, so that they might be purified before they entered into the Promised Land.  For us, it is a 40-day reflection on our own journey through life, or, at least, through this past year, so that we, too, might be purified before we enter the Paschal Mystery of Christ’s death and Resurrection – Easter.  What it really should be for us is a 40-day examination of conscience.  Where am I in my life?  How did I get here?  Is this where I want to be?  Where am I going?  Where do I want to go?  And how do I get there?

But it’s not always easy to stay focused for so long a time.  And so the Church invites you to use the tools that can help you, prayer, fasting and almsgiving (any act of kindness and charity).  These are not so much resolutions (like the New Year’s Resolutions we don’t keep), as they are tools to stay focused on the real effort of Lent – to change my heart and make it more in tuned with the heart of Jesus.  I encourage everyone to choose one of these tools, maybe daily Mass, maybe using the Lenten reflection books, maybe some time every day in the Adoration Chapel, maybe taking the Lenten fast seriously – whatever.  But choose a tool, use it, but remember – it’s not a contest to see if I can succeed, it’s a journey to find the way to a closer life with Christ.

God Bless,
Fr. Ron