Dear friends,

As I write this on Ash Wednesday, I have just returned (on Monday evening, beating the latest snowfall) from a weekend trip to the Turks and Caicos Islands, and I’m about to get ready to leave on Friday for my annual week in Vermont.  So you will be blessed once again this weekend by my absence.

I know – bad scheduling.  But on the trip to TCI, I had no choice.  I accompanied the Archbishop, who is the Superior of the Mission, and it was his scheduling.  He celebrated the Sacrament of Confirmation for 18 young people (some of whose brothers and sisters I had confirmed) and it was a wonderful sign both of the Church’s presence and also the growth of the local community since we assumed responsibility for serving there.  He also blessed an engraved stone which one day will serve as part of the cornerstone of the new church, a building project which we are about to begin in earnest.  While everybody downplays the brick and mortar aspect of religion, having a place to worship in as a community is a real sign of the community’s growth, strength and permanence.  Please pray for their success in this holy endeavor.  And if anyone has an extra few thousand dollars, or so, that they don’t need, Msgr. Peter would be happy to relieve you of it. 

I want to return to a practice I started last Lent, to include, as part of my weekly wanderings, a short word on the movement of the Sunday Scriptures.  Because there are seven days between our worship, we sometimes miss the movement of where the Scriptures is taking us, but it might be helpful to see this, especially in the Lenten season, so it can refocus our spiritual attention to what we’re doing.  But before that I want to put in two “worldly” words.  I mention again the Archbishop’s Annual Appeal.  If you were away these last two Sundays, we have begun this annual campaign.  As I’ve said, it doesn’t matter whether you’re homeless in Jersey City or in Haiti, you’re just as homeless.  Or if you’re hungry in Newark or in Africa, you’re just as hungry.  Please give: it helps those in need closest to home.  Speaking of giving close to home, our Sharing Our Gifts tithe for the next several weeks is dedicated to the Sister Lucy Fund, established to honor Sr. Lucy Sullivan who labored for so many years here, working with the sick, the elderly and those in need.  This Fund is strictly dedicated to the needs of our own and it has been seriously depleted over these last two years in this economic crisis.  Rent, mortgage payments, doctor bills, food, utilities – all of these expenses have been met by this Fund. That’s why the tithe, for so many weeks, is needed to replenish it.  Other donations are always accepted, as well as bequests to it and memorials at the time of a loved one’s passing. 

Now, to the Scripture.  Where does Lent begin?  It always begins in the desert.  Jesus prepared Himself for His ministry by His “retreat” into the desert.  There He was tempted but nothing like the temptation He would go through as He faced the Cross.  And the temptations He faced are much like the temptations we face in daily living, to put our needs, or should I say, I wants, before everything else, food, power and comfort.  Everyday we are told these are right at our fingertips; all we have to do is reach out and take them.  But Jesus, even after fasting for forty days, rejected these “goods” to put God first.  How would we fare?  How do we fare in the face of these onslaughts? 

 
Jesus’ “retreat” of forty days in the desert recalls the forty years of wandering the Hebrews experienced in the desert as the Lord purified them of their evils and failures to see Him as their only God and true good.  For us, Lent should be the same experience.  Through works of sacrifice and charity, we can cooperate with the Lord’s grace, working in us to renew us, to change our hearts, to purify us so that we may see the Lord as our only God and good to Whom nothing else can compare. 

Will you make these forty days that kind of a journey?  Through your chosen sacrifices, will you invite and allow the Lord to change your heart and to renew you for the celebration of His most magnificent gift and triumph – Jesus’ Resurrection and our’s as well?

God Bless,
Fr. Ron