Padre’s Ponderings 3-13-16

This Sunday, March 13th will be our last gathering on the Sundays in Lent for Vespers, Adoration and Benediction at St. Joe’s. Thanks again to all who have been able to join us over the course of our communal journey through the desert. If you have not as yet been able to join us, please know that you are welcome.

Please remember that the GACC Development dinner will be held this Monday, March 14. The doors at the Nielsen Center will open at 6 pm and we will begin serving at 6:30 pm. This wonderful event is a great opportunity to support and celebrate our teachers and staff. In addition to a delicious meal you will also be able to enjoy some entertainment from our talented students. (Word on the street is that Mrs. Hagemann has a killer stand-up routine as part of her hidden talents that might also be on display.) I apologize that there was some confusion about “tickets” for this event. I believe that even at this late date you would still be welcome to join us as we celebrate 130 years of learning and leading through Christ.

Our first full-blown E-edition of the Guardian Angels Central Catholic newsletter should be hitting your electronic devices sometime this week. This new format is allowing us to expand coverage while reducing the cost of production. I’ve seen the preliminary copy (an advantage of being the “proprietor” of the franchise) and it is filled with some amazing things. I hope that you will enjoy this new format and make sure that you forward it to family and friends. We will also try to have a link on the websites of the school and the parish. We are constantly trying to find ways to spread the good news of this phenomenal institution and the amazing people that are a part of Bluejay Nation. If you did not receive a copy via the worldwide web, we probably need to update your contact info. If you are not an email person but would like to see the newsletter, please call the office and we will print off a copy. It won’t have the snazzy color photos but you can still read all about it!

Our Lenten Penance Service will be on Tuesday, March 15, at 7 pm at St. Mary in West Point and a number of local priests will join us for the celebration. While we will also be offering individual confessions on Wednesday evenings and before our Saturday evening Masses, Fr. Frank and I would both like to encourage you to prayerfully consider participating in this communal service of reconciliation. It is a powerful sign of our shared need for God’s mercy and our common call to be instruments of Christ’s compassion in our broken world.

Thanks to everyone who worked at the St. Boniface Parish Breakfast to make it such a success and of course thanks to everyone who showed up to eat! What a great celebration of our family of faith!

It feels crazy to type this, but next Sunday we begin Holy Week! Please check the bulletin for times and locations of our Triduum celebrations.

Over the next couple of months, Archbishop Lucas will be hosting nine listening sessions to hear from as many people in the Archdiocese as possible as he discerns a Pastoral Priority Plan for the future of the Church in Northeast Nebraska. The sessions nearest us will be in March in Wayne (March 15) and Columbus (March 28). Both of these sessions will be held from 6:30-8:00 pm. Registration is required, and you may RSVP by calling (402) 558-3100 or going to archomaha.org/listen. Please feel free to contact the rectory if you would like more information.