Enter Into the Season of Lent

We are about to enter the Season of Lent, the penitential period in which we remember the forty days when Jesus Christ fasted and prayed in the desert before He began his public ministry. During this season, Catholics traditionally prepare for the most sacred time of the Liturgical year, Holy Week and Easter, the commemoration of the passion, death and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Lent begins with Ash Wednesday, February 25, 2004. Masses on Ash Wednesday will be held at 8:00 A.M., 9:30 A.M. (School Mass), 12:00 Noon, 6:00 P.M., and 7:30 P.M.

At St. Thomas Aquinas we will add one more weekday Mass during Lenta 6:15 P.M. Wednesday Mass beginning on the Wednesday after Ash Wednesday. This is in addition to the Tuesday and Thursday evening Masses at 6:15 P.M., and the 8:00 A.M. Masses Monday through Friday. The Confession schedule will be expanded to include Confession time after the Wednesday evening Mass until 8:00 P.M. Other regular Confession times are Tuesdays from the end of 8:00 A.M. Mass until 9:45 A.M., Thursdays from 5:00 until 6:00 P.M. and Saturdays 2:45 until 3:45 P.M.. Stations of the Cross will be held on Fridays at 2:00 P.M. and 7:00 P.M.

Lenten Organ and Choral Concerts will be held each Friday after the evening Stations. During Lent we should remember to pray for the Candidates and Catechumens who will complete the intense preparation for reception into the Church. For each of us spiritual preparation might include fasting, prayer and participating in liturgy and personal reflection upon the need in each of our lives for sacrifice, repentance and the simplification of our lifestyles. Daily Mass, personal acts of penitence and devotion, almsgiving and doing the works of justice, coming to the Stations of the Cross, making a retreatin each of these ways we may enter contemplatively into the Passion and death of Jesus Christ in anticipation of a joyous Easter.