Lent and Easter 2010

Dear Members of the St. Kevin's Parish Community,

Our greetings to you in this sacred season!

As we continue to journey through these forty days of Lent, we value this opportunity to communicate with you and to share with you news of the ongoing pilgrimage of the Parish Community of St. Kevin.

St. Kevin's, the Spiritual Home for Close to 10,000 Catholics

Home is the glue that binds members of a family together. Experience tells us that some families are very close, other families less so, but no matter, any member of a family who has been away or grown distant always has the right to go home and to be welcomed with the warmest hospitality possible. It is the same way with one's spiritual home.

That is what we are here at the parish; we are a spiritual home. It is here, in our sacred space and in our community that a person is baptized and receives the other sacraments of initiation, Confirmation and First Communion. It is here that new families begin with the blessing of marriage. And at the end of life, it is here that we bid farewell to loved ones with our prayer and express our faith in eternal life-our faith that for the believer in Jesus, life at death is only changed, not ended.

As priests here at St. Kevin's, it has been our experience that many find St. Kevin's to be a very warm and welcoming spiritual home. The needs of the members of the parish are remembered daily at our 8:00 Eucharist. The doors of the church are open throughout the day for believers to spend some quiet time with the Lord. The hospitality extended to the elderly, the sick and shut-ins and to the materially poor and needy is both gracious and generous. All of this is essential to being a spiritual home, the sacred place one can always return to and be welcomed. And all of this, of course, is due to the person of Jesus present in the Eucharist and in his Word and to the living and joyful faith of the community, a community confident in its mission to be Christ for others.

The Gift of Families and Young Children

Our parish is especially gifted by the presence and involvement of families with young children. They are "the living and joyful faith of our community" writ large. Becoming a parent is so often a moment of dramatic invitation to own or deepen one's faith; to live life as an ongoing attempt to personally answer Jesus' question: "Who do you say I am?" Bringing your children to the parish for week-end Mass not only teaches them about an important aspect of what you deeply value. It is also a dramatic invitation to all of us to welcome and affirm them in our community of living and joyful faith.

We have two invaluable places of formal contact with our families with young children.

• Catholic Schools. When we talk about the mission of our parish community we very much include the faith education and prayer that take place in our Catholic schools: St. Kevin School, Holy Name School, Alexander Kuska School and Notre Dame College School. Considering other constituencies in North America, Ontario is very blessed to have a Catholic school system that is funded by the province. It can happen that we take our Catholic schools for granted. But suppose we did not have them? What a challenge it would be for St. Kevin's to connect with all of these families and children and to provide sacramental preparation and faith education for children from Kindergarten to Grade Twelve. And in a very secular society, our schools become a wonderful point of contact for us to meet parents, remind them of our spiritual home and encourage them to tell our Catholic Christian story to their children.
  

• 10:00 Sunday Morning Mass. How encouraging it is to have an increasing number of parents and young children to celebrate Mass with us on Sunday, the Lord's Day. The children gather at the beginning rites of the Eucharist and receive a special blessing as they go with their teachers to learn more about Jesus and how to pray. We are so grateful to the parents who make Sunday Mass a priority. This is not an easy thing to do with so much competition from the consumer marketplace and various secular activities and entertainments. What parents are doing is helping to form their children into the meaning of church and introducing them to their spiritual home. What happens when children are young stays in their imagination as they get older.

Living Lent

Throughout Lent, here at St. Kevin's, our spiritual home, one can find the space and time to be quiet in the presence of the Lord. We have two Masses each day, 8:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. One can have an experience of prayer before the Suffering Christ, our Lenten crucifix placed in a corner of the Sanctuary. As we pray before the cross, we ask pardon for our sins and for the sins of the world.

As always, the purpose of these days of Lent is twofold: to do penance and to make our way to the renewal of our baptismal commitment at either the Easter Vigil or at Mass on Easter Sunday. May the remaining days of Lent lure you into the desert so that you can meet the Lord!

Reflecting on Share Lent

Almsgiving is at the heart of living Lent. The Parish's annual Share Lent collection is always the most important expression of almsgiving that we have over the course of each year. This year's Share Lent can be a real challenge for us at St. Kevin's. A little less than a month ago, St. Kevin's collected $35,000 for earthquake relief in Haiti. That awful devastation demanded compassionate and caring giving, and St. Kevin's responded. But the way things work, as we all know, is that even news and information of the devastation of the magnitude of that which took place in Haiti eventually disappears from the TV screens and the front pages of our newspapers and people are lulled into forgetting. Yet, misery remains; people continue to die of sickness; and an entire country has to be rebuilt.

And this is where Development and Peace continues to serve and help. That is why Share Lent must be important for all of us. You will find the Share Lent envelope in this mailing. Please use it and be as generous as you can. We must work hard to overcome donor fatigue. You will also find a Partners in Action sheet, a fascinating little story of a small community in Colombia that illustrates how Development and Peace is able to work with Catholic partners in the developing world and how much they count on the contribution of Canadian Catholics. As usual, the Share Lent collection will take place Palm Sunday weekend–March 27 & 28. From those who are given much, much will be expected!

Making Ready for Easter

You will find with this letter the complete schedule for the last days of Lent, Holy Week and Easter here at St. Kevin's. The times for liturgy and prayer are clearly indicated, but we would like to underscore four important liturgical moments.

• Tuesday March 23 at 7:30 p.m. – Taizé Prayer - We adore you Lord, Jesus Christ. Join us for a very peaceful hour of song, silence and prayer in the tradition of the Brothers of Taizé. This hour gives you personal time and supports you with some profoundly beautiful Taizé music. Excellent Lenten soul time for you!
• Monday of Holy Week – March 29 at 7:30 p.m. Our communal celebration of the Sacrament of Penance. The 40 days of Lent call us to turn away from sin and believe the Good news. The Sacrament of Penance is a very rich moment of conversion and encountering again the mercy and forgiveness of the Lord. Several priests will join us to help with confession.
• Holy Thursday - April 1 at 7:30 p.m. The Celebration of the Lord's Supper. We invite everyone in the Parish to this beautiful liturgy.
  Our tradition here at St. Kevin's is to encourage everyone who serves our parish in any kind of ministry to be present as we give a new mandate for service. It makes good sense to do this commissioning in the Holy Thursday liturgy that highlights how Jesus taught us to serve through the washing of feet. The washing of feet is the model for all ministry.
• Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday Evening - April 3 at 8:00 p.m. The Easter Vigil is the highpoint of all feasts and liturgies throughout the year. There are lengthy Easter Vigils that are very meaningful and there are shorter Easter Vigil liturgies that are equally beautiful and meaningful. We continue to opt for a shorter Vigil, hoping that more parishioners will join us. If you can, direct your pilgrimage through these final days, of Lent to the Easter Vigil, this holiest of evenings.

In conclusion . . .

We conclude our conversation with you by extending our joyful greetings to all of you as we look forward to celebrating the power and the glory of the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Because of our faith in the Lord Jesus, we are the most blessed of people. This is a faith we are compelled to share with others, including those who have been journeying with us in our RCIA program and who will profess their faith or assume full membership in the church at the Easter Vigil. Please pray for these sisters and brothers as we approach Easter. There is a Coptic icon which depicts Jesus with his arm around a disciple. The disciple is each of us, and the arm of Jesus symbolizes both friendship and encouragement: Jesus the friend is with each of us always; Jesus encourages each of his friends to continue to do his work today.

May you and your family and loved ones enjoy renewed faith and much peace this coming Easter season.

Yours in the peace of Christ,

Father Jim Mulligan, CSC and Father Norm Bordage, CSC