Pastor’s Message: March 4, 2022

Dear Parish Family,
In this Sunday’s Gospel Satan tempts Jesus who was led into the desert by the Holy Spirit for forty days. Jesus fasted throughout this time, but he did not yield to the false power and glory promised by the Devil.
I would like to share with you an Excerpt from Sermon 40 by Pope St. Leo the Great on Fasting
“Enter upon the celebration of the solemn fast, not with barren abstinence from food … but in bountiful benevolence. … Let works of piety, therefore, be our delight, and let us be filled with those kinds of food which feed us for eternity. Let us rejoice in the replenishment of the poor, whom our bounty has satisfied. Let us delight in the clothing of those whose nakedness we have covered with needful raiment. Let our humaneness be felt by the sick in their illnesses, by the weakly in their infirmities, by the exiles in their hardships, by the orphans in their destitution and by solitary widows in their sadness: in the helping of whom there is no one that cannot carry out some amount of benevolence. For no one’s income is small, whose heart is big. …” (Excerpt from Sermon 40)
These acts of self-denial help us to free ourselves from worldly distractions, to express our longing for Jesus.
God Bless you as we journey through this Lenten Season,
Fr. Cyrus