Messages from the Pastor

February 26, 2012

Dear Parishioners and Friends,

Happy Lent! Okay, I admit that sounds like an odd greeting, since most Catholics don’t find doing extra penance during this holy season all that enjoyable. I myself have to force a smile onto my face while drinking my Lenten tea (instead of my beloved fresh-ground and fresh-brewed coffee!). But in the long run drawing closer to Christ is a good thing, and does enrich our lives. That’s what our extra prayer, our self-mortification, and our increased charity is meant to accomplish. It’s just a matter of maintaining focus, and remembering the ultimate goal!

But something is happening this Lent in the Cathedral Parish that definitely makes us all sad. Two of our most treasured parishioners, Sister Carla Candella, SSND, and Sister Fides Bourgeois, SSND, are leaving us this month. They’’re a part of our parish family and indeed of our hearts: for years they have been involved in religious education efforts here at the Cathedral, both with the young in our PSR and the not-so-young in our RCIA. Yet in consultation with their religious superior it’s been decided that it’s time for them to move to the retirement convent of their order, the School Sisters of Notre Dame, in Chatawa, Mississippi. Their age and health have become precarious enough that it’s best they move from independent living to the place where they can be cared-for more completely.

So mark your calendars for a Goodbye Celebration on Sunday, March 25. At and after our 10 am Sunday Mass, we’ll celebrate the sisters’ place in our hearts, thank them for all they’ve done for us over the years, and give them a more formal farewell. They’ve already invited us all to come see them whenever we can – and having visited the retreat house at Chatawa over the years many times I can attest it’s a beautiful and holy place to visit. And it’s not far – only a little more than an hour away – so I guess we’ll have to organize a parish “road trip” there in the not-too-distant future!

Parishioners continue to share with me their outrage at the federal government’s efforts at forbidding us to practice fully our Catholic faith in their upcoming health-insurance “reform.” That’s what their insistence on our paying for abortion, sterilization and contraception amounts to. Do everything you can to point out to our elected representatives and senators, and other government officials, that we cannot abide by such a restriction on our religious rights. I urge you to go to www.usccb.org/conscience and inform yourselves on the issues and become more active in making sure this injustice does not stand.

I do admit: one person did approach me and politely urged that I note that the subjects mentioned above are not the only moral issues over which the Church and government – and sometimes society at large – disagree. He’s right, of course, and perhaps my not mentioning this seemed to imply otherwise. Our faith calls us, for example, to oppose capital punishment as unnecessary and wrong in our society; to reform immigration regulations to provide justice both to citizens and to newcomers to our country; and to continue banking and housing reform in ways that promote safe, affordable homes.

Be concerned about these things too – please! Society’s gradually been abandoning religious values for years: we have to resist while it’s still possible, to avoid more serious problems, even persecutions, to come!

Sincerely yours in Christ,
Father Paul

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