April 13, 2025: Weekend Announcements

Please subscribe and click bell notifications to be an informed parishioner through the parish YouTube channel. Helpful links are below. 1. Our Knights of Columbus are hosting a traveling image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It is a beautiful image and is placed in our chapel for another week. It is a good reminder of the love of God for us. 2. The email edition of the announcements has some news from our parish library. Our library is now online. See the emailed announcements to follow the link there for more information and to access the library online. 3. As we are beginning Holy Week, this is a good time to remind you that we both fast from food and abstain from meat on Good Friday. Furthermore, we are encouraged to maintain that fast and abstinence beyond Good Friday until the first Mass of Easter. This intense time of preparation is called the Paschal or Easter Fast. 4. Priests will be away this Tuesday of Holy Week for the Chrism Mass. That means that there will not be any confessions or the evening daily Mass this Tuesday. 5. The climactic events of our Lord’s mission to save us are observed each year in an intense way late in Holy Week with the shortest season of the Church’s liturgical year, called the Sacred Triduum. The Sacred Triduum is a term that comes from the Latin referring to the Sacred Three days. Those three days mark the evening of Holy Thursday to the evening of Easter Sunday. I want to encourage you to make every effort to attend the Masses and services of the Sacred Triduum. Holy Thursday focuses on the Last Supper where the Lord gave the example of humility in washing the apostles’ feet and where he instituted two sacraments: the holy priesthood and the Holy Eucharist. The evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday begins at 7:00 pm. At the conclusion of that Mass we process with the Blessed Sacrament outside to the St. Augustine Chapel where there is adoration until midnight. This calls to mind that upon the end of the Last Supper the Lord left the Upper Room and went out across the Kidron Valley where he prayed his agony in the garden. Good Friday is a unique day in the life of the Church. There is no Mass that day, but a Service of the Lord’s Passion. The sanctuary is stripped bare as a sign of the emptiness brought about by the Lord’s suffering and death for us. The Good Friday Service is at 7:00 pm. On Holy Saturday we focus on the tomb and in the evening we gather in vigil to celebrate the empty tomb of Easter Sunday. The Easter Vigil Mass is the biggest Mass of the entire year. Within that Mass new catholics will be baptized and received into the Church. Our celebration of the Lord’s Resurrection begins with that Mass. The Easter Vigil Mass is at 8:30 pm on Holy Saturday. That time replaces the normal Saturday evening Mass. The schedule for Easter Sunday is the same schedule as all Sundays. Do make the effort to gather for these holy days by making it a priority to attend and participate in the Sacred Triduum.