Lent is here again. It is an invitation to join Jesus in the 40 days He spent in the desert preparing for his public ministry. We must also prepare ourselves for the ministry of announcing His death and resurrection that we will celebrate this Easter.
Augustinian Father Michael P. Sullivan will lead a parish retreat at Our Lady Help of Christians Church, Midwood, Feb. 18-21.
A guide to Easter Sunday services throughout Brooklyn and Queens.
Jesus calls Lazarus out of the tomb, and we read that Lazarus comes out, bound hand and foot. The Lord says these simple words: “Untie him, and let him go free.” The same Jesus, who is fully human and fully divine is calling to us, beckoning us to let Him untie us and to let us go free.
God has a plan for me, for all of us. If I let go a bit more of my own volition, that plan may become a bit clearer, and thereby, a bit more attainable. So, as we near the end of the challenging season of Lent 2017, I am adding “Give It A Rest” to my daily mantras.
My dear brothers and sisters in the Lord, As we have begun the season of Lent several weeks ago, I cannot help but comment on what Lent can mean for us. The word Lent comes from an old English word that means spring; therefore, it is not unreasonable to describe Lent as the springtime of the soul.
FOR LENT 2016, I adopted a new Forty Days discipline in addition to intensified prayer, daily almsgiving and letting my liver have its annual vacation: I quit sports talk radio, cold turkey.
THE BEST LENT OF my life involved getting up every day at 5:30 a.m., hiking for miles through ankle-twisting, cobblestoned city streets, dodging drivers for whom traffic laws were traffic suggestions, avoiding the chaos of transit strikes and other civic disturbances, and battling bureaucracies civil and ecclesiastical – all while 3,500 miles from home sweet home.
This year, the Feast of St. Patrick, March 17, falls on a Friday in Lent. I hereby grant to all Catholics of the Diocese of Brooklyn as well as all present here that day, a dispensation from abstinence from meat and meat products.
My dear brothers and sisters in the Lord, since Lent has now begun, I call attention to the Message of His Holiness Pope Francis for Lent 2017 entitled “The Word is a gift. Other persons are a gift.”
