2025.03.16 2nd Sunday of Lent

Dear Parishioners,

I want to bring an important matter to your attention, which requires our prayers, personally and communally. Our Archbishop, Frank Cardinal Leo, is inviting all of us to join in an Archdiocesan Day of Prayer for Survivors of Abuse on this Sunday, the Second Sunday of Lent, March 16, 2025. The Archbishop states in his letter, “The purpose of this day is to pray for survivors, increase awareness, and express contrition for the role that members of the Church played in wrongs committed.”

On the Second Sunday of Lent, we traditionally reflect on the Transfiguration of the Lord. The Transfiguration is a reminder of the glory in which we are called to enter at the end of this life, as well as a call to remedy those times when we fall short. With the call of the Transfigured Lord before us and the need to address our sinfulness with humility, many of us consider performing penitential acts, and engaging in the Lenten practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. These serve as a remedy or means of conversion and nurture our relationships with God and our
neighbour.

In our penitential acts and in our Lenten practices, we focus more on the individual self. Our hope is to strengthen our personal relationship with God and our neighbour and overcome all that keeps us from loving more fully. But, we are part of a larger community, the Catholic Christian community, and we need to recognize our communal need, not only to approach God as a community of praise, but also as a community afflicted by division and sorrow and in need of healing and forgiveness. Therefore, on this Second Sunday of Lent and on this Archdiocesan Day of Prayer for Survivors of Abuse, we express sorrow for the sins of abuse; we pray for all the survivors of abuse and for their families; and for the conversion of our hearts, individually and communally.

Fr. Vijai, C.S.C. ~ Pastor