In lieu of a parish Lenten retreat, especially with the timing of all our Forward with Faith events including our recent weekend with Dr. John Rosemond, I thought it would be good to plan a parish retreat for families with a dynamic and powerful speaker—a dad himself of four children along with his wife, Cait—Pete Burak. Working closely with young adults—and with his real life experience in his family—Pete works to engage young adults and their families along with teens and others into intentional discipleship.

In common with all the sacraments, Anointing of the Sick confers sanctifying grace. This increased sanctifying grace, since it presupposes that the recipient already is free from mortal sin (from the Sacrament of Reconciliation), is intensified in the soul so that supernatural life, that oneness with God, which is the source of all spiritual strength is also the measure of our capacity for the happiness of heaven.

Summary: Abstinence on all the Fridays of Lent, and on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Fasting means having only one full meal to maintain one's strength. Friday Abstinence Outside of Lent. It should be noted that Fridays throughout the year are designated days of penance. The Code of Canon Law states that Friday is a day of abstinence from meat throughout the year. CLICK LINK FOR ALL THE DETAILS!

Ash Wednesday takes place 46 days before Easter Sunday, and is chiefly observed by Catholics, although many other Christians observe it too. Ash Wednesday comes from the ancient Jewish tradition of penance and fasting. The practice includes the wearing of ashes on the head. The ashes symbolize the dust from which God made us. As the priest applies the ashes to a person's forehead, he speaks the words: "Remember that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return." Alternatively, the priest may speak the words, "Repent and believe in the Gospel."

Dr. John Rosemond will speak here at Saint Catherine of Siena Parish on February 22nd and 23rd to parents and all family members. This is part of our Forward with Faith (FWF) Campaign to which so many of you have generously contributed. I hope you will come to this event. I received a very good question from a parishioner about the $10 cost of the ticket in light of the money contributed to the Forward with Faith Campaign. So why the $10 per ticket cost if the FWF was meant to cover expenses?

The more I read Sacred Scripture and the longer I am a priest, the more evidence I see that God’s Word is very much a living Word and is always applicable to our time and place. On this Sunday our first reading from Sirach tells us that God’s ways are literally Life and death, and the choices we make will be given us by God out of our Free Will. Good or evil, fire or water, it’s ours for the asking. So what shall we choose?

Currently at St. Catherine of Siena Adoration and Benediction is offered every Tuesday morning immediately following the daily Mass from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. Additionally we will begin to offer evening adoration on the third Tuesday of the month from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. This time frame will offer an opportunity for those who work and cannot be here in the mornings to come before the Lord and be in private prayer (dialogue) with Him.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church our faith lived out in daily life is “to seek and respond to the love of God, to live out the love of God towards our neighbors including those closest to us, and to spread the love and peace to counter the evil influences of the world.” For the Church, the active and full participation of the faithful in the Mass is our ultimate expression of faith. But there are indeed other expressions of the faith.

Mrs. Grottole & Mrs. Loftus' GRADE7 Service Project was a great success because of the generous nature of our Faith Formation Students. In response to the Gospels that they study in class, the group decided to act and collected food and money to donate to those in need in Haiti. Julie Forest, of "Haiti180" writes: Thank you so much for your donations! What a generous thing for your 7th graders to do!!

This Sunday our Liturgy celebrates the Presentation of the Lord, which illustrates Mary and Joseph following the Jewish tradition presenting the male child to the Lord and consecrating his life to God. While there are many, many theological points which one may focus on for the homily, perhaps one is to view and consider the commonality of all parents in the raising of their children in faith—and to note that like all parents today—there is a commonality with the Blessed Mother and Saint Joseph.

As a follow-up to last weekend’s talk on the reception of Holy Communion at Mass, the appropriate response to the priest’s declaration of “the Body/Blood of Christ” by the communicant is “Amen!,” which in Hebrew means “I believe!” There are other numerous traditions of the Church which have fallen out of practice over the decades but are no less still of importance and of reverence. “Tradition can never change. ‘Jesus is Lord’ is a statement of Catholic Tradition