Weekend of February 26 -27th

Dear Friends,

This coming Wednesday, with the mark of ashes, we begin the holy season of Lent, that forty-plus day journey that leads us to the celebration of the dying and rising of Jesus in our liturgical observance of Holy Week and Easter.

We have, as always, a very full Lenten season planned for our parish community here at Saint Timothy. Inside this week’s bulletin, please find our annual Lenten calendar, (printed on purple paper!), which details for you all of the liturgies, prayer experiences, and events we have scheduled for our 2022 Lenten journey. I encourage you to keep this Lenten calendar at home throughout the season. Why not tack it to your bulletin board or stick it on your refrigerator, so it is a handy reference for you in the coming weeks?

I call your attention to a few highlights:

• In addition to our regularly-scheduled daily Masses, there will be an extra Mass celebrated each week on Wednesday at 7:00 P.M., followed by confessions;
• Stations of the Cross every Friday evening at 7:00;
• a Triduum in Honor of Saint Joseph, which will be celebrated from Monday, March 14^th through Wednesday, March 16^th at 7:00 P.M.; each evening’s services include the Triduum prayers, a homily, and Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament; our homilist will be Father Eric Banecker, Pastor of Saint Francis De Sales Parish in University City;
• our Lenten adult faith formation program, which will be held every Monday of Lent at 7:00 P.M. in the Rectory. This year’s topic is Catholicism: The Pivotal Players, Part III. We will once again be using the acclaimed series of the same name by Bishop Robert Barron as our starting-point for discussion each week, as we discover more about several important figures in Church history and their importance to the Church today;

- we will, once again, be participating as a parish family in 24 Hours for the Lord, an initiative called for by Pope Francis, with Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament beginning on Friday, March 25^th at 4:00 P.M. until Saturday, March 26^th at 4:00 P.M. in our lower church; confessions will be heard on Saturday, March 26^th from 9:00 A.M. - 10:00 A.M., from 12:00 Noon - 2:00 P.M., and from 3:15 - 4:15 P.M.; there will be a chart in the church for you to sign up, in half-hour increments, for periods of adoration; our goal is for the Blessed Sacrament not to be left alone during this twenty-four hour period.

Our Ash Wednesday Masses will be celebrated at 6:30 and 8:30 A.M., 12:05 NOON, and 7:00 P.M. Please note that ashes will be distributed within all of these Masses.

You will also find, at the entrances to the church, some tools which will help you in your Lenten practices. There are Little Black Books, which contain a short meditation for each day of the season. There are also Lenten quarter folders, into which you can place quarters each day of the season, bringing the entire folder filled with quarters back to church at the end of Lent. The quarters you return will be used to directly assist those who are poor and most in need. There are also cardboard rice bowls, used in conjunction with Operation Rice Bowl, which may also be used to hold your Lenten monetary sacrifices, which, again, will be used to directly help those who are most needy.

Know that you and those you love are daily remembered in my Mass and my prayers.

Love and prayers,

Father Olivere