STATIONS OF THE CROSS AND BENEDICTION FRIDAYS OF LENT, 7:30PM
Stations and Benediction will be in-person and you do not need to sign up. Enter at the Main Entrance and the Usher will help you find a seat. Station booklets will NOT be handed out. Please download the Worship Aid here to participate on your electronic device or print the Stations and bring it with you each week! Unfortunately, Stations will NOT be live-streamed.
Dear Seton Family,
Our journey through Lent is marked by devotion and sacrifice. It is devotion that makes the sacrifice possible. Love and dedication move us to do what we might otherwise not do. The account of Abraham’s sacrifice of his son Isaac demonstrates that sense of trust that comes only from Love. Abraham shows that he is willing to do whatever God asks of him because it is God who is asking it. In the end, God protects Isaac, and Abraham offers to God a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving on the altar he had prepared. We do the same thing in the Mass: we offer to God a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving for his goodness even as we make sacrifices to show our love and devotion. One of my favorite personal prayers, called the Universal Prayer (attributed to Pope Clement XI, who served in the early 18th Century), includes this line:
I want to do what you ask of me: In the way you ask,
For as long as you ask,
Because you ask it.
I pray this knowing that I do not yet have that complete sense of trust that would allow me to say “yes” to God so readily, and I realize that I need his help to strengthen that love and devotion that will allow sacrifice to happen more easily. In the meantime, the Season of Lent is a time to practice sacrifice and to foster our devotion.
I am grateful to all who have made a commitment to the Annual Appeal for Catholic Ministries, especially on the first-ever Appeal Giving Tuesday. We are just 41% of the way to reaching our goal. If you haven’t yet made your commitment, make this Lent a time to offer your charitable gift to the Appeal as a means of supporting a variety of charitable needs throughout the Archdiocese and here at Seton Parish.
If you have yet to make a pledge or gift to the 2021 Appeal, please do so by completing and returning your envelope that was mailed to you or if you picked one up in the Narthex, or give online to www.archbalt.org/appeal/give/. When making a pledge or gift online, you will need to designate “St. Elizabeth Ann Seton – Crofton” as your parish. Thank you for your prayers and support.
Thanks to Jennifer O’Leary who started producing Children’s Liturgy of the Word videos last week. She will post these on the Parish FaceBook page prior to the 9:30am Sunday Mass. I invite everyone to view them, young and old. They are a great resource for, not only our children, but all of us to understand the Sunday scriptures!
In addition to our regular date for the Sacrament of Reconciliation on Saturday afternoons from 3-4pm, I will also be available on Monday & Wednesday of this week, March 1 & 3 from 7:00-8:30 p.m. Please come to the Parish Center entrance (left side of the campus marked by orange cones) and a volunteer will greet you at the door and provide instructions. Look for the full slate of dates for Reconciliation in the bulletin. Due to the pandemic, we will not be offering a communal penance service.
We are beginning week seven of our video series, Elements of the Catholic Mass. I would invite you to watch Episode 7 this week titled Sacramental Signs, and reflect on how this might help you in your faith. Here is the link to the episodes page.
Finally, at the 4:30pm Mass tomorrow, I will be conferring the Sacrament of Confirmation on Peter Coenen, son of Marie and Kevin. Please join me in congratulating him on this important event as Peter completes his Sacraments of Initiation. This will be the last opportunity I will be doing this for our teenagers on behalf Archbishop Lori and his auxiliary bishops for the foreseeable future.
Here is this Sunday’s Worship Aid
A reminder....
I encourage you to sign up for weekend Masses through the parish website or FaceBook page. The link is available after the 9:30 Mass each Sunday UNTIL Wednesday evenings at 10:00pm.
Don’t forget to wear your mask, use hand sanitizers in the Narthex and keep your social distance as you approach the Main Entrance of the Church!
Please Note: I have decided to extend the no walk-in seating policy through the end of February in light of the more contagious strain of Covid-19.
As usual, we will continue to live-stream Mass (Mon—Thurs at 9:00am and Sunday at 9:30am) on the parish Facebook (link) and uploaded on YouTube (link), and our parish website, https://www.seaseton.org/Resources/Media. If you do not have Facebook but wish to watch our livestream, click here for instructions.
Fr. Paul