Encouraging the Culture of Encounter with Jesus Christ, His Church, and All People

Brothers and Sisters, Praise be Jesus Christ!

Holy Water Returns!
You may have noticed that not only have the holy water reservoirs returned to the narthex for those who want to fill their own bottles to use in church or at home, but also we have four new holy water “dispensers” at the main entrances of the nave.  They are no-touch and “covid approved.” Simply place your fingers up near the top for a quick second and a few drops of holy water will trickle out with which you can bless yourself in the customary manner upon entering or leaving church.  Any stray drops will fall into the bowl below.  Remember holy water is a powerful sacramental that helps us to live out the graces of our baptism.  We stressed this especially this year since we need all the grace we can get!  We even had a special Epiphany water blessing, and it is this water that we use in our new dispensers.
They look and work so well!  It took a good amount of experimenting to get these to fit with our current fonts, so I want to thank the Shanahan family and John Withrow who worked on it for us. Just because we are in covid mode does not mean we cannot be classy. 
Also on a classy note, we finally got rid of the admittedly temporary and crumby looking painter’s tape and cones in the pews.  The Shanahan’s also made some nice signs to mark off certain pews. Thanks again!

Candlemas Day and the blessing of Candles
The unofficial end of the Christmas Season is upon us.  February 2 is the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, also known as Candlemas Day.  The emphasis is on the light of Christ which has come into the world at Christmas continues to shine brightly in the darkness.  How fitting for us at St. Paul’s since it is the light of Christ which blinded yet enlightened our patron. This year Candlemas falls on a Tuesday.  We have a regular Mass at 7am.  We will have the lighting and blessing of candles. Anyone who wishes to bring candles from home to be blessed are encouraged to do so.  This year we will add an evening Mass at 6pm in the Extraordinary Form.  This too will include the blessing and lighting of candles. All are encouraged to bring candles they want blessed to the Mass.  We had a very positive response to the epiphany blessing so we will try it again with candles and see if it is the same.  After this Mass we will then remove all the decorations and prepare for the Lenten Season.

St. Blaise Day
The next day is the feast of St. Blaise on which customarily we bless throats.  We will do this similarly to how we have in the past. There will be Mass at 8:30am like normal at which people may receive a throat blessing.

Surveys in the Narthex and Online
I invite people last week to fill out the simple survey we put in the narthex.  It is to help give us input as we discern moving forward.  Hopefully as Covid diminishes we can start returning to faith formation and other ministries.  The questions concern that topic along with practical issues of participation, ability to hear in the church, communications.  One last topic concerns a possible tweak to the Sunday Mass schedule.  No plans yet but please let us know what you think as we continue to adjust.

Lent Coming Up
Lent starts Ash Wednesday February 17.  We will have an “Ash Service” at 7am at which Dcn John will preside (no Mass).  We will then have our regularly scheduled 8:30am Ord. Form Mass with the distribution of Ashes.  At 6pm will be an Extra.Form Mass with the distribution of Ashes.  Due to covid, there will be particular guidelines on how to distribute the Ashes.  These new guidelines will include how to do stations and other Lenten devotions.  Details on that will come next week.


Sincerely in Christ,
Fr. Pfr