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Fifth Sunday of the Year
6 February 2010
Dear Friends in Christ,
1. The frozen weather last weekend put a large dent in our Mass attendance (we actually had to cancel Saturday afternoon Confessions and Mass for fear of drawing people out into dangerous conditions), and now is a good time to remind everyone of two salient points: + The obligation to attend Sunday Mass does not require you to drive in hazardous conditions, so if you truly cannot make it to church because of dangerous driving conditions, no sin is involved in missing Mass. God does not ask the impossible. + Whether or not you make it to Mass on a given weekend, our bills still have to be paid each week. We live from collection to collection, so if you were not able to make it to church last weekend, please make up your missing offertory donation so that we can go on paying our bills. At the end of each month there is nearly nothing left in our checking account, and so to sustain operations from month to month, we depend upon your regular support. One way to be sure that a week or month is never missed is to use electronic funds transfer, which can be set up and managed quickly and easily. But however you make your gifts, thank you for your commitment to St. Mary’s.
2. This Wednesday, 10 February, is the Feast of St. Scholastica, the twin sister of St. Benedict. These two saints were born in the Italian mountain town of Norcia around the year 480, and Scholastica died on 10 February 547. (For comparison, St. Patrick was born around 387 and died in 493, when Benedict and Scholastica were 13 years old.) We know very little for certain about the life of this holy woman, and the only reliable written source is a book by Pope St. Gregory the Great, called Dialogues. In that work, written in 593, Pope Gregory tells us that Scholastica was the superior of a community of nuns living under the Rule of St. Benedict about five miles from her brother’s famous monastery at Monte Cassino. St. Scholastica is the patroness of all women living under the Rule of St. Benedict.
3. Next week is the last Sunday before the beginning of Lent on Ash Wednesday, 17 February. The schedule for Ash Wednesday and a summary of the Church’s disciplines of fasting and abstinence from meat are in the bulletin, and these simple reminders of the coming 40 Days should spur us to find concrete ways before Lent begins to deepen our faith and resolve to follow the Lord Jesus ever more faithfully in the Way of the Cross. On Ash Wednesday the Church will remind us starkly of our mortality: “Remember, man, you are dust, and to dust you will return.” These words are an invitation to conversion and the obedience of faith, and that is confirmed by the prayer of blessing which precedes the imposition of ashes: “Lord, bless these ashes by which we show that we are dust. Pardon our sins, and keep us faithful to the discipline of Lent, for you do not want sinners to die but to live with the risen Christ, who reigns with you forever and ever. Amen.”
Father Newman