Holy Week!! (aka The Catholic Olympics!!)
Just so you are fully aware. We will have our normal Mass schedule on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. The Wednesday 8:15 Mass will be an All School Mass (so glad they are back!!)
There will be no morning Masses on Holy Thursday or Good Friday. I will be attending the Chrism Mass at the Cathedral on Thursday morning and then that evening, we will celebrate The Mass of the Lord’s Supper at 7 pm. This will including the Washing of the Feet (one of my favorite liturgical actions!) as well as our Second Graders joining in the procession at the end. Holy will be open until 10 pm for quiet prayer and re- flection that night.
On Good Friday we will have Stations of the Cross at 2 pm and then the Celebration of the Lord’s Passion at 7 pm that evening. You are more than welcome to come into church at any time and pray on Good Friday as well.
And then, finally we will celebrate our Easter Vigil at 8 pm on Saturday evening beginning with our New Fire Ceremony weather per- mitting. We have no catechumens or candidates this year, but it will still be an impressive celebra- tion of the Lord’s Resurrection. Easter Sunday will celebrate Mass at the regular Mass times. I have had a great Lent so far, and I am looking forward to a rousing finish to this amazing sea- son. Won’t you join us??
Continuing from last week’s bulletin
Here are four metrics to look at your life:
1.) Happiness: having feelings of pleasure or con- tentment in and about your life.
2.) Achievement: achieving accomplishments that compare favorably against similar goals others have strived for
3.) Significance: having a positive impact on peo- ple you care about
4.) Legacy: establishing your values or accom- plishments in ways that help others find future success.
So how do we make the most without getting overworked and depressed? Last week I suggest- ed four things: playfulness, sleep, exercise and prayer. Here are two more.
5.) Saying “no.” Saying no, quitting, if you will, is an issue of limits: pushing them, optimizing them and most of all, knowing them. Quit does not have to be the opposite of grit. Sometimes
the best thing is getting rid of all those things that keep us from achieving our goals. The big changes may not be the things that we need to do, but rather the things we need to stop doing. To be honest, some people need to get off of their “duffs” and get to work. But my guess is that a lot of you, saying no might be helpful. We always think we need more, (more help, more motivation, more energy), but maybe the answer is the exact opposite, we need less. As one au- thor put it: the difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say no to almost everything.
6.) Build strong relationships. There was once a national poll of American teens. 21% of them rated “not having enough time together with their parents” as their top concern. What does that say?? The time when it is most im- portant to invest in building strong families and close friendships is when it appears, at the sur- face, that it is not necessary. Scientists study a lot of things. In 2007, they found that there was a close correlation between happiness and rela- tionships. Well, duh. It is higher than the con- nection between smoking and cancer. When all is said and done, after study after study, science has come to a conclusion that our faith could have told them eons ago: The only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people.
Some final thoughts as we conclude our Lenten journey.
Life is a tradeoff. For the workaholic, the thought is “every minute I spend with my friends or playing with my kids is a minute I could be working.” Try not to think this way.
We used to rely on stops. We used to rely on the world to tell us when we were done, but now the balance must come from within. Otherwise you risk ending up with that number one regret of the dying: not have the courage to live the life you wanted and instead living the life others prescribed.
Finally, always remember: in the quest for what makes me feel good, there is no finish line.
It’s a pie eating contest and first prize is just more pie.
Father Kevin