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February 20, 2025Dear friends in Christ,
We encounter some strong language from Jesus in this Sunday's Gospel: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” And then a little later: “Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned.” Ouch! That hits a little too close to home for me, and maybe you, too. But it is good to get such a wake-up call from the Lord. We need to take a sober look at how we treat one another, and though we can’t control another person’s actions or words toward us, we can control how we respond. Let us always do so in a spirit of love and charity.
We’re inching closer to the start of Lent, with Ash Wednesday on March 5, and we’ll have a complete rundown of our services for that day, and all of the 40 days of Lent, in next week’s bulletin. (Yes, the Knights of Columbus Friday Fish Frys will be returning!) For now, however, I want to give you a sneak preview of what has become a Lenten tradition for us at CtR over recent years.
We often speak of the three pillars of Lent – prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. The first two are fairly individual pursuits, but for the almsgiving aspect, I think it is good for us to consider how we might approach that as a collective body of the Church. To that end, we are once again inviting you to participate in a parish-wide Lenten Almsgiving initiative with our friends from Catholic Extension that serve the most neediest dioceses in our country.
You will recall that in 2023 we gave our collected alms to support the Literacy Wagon for children of migrant workers in the Diocese of Yakima. That project is going strong with more than 20 children served last summer from our donations, and more signed up again this year. Last year, we gave alms to help the historic, 130-year-old Sacred Heart Church in the Diocese of El Paso, which needed extensive brick and stonework repairs, a new A/C system, and repairs to its bell tower, among other needs. I’m happy to report that thanks to the generosity of the CtR parishioners, Sacred Heart was able to leverage our gift and receive a prestigious grant from the National Fund for Sacred Places, which is matching the money raised by us and the people of Sacred Heart themselves. Thanks be to God, plans are now underway with an El Paso architectural firm to begin construction at the end of this year!
For 2025, Catholic Extension has invited us to partner once again with our brothers and sisters in Texas to assist St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church in the Diocese of Brownsville. With our help, they are hoping to tackle a project that we’ve done previously for ourselves, namely building a rectory. Founded in 1921 in Weslaco, St. Joan of Arc, and its two neighboring mission churches, has long served as a cornerstone of the community, providing spiritual guidance and education. The Diocese of Brownsville is the poorest Catholic diocese in the U.S., with an average household income of just $30,000, less than half the national average. The weekly collection for the parish is around $2,000.
Currently the pastor lives “above the store,” as we say, in a make-shift room above the parish offices that were built in the ’60s that lacks privacy and any functional living space. He’s always within earshot of sight of the staff and parishioners if he ventures downstairs for a meal in the shared kitchen and to utilize other shared facilities. Providentially, the parishioners were able to purchase a vacant lot next door (holding off on a renovation of their worship space to do so as there were not enough funds for both) and now they’d like to construct a proper rectory that will provide an adequate, comfortable, peaceful and cost-efficient residence for the pastor and vicar.
Having built our own CtR rectory back in 2006 to have our priests adjacent to the church in a private residence, we know how to do a project of this type, and so I invite us to again work together to give our collective Lenten alms for this worthwhile initiative for our fellow Texans. Together with our alms, and their own fundraising, they will be able to build the rectory and see that their priests have a proper place to live (and convert the current bedroom above the parish office into a meeting room and offices for its deacons). Next weekend we’ll be joined by Father Jorge Gomez of the Diocese of Brownsville to tell us more about St. Joan of Arc and to show us how we can be supportive of it. So keep it on your heart, and please join me in welcoming him to CtR.
A reminder that pre-sales for the sharp-looking 40th anniversary CtR Spring Festival t-shirt will close on Friday, Feb. 28. Get your order in ASAP to guarantee your size and be the first on your block to rock the CtR logo this year. They’re only $15 and we have all adult and youth sizes available if you order in advance. Additional information and a link to the online order page can be found at ctrcc.com/springfestival. We’ll have more to share about the Spring Festival soon. Lots of work is happening behind the scenes and it’s shaping up to be another great one so mark your calendars and make plans to join us May 3-4.
Peace, Fr. Sean
P.S.: You should have received by now your annual offertory statement from the parish. We mail yearly statements to all individuals who have given $250 or more in traceable offertory (i.e., it was associated with your parish ID number, or there was a name and address on a check). If you are preparing your 2024 tax return, keep an eye out for that statement from our office, and should it not arrive, contact us at the parish and we will prepare a new one for you.