• Feb 22 - Apr 6 - The Season of Lent
• Mar 31 - day of abstinence from meat
  • Stations of the Cross, 6 p.m. in Spanish, 7 p.m. in English
• Apr 2-8 - Holy Week 2023
• Apr 2 - Palm Sunday, first day of Holy Week
• Apr 4 - Scouts, 7 p.m. in the Sank A;uditorium
• Apr 5 - Confessions from 11 a.m. to noon and 7-8 p.m. in Church
• Apr 6-8 - The Sacred Triduum
  • Apr 6 - Holy Thursday
    • School dismisses at noon for Easter break
    • Solemn Mass of the Lord's Supper at 7 p.m.
    • Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at the Repository until 11 p.m.
  • Apr 7 - Good Friday - a day of fasting and abstinence from meat
    • Stations of the Cross at noon, St. Mary's Queen of Peace Cemetery, Helen, MD
    • Stations of the Cross, in Spanish at noon, in English at 3 p.m.
    • Solemn Celebration of the Lord's Passion with Holy Communion at 7 p.m.
  • Apr 8 - Holy Saturday
    • Confessions from 11 a.m. to noon in Church
    • Solemn Mass of the Easter Vigil at 8 p.m.
    • NOTE:  no afternoon confessions or 4 p.m. Mass today
• Apr 9 - Easter Sunday
  • Mass at 8 and 10:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m. (Spanish) and 6 p.m.

The 40 days of Lent are a period of penance for sins committed and of renewal of faith, hope and love. The first four weeks of Lent focus on our own conversion while the Fifth Week of Lent and Holy Week focus on the Passion and Death of the Lord Jesus. Lent is characterized by prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. These practices help us grow in the spiritual life, increase virtuous habits and exhibit
self-discipline, which is necessary to live the Gospel. In the Scriptures, “forty days” indicates “a long time” and was not intended to be a strict mathematical calculation. Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Holy Thursday, the start of the Sacred Triduum. The Sundays of Lent are, of course, Lenten days and do not interrupt the Lenten Season.

The Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States has opened the Earthquake Aid for Turkey and Syria Fund to provide immediate relief to the families that suffered catastrophic loss due to the earthquake that shook Turkey and Syria.  Proceeds from this fund will support missionary priests, religious women and lay missionaries on the
ground providing assistance to those impacted by the disaster, defined by Bishop Antoine Audo, SJ, Chaldean Bishop of Aleppo, in Syria, as a “tremendous bomb.”

The Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States work through local Bishops, churches, and missionary congregations to ensure that resources are distributed equitably and justly, based on the needs of individual Churches.  Read the Vatican News article announcing the creation of the fund.