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To Live the Great Commandment: Love of God and Love of Neighbor

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Holy Family Catholic Community Lenten Pilgrimage Invitation to be an Engaged and Dynamic Parishioner

We begin our annual pilgrimage of Lent in faith and hope with the penitential rite of the imposition of ashes. Ash Wednesday falls this week on February 18th and marks the beginning of the Lenten season. The Blessing and Imposition of Ashes will take place at the early 8.00 AM Prayer Service at St. Joseph Church, Wayland to accommodate the schedules of working people; 9.30AM Mass at St. Pius, Cohocton; 12.00 PM Mass at St. Mary’s, Dansville and 5.30 PM Mass at Sacred Heart, Perkinsville. The Church, our mother and teacher, invites us to open our hearts to God’s grace, so that we can celebrate with great joy the paschal victory of Christ the Lord over sin and death, which led Saint Paul to exclaim: “Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Cor 15:54-55). Indeed, Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, is the heart of our faith and the pledge of our hope in the Father’s great promise, already fulfilled in his beloved Son: life eternal (cf. Jn 10:28; 17:3).

For us here at Holy Family, I invite you to allow this season as a personal time to be honest; to take a piercing look at the naked truth of our lives.  Every year God offers us this great season of humility as a chance to remember who we are as believers, reflect soberly on our actions and refocus ourselves on the source of our hope, the only real hope of a bleeding and despairing world:  Jesus Christ.  We do this through prayer, silence, the sacrament of penance, seeking out and reconciling with those whom we’ve hurt, forgiving those who’ve hurt us, generosity to the poor, and fasting, not just from food, but from all those many things that distract us from the God who made and loves us.

This will give us the opportunity to practice the corporal and spiritual works of mercy through our prayer, fasting and almsgiving. “In the corporal works of mercy, we touch the flesh of Christ in our brothers and sisters who need to be fed, clothed, sheltered and visited.  So, faith is the cornerstone of Christian life because it enlarges us; it animates us; it’s restless. It must be shared, or it dies. Faith takes us outside ourselves and allows us to take risks. Will you take that risk, reach-out and make a difference in the lives of the less fortunate in our parish family and outside the country with our Kenyan Gitare outreach? We have St. Vincent De Paul Society and Food Pantries in our parish and in a way, they depend on donations from parishioners to provide food, clothing, utilities, and transportation, medication and household furnishing to the poor and the needy. Our Cohocton Community Food Pantry currently serves on average 35 families/105 individuals per month from the towns and villages of Atlanta, Cohocton, and North Cohocton. And originating from our parish is Gitare Kenya Outreach that caters for the buildings, education, medication and bringing about very poor young women at our very own St. Josephine Bhakita Secondary School, Kenya; Each time you sacrifice and donate this is more than just change, it is you’re sharing of love and generosity with the hungry, poor and needy! When I offer a sacrifice, God makes it holy and he makes me holy, too. Sacrifice something during this Lenten Pilgrimage. Give from the best of what you have. Your generosity and sacrifice will make Christ present and bring joy to many families.

The season of Lent provides us with an opportunity to examine our lives and our priorities. There are several opportunities to offer mutual support this season here at Holy Family Catholic Community. First, could you walk a mile in Jesus’s shoes? The Stations of the Cross bring us closer to Christ as we meditate on the great love He showed for us in His most sorrowful Passion! Praying the Stations of the Cross or the Way of the Cross is a traditional way of praying during Lent. We walk this journey with him to get a glimpse at the heart and mind of Jesus Christ, who is alive today and experiencing the journey to the Cross wherever our sisters and brothers are suffering throughout the world. We give thanks as we walk this journey – his way of the Cross has brought hope and the possibility of new life into the dark places of our human existence. Journeying with Jesus Christ allows us to become aware of where God is walking with us in our lives, and where we are called to be with others on their journey. The Holy Family Catholic Community has 4 Catholic churches. One of the ways that we show and witness our unity in purpose, support and goal is through the Lenten Stations of the Cross. Every Friday during Lent, all parishioners from all our churches are invited and encouraged, twice that day (12.00 PM and 5.00 PM at St. Mary’s and Sacred Heart respectively), to make a pilgrimage to either of our hoisting church and pray together the powerful and most traditional Catholic prayer and devotion of the Stations of the Cross. 

Lent is also the perfect time to support Adult Faith Enrichment in the parish. We have chosen to have Bible Study on St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatian This are held every Wednesday at the Annex Center in for 3-4PM. My emphasis is rather growing in familiarity with Sacred Scripture guidance in understanding it in the mind of the Catholic Church (from which, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Sacred Scripture sprang), and as an opportunity to gather for Christian fellowship in order grow in our faith and to share our faith with one another. It is my hope as your pastor that this Bible Study will enable all of us to deepen our commitment to a life of discipleship that is sustained and nourished by a deeper devotion to the Eucharist, which Jesus said is, “my flesh for the life of the world.” (John 6:51)

Let us pray for one another so that, by sharing in the victory of Christ, we may open our doors to the weak and poor. Then we will be able to experience and share to the full the joy of Easter. Peace and Hope, Fr. John

 

 

 

 

 

Mission Statement

To live the Great Commandment
Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart,
with all your soul, and with all your mind.’  And
‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
Matthew 22: 37-38