Three things came together for me this weekend, all of them speak to the strength of this parish. On Friday night, Domenica Gioiella gave a witness talk at our Lenten Soup and Bread. In that talk, she spoke of the many, many, heroes and heroines in the first half of the parish history. Throughout our history as a parish, there have always been “the twelve”. When I use that term I am thinking both of the 12 Apostles but also of the foundational group of lay leaders who make this parish what it is. Of course, it is almost always more than twelve. (In our case it is probably 4 times that number.) As Domenica started to name them, she told everyone present to stop and say his or her own name because they too are in that number.
Then on the weekend our sound and lighting problems in Church got solved by Fr. Rojin and 6 men. On Friday, John Leskowski was able to isolate the one piece of equipment that causes our sound system to go off one or more times at every Mass. Fr Rojin was then able to detect that it was a software problem, which he quickly corrected.
On Sunday, Jim Howe, his son Jimmy, Claudio Ronzitti, Rusty Cappadona and Bob Hall put together scaffolding, and raised a ladder, to replace eight burned out bulbs high in the Church. The work was hard, death defying, and it took two hours but the job got done. Everyone involved showed great devotion to the parish.
Remember that next Sunday is Passion Sunday, followed by the Triduum. On Palm/Passion Sunday and Easter as well, the second Sunday Mass is moved to 9:30am. Also remember that the Triduum begins with morning prayer on Holy Thursday, which is followed by three continuous days of prayer. Try to make at least one of Triduum services. If you can only make one, why not the 7pm Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord’s Supper? Alternatively, On Holy Saturday, come for the lighting of the new fire and blessing of the Easter candle. That night five people will be fully initiated into the Church and so you might want to stay for the entire two hour Mass. Also remember that on Holy Saturday there is NO VIGIL MASS AT 4:30pm, just the Easter vigil at 8pm.
