William Megesi was 100 years old and his family had a wonderful birthday party for him back in September to celebrate his centennial life. But we celebrated his entrance into eternal life this past Wednesday and remembered how he served his country and his neighbor. Bill was a veteran during the Second World War & while in the Navy, was on a destroyer that was hit by a torpedo. It’s amazing that his life was spared. He was a religious man who attended Mass regularly until he could no longer do so at the age of 98. As a parishioner of St. Leo’s since 1964, he was a faithful member of the Church. May he who put himself into God’s hands, now find an eternal dwelling place in God’s kingdom.
Our parish welcomes Abbot Gary Hoover this weekend as he celebrates the Sacrament of Confirmation for several of our eighth grade students during the 4pm Mass on Saturday. I am deeply grateful to all those who were responsible for the confirmandi’s preparation for this sacrament and pray that the newly-confirmed will live out their Catholic faith as they grow in their personal relationship with Jesus who bestows the gift of the Holy Spirit on them.
This week we begin the Lenten Time of the year with our celebration of Ash Wednesday. Mass will be celebrated at 8:30am with the school community (all are welcome to this Mass) as well as at 7pm. We will also have a brief service (not Mass) at Noon for those who cannot attend in the morn- ing or evening. Ashes will be distributed as a sign of our repentance as we remember our baptism when the priest first made the sign of the cross on our foreheads, along with our parents & godparents.
There are two days of fasting in the entire church year... Ash Wednesday & Good Friday. While we abstain from eating meat (called “abstinence”) on each Friday of Lent, we fast only on these two days, which means that we have only 2 -3 small meals with no eating in-between (and of course no meat). Our hunger during this very short fasting time is meant to remind us of our hunger for God. We recall that Jesus himself fasted (a much more severe withdrawal from food) for 40 days in the desert.
Our abstaining from meat is admittedly not much of a sacrifice at a time in history when we have seafood meals and restaurants so readily available to us but the act of not eating meat is not meant so much to be a sacrifice but a conscious reminder of extending charity to others. We are able to do this when we are present to each other at community meals such as our Fish Fry’s, which begin this Friday in Lux Hall. Details are in this bulletin.
Don’t forget that on Fridays of Lent we pray the Stations of the Cross at 7pm so please join us in the church for a few minutes after you have enjoyed your meal in Lux Hall. Deacon Pat and I will again lead these times of prayer, using various forms of this reflection on Christ’s suffering & death. I am delighted that we were able to arrange for lights to be added this week which will shine over our beautiful mosaic images which make up our Stations which previously just blended into the wall. It took some time & creative effort to get this done but I believe we’ll be very happy with the results.