Wednesday evening, February 26th, Bishop Parkes conferred the Sacrament of Confirmation on about 30 of our young men and women at the Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist. Through the prayer, the laying on of hands and the anointing by the Bishop, the Holy Spirit flowed down upon these young people giving them the gifts of Fear of the Lord, Piety, Fortitude, Understanding, Knowledge, Counsel, and Wisdom. These gifts will be needed as they go forth into the world as disciples of Jesus Christ! Congratulations!
LENT
Ash Wednesday is March 5th. We celebrate Lent and Easter later this year than most years, but somehow, it probably still sneaked up on most of us! In the season of Lent, we enter into 40 days of fasting and abstinence, prayer and almsgiving. What will you fast from this Lent? How will you increase your prayer, your conversation with God? What will you do to give more of yourself through monetary donations and works of charity (Almsgiving)?
We will all do things individually, but let’s do something else as a community. Lets pray for one another each day! Let’s pray an Our Father, Hail Mary, and a Glory be for ALL parishioners of St. James – those registered and unregistered, Catholic and non-Catholic living within our Parish boundaries. Join us in this act of prayer for each other.
NEW ONLINE GIVING PLATFORM
We are changing our online giving platform beginning this weekend! We will moving to Push Pay/ParishStaq as our online giving platform. This new system will be more user friendly and brings us the capability to give directly from our phones. There is a QR code in the bulletin that you can scan and set it up in a matter of a few minutes. For those who give online already, you will receive an email this weekend with instructions on how to change to the new platform and how to delete your recurring gift in the old platform. Please contact Mark Kolbush or Kaitie Hotard for assistance if you need it this week.
Presently, 33% of our Offertory comes through online giving. For those of us who give weekly or monthly, it is a wonderful tool which enables us to provide for the needs of the Church even if we are not physically present on a given weekend because of illness, vacation, work travel, sports travel, or the myriad of other things that may take us out of town (retreats, seminars, pilgrimages, workshops, etc…).
This also gives us a chance to examine how much we give to the weekly offertory. Perhaps it has been a few years (and a few raises in pay) since we last increased what we give to the Parish. Each person needs to decide what they will give. Might I suggest that we work towards giving 5% of our paycheck (before taxes). The government will take some, but we should be giving God the firstfruits, the best of what we have, before the government takes its share. Develop a plan to get to that 5% giving to our St. James Parish community. This helps us to continue the mission of forming and raising up disciples of Jesus Christ. Your weekly offering goes towards outreach programs like the food pantry and prison ministry; Evangelization and Formation efforts like the Parish Religious Education Program (PREP) on Sunday mornings, weekly Adult Formation programs, Parish Missions, and our Men’s and Women’s Conference; Priests and Staff to minister to the spiritual and temporal needs of our parish; Parish Life activities which build community. Your generosity keeps our Parish active in spreading the Gospel and building the Kingdom of God.
Also, please pray for our Holy Father, Pope Francis as he continues dealing with his health issues.
St. James the Less, pray for us!
May you and your family have a blessed and beautiful week!
~ Fr. Daniel Firmin