PRESENTING THE THEMES OF LENT TO THE RCIA AND FIRST RECONCILIATION TO SACRED HEART'S STUDENTS..........

With Mardi Gras still a week away, I have been asked to be the presenter at the RCIA session tonight, speaking on the themes of the Season of Lent. I will also be meeting with the First Reconciliation / First Eucharist Religious Education class this afternoon, to discuss their first sacramental Confession on Thursday night, and will team up with Msgr. Walton today to meet the 2nd Grade students in Sacred Heart Parish School, in preparation for their First Reconciliation, as well. The necessity of reconciliation between ouselves and God and the forgiveness of our sins, are at the crux of the Season of Lent we are nearing. In the coming days of Lent I will blog more extensively on the Lenten themes of Repentance, Conversion, Self-Sacrifice, Reconciliation and Renewal, and the linchpins of Prayer, Fasting, Almsgiving. As you enjoy these last days of Ordinary Time before Lent and the spirit of Mardi Gras, remember to be ready for the renewal that the springtime of the Church, the 40 Days of Lent will bring to our lives..........Speaking of 40 Days of Lent, Catholic-Christians in the Sacramento Diocese will also be observing the, "40 Days Of Life", from Feb. 17 - Mar. 28. The 40 Days Of Life, are organized as a prayerful, peaceful, personal, communal, and ecumenical, witness to the sanctity of life in the womb and the violation to life caused by abortion. Violence of any kind has no place in this, or any other Catholic-Christian Witnessing to being Pro-Life. The recent trial in Kansas of the perpetrator of the abortion doctor killing underscores the dangerous disconnect that can otherwise occur. Trying to justify or rationalize the direct killing of another person, can cause as in this particular case, an otherwise good person to become an unbridled, irrational, zealot, whose morality is compromised so seriously that he or she can commit murder and attempt to explain it away. Our 40 Days Of Life, like the Season of Lent, and the Sacrament of Reconciliation, are about repentance and renewal. As you give thought to what this means for you, discern and discover a way to pro-actively and productively become the true person in Christ, God is Calling YOU to be..........In The Spirit Of Reconciliation And Return To Our Authentic Witness To God And To Life, Fr. Troy