Happy Easter!

Dear Fellow Parishioners of Saint Benedict:

Resurrexit Sicut Dixit, Alleluia! He is Risen as He Said – Alleluia! The central tenet of our faith – Jesus Christ is first born from the dead. Today all of creation proclaims anew – ALLELUIA!

While Lent might have seemed to fly by for many of us, we now enter the longer and more celebratory period of our Easter joy. It is my fervent hope that all of you had a blessed Lenten journey with us, and that you had the opportunity to share in at least one of the offerings we celebrated during the Season. While Easter Season might be less intense, we still do have opportunities for everyone.

In addition to our usual Easter reflection (the White Books) through the generosity of one parish family, each family has been gifted with the book Rediscover Jesus! by Matthew Kelly. This is a great way to enter into the Easter Season and it provides us with the opportunity down the road for a book discussion group! See page six for more details.

Another Easter Season event is that I will be offering a four week series on the Acts of the Apostles. Easter is a good time to reflect on the book as the First Reading at all of the Sunday Masses is from the Acts. More details on the series are also in the bulletin.

As we are coming off Holy Week and the Triduum I wish to thank the parish staff and the many volunteers, Altar Servers, Lectors, Ministers of Holy Communion, and Music Ministry for their prayerful assistance in making our celebrations solemn and sacred, reflecting the character of the Liturgy. In a special way I want to thank Father JM for his hard work in designing and building, along with Bob and Peter of the maintenance staff, the Altar of Repose for Holy Thursday. We were all awed by its creativity and in a more significant way, for the way in which he helped us to give adoration to the Lord as we sat with him at the Mount of Olives.

I would like to thank all of you who made contributions for the flowers for the services during the week. Every bit of color and freshness adds beauty to the celebration. As the past few weeks have been more wet and dreary than bright and colorful, it is nice to bring a hint of Spring to the Easter festivities.

We have a lot going on here at the parish, and we look forward to an exciting Spring and Summer this year.

There will be a special announcement about a new initiative for the parish – a gift that we are giving you and not one that we are asking of you – that will be rolled out the weekend of April 30th. This has the potential to elevate our faith formation activities to a whole new level.

Next Sunday is Divine Mercy Sunday. We hope that everyone has the opportunity to delve deeper into the experience of the Risen Lord during this Octave period of Easter.

For those of you who are on a break from school or work this week, we pray that you will be rested and refreshed so that you can start it all anew next week.

Enjoy the week – have a blessed Easter Day – and may the Grace of the Risen Lord be with you all,
Fr. Garry