Weekly Letter from the Pastor

Dear Fellow Parishioners of St. Benedict:

Our Lenten journey is off to a good start here and we are looking forward to the celebrations to come. Unfortunately the snowpack has prevented us from putting up the outdoor devotionals that we had planned, but hopefully we will be able to have that up and running soon. I hope that you are enjoying the modified Soup and Scripture series. There is also another cooking and scripture reflection coming soon!

While the bishop, after consultation with the governor, has expanded church capacity to 50%, we do not feel the need at the moment to change our protocols. We are comfortable with 180 people and have not often been in a situation where that total was in danger of being breached. When things open up more and the number of cases in our immediate community seems to have dropped off in a significant way, then we will certainly revisit the number. At this writing there are a few cases circling us and impacting our parish and school communities. As much as it feels good to know that things are easing, there is no rush.

We had a good week of opening for the Annual Catholic Appeal. “Thank you” to all have already submitted a gift or pledge. Hopefully we can reach the parish goal this spring. The work of the diocese in its social outreach, assistance for schools, seminarians, and the retired priests there is important and we all benefit from their programs.

Enrollment in the school looks to be higher in the coming school than it was in this past year, which is certainly bucking the trend for Catholic schools nationally. This is due in large part to the commitment of our principal and teachers to keep the school open, and to offer a quality Catholic education. If you have any thoughts of enrolling your children in the school, please make contact with the school office in short order.

Believe it or not Day Light Savings Time is coming up soon! Spring will be here before you know it. We can already feel the days getting longer. Hopefully we are finished with snow (we have a $25,000 snow removal bill to consider already!) and these snow packs will be melted soon.

Check out the Knights of Columbus Fish Fry this coming Friday night. Details further along in the bulletin. We appreciate all that the Knights do for our parish. Attendance at their monthly breakfast was very good last weekend. Not only are there signs of spring, there are signs that our apprehension about social gatherings is beginning to loosen a bit.

Over the past week the eighth graders from both the religious education program and the school attended their Confirmation retreat.

While it was abbreviated from its usual format due to the social distancing concerns, it was good to get them together. We will be celebrating Confirmation here on March 25th and 26th. Due to the need for four services and celebrating it over two days, I will again be the minister of the Sacrament.

I hope that you are making use of the many opportunities for Lenten reflection offered through our parish website. Stations of the Cross, among other devotions, are posted there for your prayerful reflection and use.

Have a blessed week,
Fr. Garry