Dear Friends of the Sunday Mass,

It is hard to think about Lent and Easter in March and April on a cold January day but that is what I must do as I sit at my desk today. It is near the end of January and my Easter Letter is due in about a week. If I don’t get it done today it just might get lost in the mound of paperwork that is sitting on my desk. Perhaps, I can pause for a moment, and day dream about the warmer, sunny, colorful days of March and April as I invite you to celebrate Lent and Easter with us this year.

Lent and Easter always give us the opportunity to pause and remember Jesus’ great love for us that includes the Cross and the Empty Tomb. This year our Lenten and Easter journey will hopefully help us move beyond the starkness and cold of winter to the colors and warmth of spring and early summer.

I pray that you will have a blessed and graced filled Lent, one that will helped you to come closer to God through reflection, sacrifice and prayer; a Lent that will help you to be honest with yourself and God; a Lent that will help you to encounter God’s mercy, forgiveness, healing and most importantly God’s love.

I also pray that the long journey of Lent from Ash Wednesday to the Cross on Good Friday will give way to us standing in front of the empty tomb on Easter Sunday not in fear but in the joy that God so loves us that he gave us his only Son, who has broken the bonds of death. And because of God’s great love we will in joyful hope be able to continue our journey with the song of Alleluia alive in our hearts!

We here at The Sunday Mass want you to know that you will not make the journey through winter and Lent into spring and the Easter Season alone. You will not be alone because God is always you and so are we. Every week we come to you via the internet, the television, celebrating the great mystery of our faith, the Eucharist, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and on April 21st we will celebrate the gift of the Easter Eucharist. In Lent, we will focus on the mercy and forgiveness of God and while during the Easter Season we enliven the song of hope within us. Jesus lives! And our lives will never be the same.

Please know that you will remain in our thoughts and prayers throughout the Lenten and Easter Seasons this year. We will pray that the mercy of God and the hope of new life and the unrelenting love of God will enliven your life and the lives of those you love. If the struggles of life are weighing on you, we will hold you in the healing presence of the Crucified and Risen Christ.

Please share with us your needs, the people you want to remember, and your hopefulness, on the form provided on this letter. Is there a situation, a person, a struggle, a hope, a prayer of thanksfulness you want us to remember in a special way? Please allow us to pray with you throughout the Lenten and Easter Seasons. As always whatever prayers and needs you send us will be placed upon our altar each week as we gather to celebrate The Sunday Mass. We will lift-up you and your prayers to our loving and merciful God, confident that the power of prayer allows the light of hope to shine on.

Pope Francis tells us that, "Prayer brings you to hope, and when things become dark, with more prayer there will be more hope." Let us together bring more prayer trusting that we will encounter more hope!

Have a blessed and holy Lent and Easter and know you are always in my prayers.

Peace in Christ’s Passion,
Fr. Paul R. Fagan, C.P.
The Pastor of The Sunday Mass