Dear Faithful Friends of the Sunday Mass,

Once again, I pause about six weeks before Lent begins to offer a few words of encouragement and hopefulness in preparation for our journey through the seasons of Lent and Easter. So, even though Lent is still aways off as I write let me take a moment to daydream a little about what lies ahead in the coming of the Lenten and Easter Seasons of our faith journey.

My main reason for writing is to invite you to celebrate Lent and Easter with us in this New Year of 2026. As I sit at my office desk my hope is that as we have entered a New Year and are making our way through the long Winter into hopefully a beautiful Spring that we will find the time to allow the seasons of Lent and Easter to touch our lives and helps us to grow in our faith. That amid the busyness, struggles, and challenges of life, our journey through Lent and Easter will give us the opportunity to pause and remember Jesus’ great love for us that includes the Cross and the Empty Tomb. My prayer at this moment is that our Lenten and Easter journey will help us grow as people of faith and move beyond the starkness and cold of winter, the negativity, hate and violence of our world to the colors and warmth of spring and a life of gratitude, peace and joyfulness in God’s love.

I pray that we all will have a blessed and graced filled Lent, one that will help us to come closer to God through reflection, sacrifice and prayer; a Lent that will help us 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 joyfully continue our journey with the song of Alleluia and the grace of hope 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. God and all of us here at The Sunday Mass will be with you. Every week we come to you via television, radio or the internet, celebrating the great mystery of our faith, the Eucharist, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and on April 5th, we will celebrate the gift of the Easter Eucharist. In Lent, we will focus on the mercy and forgiveness of God and during the Easter Season we will enliven Jesus’ gift of hope and healing 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. 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 thankfulness 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 next to the 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 told us often that, "Prayer brings [us] 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 in my prayers twice every day.

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

Lenten Prayer
Come, our Light,
and illumine our darkness.
Come, our Life,
and revive us from death.
Come, our Physician,
and heal my wounds.
Come Flame of divine love,
and burn up the thorns of our sins,
igniting our hearts
with the flame of your love. Amen.
(Adapted from a Prayer by Dimitrii of Rostov)

Easter Prayer
May the glory and the promise
of this most holy time of year
bring peace and joy to us
and to those we hold most dear.

And may Christ, Our Risen Saviour,
always be there by our side
to bless us abundantly
and be our Good and Loving Shepherd.
Amen.