Fr. Todd 2/15/26

Dear St. Mary on the Lake and Sacred Heart,

            It is hard to believe Lent is upon us but it will start this coming Wednesday.  I pray each of us can embrace this Holy Season where we make room Jesus to enter our life more fully.

            Lent can be a challenging season- I want to enter into it but finding really meaningful ways to do so in a life that is already pretty full can be challenging.  That simple realization can be one of the good but hard graces of this season.  If my life is too full for God then something needs to change.  A rearranging of priorities, perhaps saying no to some things.  Both of which can be painful but so important for our own healing and freedom.

            What makes this possible?  It is Hope- the awareness that we are made for something more, something greater.  In our day and age, Hope can be in short supply.  We can find ourselves living in subtle despair- I have tried this before and it didn’t work.  This is all that I can expect out of life, out of myself, out of others, out of God.  Lent can bring us face to face with this lack of Hope and how it is coloring our life and sapping our strength in God.  If all those things are true then why indeed enter into Lent- there is no point!  But if there is something more, something greater that God offers us in this life, within ourselves, within others, then we can enter into Lent with real purpose and Hope.  It is the knowledge, the relationship, that will get us certain times of distress and trial when we will be sorely tempted to give up.     

            Perhaps then it would be great to have an opportunity to ask the Lord for that great gift of Hope that can change our perspective on life, others, ourselves and the world.  This is exactly why I am so excited for this Parish Mission coming up March 8-10.   The Mission is focused on the Holy Spirit and Hope because Hope is something rooted not in this world but in God.  The gift of Hope is one of the preeminent gifts of the Holy Spirit.  But Hope is never given in abstraction.  The Spirit doesn’t just give us a package of Hope and then tell us to come back for more when it is used up.  Hope itself is part and parcel with receiving the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives.  Hope is lived only in relationship.  The more we open ourselves up to God’s gift of Himself through the Holy Spirit we will have Hope within us.

            We hear these things and can have good intentions- I want to do something about this movement of God in my heart.  I want to receive more the Holy Spirit, I want to live more fully in the Hope that comes solely from God.  But as we all know good intentions can easily remain just that, intentions.  We are making it easy this year- come!  I encourage you to do the hard work of carving out the time for these three evenings to invest in yourselves.  If that sounds too selfish (even though Jesus does tell us to love ourselves!) then think of the people you will be able to love better because of being rooted more fully in the Holy Spirit and the Hope He brings us.

            Lenten Mission- March 8-10^th, 6:30pm hosted at Sacred Heart.  We will have a bonus Mass and breakfast with Fr. Matthew on Monday, March 9^th at St. Mary on the Lake at 9:30am.

God Bless,  Fr. Todd