The Pastor's Pen

February 23, 2025

The countdown to Lent is beginning. Ash Wednesday is just a week and a half away, by the time you are reading this. I am not sure what your email world is like, but, similar to the ads appearing LONG before Black Friday, my inbox has been flooded with offers for each group’s “best Lent program” ever (since last year) for the past two months. There are a LOT of materials out there to enrich your prayer life in an intentional way this Lent. 

Your clergy have been doing our own planning about this year’s Lenten season. And rather than re-invent the wheel, we are going to tap into two streams already going. The first is our weekly Tuesday day of Eucharistic Adoration. And the second is the Jubilee Year theme from Pope Francis – Pilgrims of Hope. So, each TUESDAY evening during Lent, we are going to “add to” the silent adoration that is going on with a half hour of prayer and reflection. From 6:30 till 7:00pm there will be a little hymn, a focused prayer (most likely the Jubilee prayer), a short scripture passage, and then a little 15-20 minute reflection around the theme of Hope and what it means to be Pilgrims of Hope. There will be a few prayers of the faithful, and then a concluding hymn back into the silence of Adoration. Minimally, we invite you to this holy half hour of prayer. And the challenge would be to put 15 minutes on the front end of that time and 15 minutes on the back end of that time for a “holy hour” of time with our Lord. 

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And, as in prior years, we will be offering different stations of the Cross on Fridays. Minimally, that will be on Friday evenings at 7pm. Once I have the schedule for the School stations of the cross, I will let you know, and you are welcome to join the kids on Friday afternoons in church. 

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Finally, since we know the great devotion people have in our parish to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and the desire for so many to be reconciled as close to Easter as possible, our Parish Penance service will be on the Monday of Holy Week. (April 14th.) As in past years, we will hold it at the Rose Philippine Duchesne Church of Sacred Heart Parish. I will be there from 11am to 12:30pm for those who prefer daylight hours. And then will have six priests available from 6:30pm until we are finished hearing confessions that night. Mark your calendars now.

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Finally, a reminder about Sacred Silence. 

“Silence is a prerequisite to prayer. Only when distractions are eliminated can the heart express itself unencumbered. This truth about our spiritual practices applies both to personal and public prayer. We must quiet even the noise within ourselves if we are to truly listen and speak to God. 

In the worship of God, silence is meant to be more invitation than interdiction, especially in the reformed liturgy of the Second Vatican Council. Silence in the liturgy is intended to give expression to the prayers of the people, albeit in the quiet of their hearts; its aim is not to make them passive…

…The Roman Missal is very direct in what it says about silence in the liturgy: “Sacred silence also, as part of the celebration, is to be observed at the designated times. Its nature, however, depends on the moment when it occurs in the different parts of the celebration. For in the Penitential Act and again after the invitation to pray, individuals recollect themselves; whereas after a reading or after the Homily, all meditate briefly on what they have heard; then after Communion, they praise God in their hearts and pray to him.”

In offering this beautiful insight, the Roman Missal demonstrates what the meaning of silence depends on when it occurs during Mass. Some categories suggest themselves in this insight too. We can infer that silence is aimed at recollection, meditation, and praise. Further, the Missal notes that there is also a silence of preparation that should occur before Mass begins, “in the church, in the sacristy, in the vesting room, and in adjacent areas.”

You will hear more about this next week. But beginning in Lent, it is our intention as priests and presiders to be a bit more intentional about the “holy silences” that are woven into our Liturgical prayer. So, you will notice some pauses in our celebration, letting sacred silence create a spaciousness for God in our hearts during our public worship.