St. Gertrude Catholic Parish

♦ 2,933! That’s how many books the children read for our Catholic Schools Week raffle. 2,933 raffle tickets went into the big “not only am I a big reader but I’m also rich”contest. Each book read merited a free raffle ticket. A chance for 100 smackeroos as William Faulkner used to say. 100 ducats as Willie the Shake used to say. William Harper, in front of his mother Molly Burns, won the raffle, claimed the prize and was hired on as our resident genius.♦ Can you believe that Lent begins this Wednesday? We barely get past Ground Hog Day and here it is Lent. We’ve only just made our new Year’s resolution and now it’s time to mend our broken promises with some Lenten plans. I hope that the Ashes of Wednesday, the Lenten books available for each day’s reading, the opportunity for small faith sharing groups, the Wednesday simple suppers, the Stations at 2:30 every Friday, and whatever else around here you might choose, will make this Lent a very satisfying experience for you.

♦ The synod committee on adult faith development, Growing In Faith, did a test run last Tuesday on bringing people in the same field of work together. Since our work (or our retirement) is such an important part of our life, and since our spirituality is very much affected by the work we do, and the work we do is very much affected by the spirit - the reality we have - it seems like a natural to bring people in the same field together. A nice creative program was presented. I’m sure we will hear more about this one.

♦ I don’t want to hear any more about Sammy Sosa, Johnny Carson, Michael Jackson, the Super Bowl, the Iraqi election, the defense of marriage, winter weather records, Valentine’s Day candy, heart shaped cookies, cut flowers, clean up in aisle 4, or flu shots. I’m not coming out of my room for six weeks.

WK

Filed under: Dear Saint Gertrude