I want to invite you to the Holy Week Masses and services.  Holy week is the big lead up to the Last Supper, Good Friday and, most importantly, Easter Sunday.  If you’ve never come to Holy Thursday Mass or the Good Friday Service, I challenge you to come and learn and worship.

Holy Thursday celebrates two Sacraments:  the Holy Priesthood and the Holy Eucharist.  Interestingly, these two Sacraments are connected to each other and one is needed for the other.  You can’t have Mass without a priest, and one has no need for a priest if there is no Sacrifice to offer.  Our Lord instituted these Sacraments so that we could worship God with an ever growing and deepening purity of soul and heart.  The Mass is central to our Catholic Faith.  The Holy Eucharist feeds us and nourishes the soul like nothing else on the earth.  The Sacred Priesthood provides for true worship of God, in which the priest acts in the “Person of Christ, the Head”.  It is through the Catholic priest that Jesus’ Body and Blood are given to us.  Without good and holy priests, the faithful would be denied the Bread of Life.  So, pray for more priests!!!

 Good Friday allows us the privilege to enter into the Passion and Death of Christ.  His suffering, pain, bruises, beatings and insults were endured for you and me.  Christ, through His death on the cross, corrects the original sin of Adam and Eve.  Through the Holy Cross and our own baptism we become living members of His Body, the Church.  So, we take this day to remember and thank our Heavenly Father for the gift of His Son.  God loves us and now has saved us.  Praise be Jesus Christ.

Easter (and Holy Saturday Vigil Mass) celebrates the Resurrection of Christ which opens the gates to Heaven, Eternal Life.  There is no other God, no other person, no other personality that provides life eternal, but Jesus Christ.  Anyone of any walk of life, or religion finds Heaven only and solely because of Jesus Christ and the Resurrection.  So, come on Holy Saturday Mass (which fulfills the Easter duty) or Sunday.  Dress up in your finest, invite a fallen away Catholic, bring the whole family.  Easter is the most important Christian Day.  Let it be a great topper to a beautiful Lent.