Last week we celebrated the Funeral Mass for Michael Squires who has been a parishioner for 55 years, since 1960. He attended our parish school and had traditional values which kept him loyal to his Catholic faith. He and his siblings would pray the rosary for their mother who had died and have been doing that since 1981. We pray he may now have the reward promised to the faithful.
We also celebrated the Mass of Christian Burial for Eli Stimac. Eli had been devoted to his wife and to his children. He sat in the front of the church on the tabernacle side and was faithful to coming to the 4pm Mass on Saturday. Eli had been in hospice recently and when I anointed him about 3 weeks ago, I pledged to him the prayers of St. Leo's parishioners so please pray for him and for all the faithful departed.
Hopefully everyone had their fill of a good corned beef meal this past Thursday in honor of St. Patrick. But now we enter into Holy Week and it's call for fasting. Though we are obligated to fast only on Good Friday, the Church invites us to begin the fast on Holy Thursday evening after the Mass of the Lord's Supper (at 7pm) and to let that continue if possible through Holy Saturday's celebration of the Easter Vigil at 9pm. We do this especially for the sake of those who are being received fully into the Catholic Church during the liturgy of Holy Saturday night. We are happy to receive Pedro Onativia, a catechumen who will be baptized, as well as 4 children who will also be baptized (& most of these will also be receiving Confirmation and First Eucharist along with Philip Jacobs who is already baptized: Grace & Ashley Stanek, Isabelle Angelson and Charles Jacobs. We will be receiving Rebecca Johnson into the Catholic Faith and she will be receiving the Sacraments of Confirmation and Holy Eucharist along with several other adults: Erin Waite, Dillan Mireles and Neil Mireles. Finally, Evan Johnson will also be receiving his First Holy Communion but will be confirmed when he is in the 8th grade. I sure hope I can keep all that straight during Holy Saturday's Vigil Mass! Let's just pray I get it all right so that we can congratulate all of these as we welcome them into our faith.
Please see the bulletin for our Holy Week Schedule, including times for confession Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday of this week. And remember, if you come for the Food Blessing on Saturday (either at 10am or Noon), be sure to guard your baskets carefully. If Michaela finds her way into the church again, she'll have your Easter dinner finished by the time we can say Amen.