I hope this finds everyone having a grace filled Lenten Season!
I hope you are all ready for this Lent, we have a lot on our plate. At the writing of this, we have not yet started the fish fries but the first one is this week. I believe that we are ready and will do very well. We do, however, need all the help we can get. Come on out and help with this event. It really is fun to work together to get the funds to do the great works that we do! Palm Sunday weekend is the MI drive. This is the event that defines the Knights. It is one that gives us the most exposure to the public. Jeff Gapczynski has graciously stepped up to run it this year. Please also consider working this event as this too funds a lot of the charities that we do like to support. We do need some help at the church with this as well counting money and making and serving food.
We have lost another Knight, Ray Ignatowski. He will be greatly missed by us all. Please remember in your prayers the Ignatowski family in this time of sorrow. We did host a very well attended Rosary in his honor, and the family was very appreciative.
Lent is is an Anglo-Saxon word for Spring and connects to the word “lengthen”. In the Northern Hemisphere, where the Church Year originates, days are lengthening; it is Spring time.
Lent is a period of intense preparation for the Easter Season. Lent was the season during which people had their final preparation to be baptized at Easter. Sinners, who had been excluded from the church, were reconciled and restored to the community. It was a period of fasting (especially from meat). Hence, in many languages the title of Lent refers to fasting.
Lent is forty days long, not counting the Sundays, from Ash Wednesday to Easter Day. Forty is a number we regularly meet in the Bible: the number of days Moses spent on Sinai (Exodus 24:18), the days of Elijah walking to Mount Horeb (1 Kings 19:8), the days of rain during the flood (Genesis 7:4); the years the Hebrew people wandered in the desert (Numbers 14:33); the days Jonah told the city of Nineveh they had to repent or be destroyed (Jonah 3:4), the number of days Jesus fasted in the desert after his baptism (Matthew 4:1–2, Mark 1:12–13, Luke 4:1–2). Forty days is also approximately a tenth of the year. Giving a tenth (a “tithe”) back to God is a concept found in many places in the Bible. Lent then becomes a tithe of our year.
During Lent contemporary Christians generally intensify their spiritual life, like a retreat in daily life. Many read the Bible more, pray and meditate more, give up something enjoyable, attend a study group, attend more (weekday) services at church, and give more generously to worthy causes. Some continue to use the time to prepare for baptism and/or confirmation.
The church does not use Halleluiah/Alleluia in worship and references to this word is often referred to as the “H Word” or the “A Word” in Lent, to avoid pronouncing it. “Glory to God in the highest…” is also not used in Lent. This fasting from Halleluiah/Alleluia and “Glory to God in the highest…” gives their reintroduction and heavy use during the Easter Season extra potency. Flowers are often not used in church during Lent. The color for Lent is purple/violet. Traditionally it has penitential connotations. It is also the church’s preparing color.
I look forward to seeing you all at one of our Lenten activities.
God bless you and all that you do!
Vivat Jesus!
Tom Gray
