This is the Sunday next before Lent, sometimes called Quinquagesima, meaning fifty days before Easter/Pascha; it is the end of Ordinary Time in church Calendars because this week, the season of Lent begins with Ash Wednesday for forty days until the dawn of resurrection on the Sunday of Easter/Pascha.

Too extraordinary days during this forty day church season of Lent are marked by a strict fast - on Ash Wednesday and on Good Friday when we eat only the base essentials and use our stomach rumblings to remind us of how God's love in grace satisfies all human hungers. The fast ends in late afternoon. We should not subject the ill or children to any difficult deprivations but Lent can be a wonderful time to stand apart from much of our demanding work and pleasures, to assist the lonely, the poor and infirm, to get close to nature, to do something to encourage youth, to visit the shut-in, to examine our conscience for wholeness and to share these scruples with a priest of mentor. It is a time to be unduly thankful and to experience our thankfulness by more time spent before the altar, by reading some spiritual book, and by strengthening our prayer-life. Fridays mirror Good Friday and are marked by spiritual exercises as by 'abstinence', that is going without some things that we regularly enjoy. While church attendance on Sundays (supplemented by weekdays,) by family or couples prayers, grace before meals, and Bible readings, help to maintain Christian perseverance, we should all try to set aside Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, and especially Good Friday Rites (here at 11 a.m. on Friday Stat. March 29, 2002). Only then can Resurrection joy become ours on Easter (Pascha) Day, this year on March 31.

Blessings,

Father Al