Looking back at the weekly messages of Father Paul Counce, first published in The Carpenter, our weekly Parish Bulletin
Published: February 09, 2020
My dear Parishioners and Friends,
This weekend, February 8-9, is Stewardship of Finance weekend here at the Cathedral. Every year every pastor is supposed to spend a weekend each touching upon the three “pillars” of the Parish’s Total Stewardship effort: time (spent in prayer), talent (spent in some kind of active ministry), and treasure (spent in support of the Church). So get ready: I only talk about money on one weekend out of 52, but this is the one!
While it’s not one of the Ten Commandments, we older Catholics remember that the secondary set of commandments, the famous “precepts of the Church, includes this moral requirement: “Thou shalt contribute to the support of the Church.” In fact, this remains an obligation for Catholics, according to both the Catechism of the Catholic Church (no. 2043) and the Code of Canon Law (can. 222): “The Christian faithful are obliged to assist with the needs of the Church … [and] to promote social justice and to assist the poor from their own resources.” For this reason I can’t lie to you: it’s something we all have a religious duty to do. Not to do it means some kind of sin, maybe mortal but at least venial.
So please pay attention this weekend. I’ll try to point out the biggest needs our Church Parish has right now, so that you can do what God wants by doing what we need!
Enough about money, at least until this weekend’s homily!
But please note this important announcement: next Saturday, February 15, and the following one, February 22, there will be no 4 pm Saturday Vigil Mass here at the Cathedral. This is an annual thing: the carnival parades of the Krewes of Mystique and of Orion this week make getting to the Cathedral and parking here practically impossible, and they are so noisy that we just can’t really provide a worthy worshiping environment inside. And then next week the Spanish Town parade is even more raucous.
Will you make a good Lent this year? Ash Wednesday is February 26. We’ll distribute ashes to you at our 7:30 am, 12 noon, and 5 pm Masses that day. But we can’t decide your Lenten penance for you: you have to do that. Yes, you can “give something up.” Even better, you can “decide to do more.” Especially if you can secretly make life harder for yourself – traditionally known as “mortification” – you can join your sufferings more to those of the Lord Jesus in His passion. The more you can feel and empathize with Him the closer He will be to you with His grace and blessing.
While our own efforts alone do not save us – it is the free grace of Christ that does (see Ephesians 2:8-9) – the truly grateful soul does not sit back and presume salvation. In fact, the notion of running to meet God is a fairly consistent Catholic theme. The very first Mass prayer in the Roman Missal, a very ancient one, begs, “Grant your faithful, we pray, almighty God, the resolve to run forth to meet your Christ with righteous deeds at His coming, so that, gathered at His right hand, they may be worthy to possess the heavenly kingdom.” If we “want to be in that number,” we’re gonna have to try to “be in that race!”
Yours in the Lord,
Father Paul Counce
