My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

We enter into the Third Sunday of Lent this weekend.  In the Gospel Reading, we hear of Jesus’ encounter with a Samaritan woman by the well.  During the time of Jesus, both the Jewish people and Samaritans were divided because of religious, ethnic and cultural distinctions.  As a result, they do not interact with each other to a point where Jews bypassed Samaria by taking a route across the Jordan.  Jesus defines himself by passing through Samaria telling us that nothing will ever separate us from his love even to the point of drinking from a vessel from a Samaritan, which was forbidden at that time.  After her encounter with Jesus, we see how she found that living water Jesus told her about when she left her water jar behind.  Not only did her encounter with Jesus change her life but because of her invitation, other lives too were changed by her invitation.  We too are invited to encounter Jesus to not only change our life but the lives we can change by our invitation.

 

Once again, in addition to our Lenten offerings, we will be praying the Stations of the Cross on Wednesday at 6pm at Mary Our Queen and on Fridays at 4pm at St John Vianney.  Please note that there is an added bonus attending the Stations of the Cross at St John Vianney as you will get the opportunity to skip the line to the Fish Fry at St John Vianney after the Stations of the Cross.

 

Please join us on Fridays during the season of Lent at Mary Our Queen from 5 to 7pm or St John Vianney from 4:30pm to 8pm for our Lenten Fish Fry.  We would like to thank our Knights of Columbus at both Mary Our Queen and St John Vianney for hosting the Fish Fries.

 

On the First Sunday of Lent, our OCIA catechumens and candidates were received by our Archbishop at St Cecilia’s Cathedral.  OCIA stands for Order of Christian Initiation of Adults.  It is for those wanting to learn more about our Catholic faith and God willing enter into our Church through the Sacraments of Initiation – Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Eucharist during our Easter Vigil.  This year we have 17 members in our OCIA program from both St John Vianney and Mary Our Queen.  We would like to thank our OCIA team for journeying with them since August last year and for our Men’s Club who hosted dinner for them and their families after the Rite of Election at Mary Our Queen.

Mary Our Queen was awarded a matching grant of up to $200,000 through the Lavigne Foundation and the Archdiocese of Omaha late last year. This opportunity will support important campus improvements and security upgrades, including security software, door and access-control enhancements, improved communication systems between the Parish Office and School, and the replacement of aging boilers. This grant will significantly strengthen the safety and long-term infrastructure of our parish community.  If you would like to contribute to our matching grant, kindly contact our Parish Office.

 

We are in the midst of planning to replace our steam boilers in Mary Our Queen’s Campus with new hot water boilers thanks to the matching grant through the Lavigne Foundation. We will also be upgrading the control system in the Kenny Center which was installed when the Kenny Center was built.  The old steam boilers will then be removed to allow the space it occupies to be used as a storage area.  We hope to complete this project this summer.

 

We have identified the problems we have been experiencing with the new control system for our HVAC units at St John Vianney.  Work is currently being scheduled and hopefully this will be completed in the next few weeks.

 

Blessings for the week, Fr Marc