Lent 2021 is here - are you ready to Embrace and Be Embraced this Holy Season? We welcome you, whether in-person or virtually, in communion with your brothers and sister in Christ, walking with you on our journey through this season of renewal.

Look for daily updates to inspire you to continue to walk with us!

#Embrace #BeEmbraced #Lent2021 #StillStMonica #StMonicaFamily 

Communal Reconciliation Service 

An Opportunity for Individual Confessions

Tuesday, Mar. 30

*Both Outdoors and Inside the Church

Click Here to Learn More!

Triduum Kit 

Click the Holy Wek image for readings, activities, and videos for the whole family to enjoy for Holy Week and Easter at home! 

Lent 2021 is here - are you ready to Embrace and Be Embraced this Holy Season? We welcome you, whether in-person or virtually, in communion with your brothers and sister in Christ, walking with you on our journey through this season of renewal.

 

Look for daily updates to inspire you to continue to walk with us!

 

#Embrace #BeEmbraced #Lent2021 #StillStMonica #StMonicaFamily 

 

Communal Reconciliation Service 

An Opportunity for Individual Confessions

Tuesday, Mar. 30

*Both Outdoors and Inside the Church

 

Click Here to Learn More!

 

Triduum Kit 

Click the Holy Wek image for readings, activities, and videos for the whole family to enjoy for Holy Week and Easter at home! 

 

Parish Mission

Parish Mission 2021: Embrace G.R.A.C.E. with Julianne Stanz! 

March 22-24 | 7:00 p.m.

As we struggle these difficult times, many of find that the pace of life has moved too fast over rocky and inhospitable ground. Instead of feeling rested and renewed we find ourselves weary, tired and restless. In this Lenten “mini-retreat”, Julianne offers five enduring spiritual practices to create a space for G.R.A.C.E in your life so that you can you can be spiritually renewed and continue to minister with a sense of joy and gratitude.  (Here are the descriptions of those practices)

 

G- Growing in Gratitude 

R- Release Regrets to REST and Reset

A-Authentic Availability and Acceptance 

C- Cultivate Radical Hospitality

E- Embrace Simplicity and Silence

 

Click Here to Watch!

 

Start with Jesus - Small Group Experience

Start with Jesus is bursting with personal stories, pastoral wisdom, and a comprehensive approach on how to be a disciple. Her message echoes Pope Francis’ imperative that we are all called to be missionary disciples. Our small group experience will help us all to learn how to lead and share our faith. 

 

Start with Jesus

Thursdays, Apr. 15-May 13 | 7-8:00 p.m. | Zoom

We invite those who are participating to obtain a copy of the book in two convenient ways:

 

1.) Holy Grounds

Open Monday through Sunday, 8:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.

2.) Purchase your own copy: CLICK HERE

 

*Also available for purchase on AMAZON

 

Click HERE to register to attend Start with Jesus!

 

 

CRS Rice Bowl

 

CRS Rice Bowl Week 4: Timor-Leste

 

Embrace Poverty: Timor-Lest

Timor-Leste is a small Asian country, slightly larger than the state of Connecticut. It’s on the other side of the world near Australia, and it’s one of the world’s newest countries—only 18 years old. In comparison, the United States will be 245 years old this year!

 

Many families in Timor-Leste live in rural areas and work as farmers. But challenges like changing weather patterns make it difficult to grow enough food. They depend on rice as a main part of their meals, and hunger and malnutrition are big problems. More than one-third of people in Timor-Leste don’t have reliable access to enough nutritious food. This especially affects children and their ability to develop to their full potential.

 

With training from CRS, families are starting home gardens to grow different vegetables, beans and other foods that are rich in nutrients like vitamin A and iron. The gardens are built to withstand droughts and flooding, and the families add the food they grow—such as spinach, cabbage, peanuts, carrots and tomatoes—to their daily rice staple, providing more nourishing meals that help children grow and stay healthy.

 

Jesus calls us to help those in need. The CRS Rice Bowl invites Catholics to live in solidarity with our poorest and most vulnerable brothers and sisters. Participants pray over what sacrifice they would like to make this Lent and use the CRS Rice Bowl as a tool for collecting their Lenten alms. Alms are then gathered at the end of Lent and sent to CRS to support projects around the world to help those in need.

 

At the end of Lent you will be able to bring your bowl with alms back to the parish. You also have the option to send your donation directly to CRS Ricebowl at Donate to CRS Rice Bowl | Catholic Relief Services

 

CRS Rice Bowls are available for pick up at Holy Grounds during regular business hours, as well as at the Communion Procession and Outdoor Masses! 

 

Embrace Action

Each year we enter the season of Lent, knowing that is a time of growth & preparation as we move towards Easter.  To foster this growth & preparation, Catholics have traditionally engaged in three types of action:  prayer, fasting & almsgiving. 

 

For each day in Lent, we'll be sharing a practice that you can engage in from the comfort of your own living room, your car, or backyard.  Each day of the week, the practice will have a different theme: 

 

• Meatless (or Healthy Living) Mondays:  practices focused on health & self-care
• Care for Creation Tuesdays: practices focused on caring for the environment
• Racial Justice Wednesdays:  practices focused on raising awareness of & promoting racial justice
• Reflection Thursdays: opportunities to nourish the soul by reading reflections & prayers from faith leaders (e.g., Romero, Pope Francis, Mother Teresa) or watching videos (e.g., Fr. Jim Martin's "Who Cares about the Saints?" series
• Fasting Fridays: practices focused on fasting (both in terms of food and other types of consumption) and ways that this can be turned into almsgiving
• Cinema Saturdays:  suggestions for film-based spiritual reflection
• St. Monica Sundays: Focus on connecting with St. Monica through Mass and existing parish activities

Maybe you'll decide just to focus on one day a week throughout Lent, or check out the site each week to choose what speaks to you.  Or maybe you'll engage in all the suggestions.  But, however you choose to use these opportunities, we trust that God will be preparing you to bring Christ's love and new life into the world!  

 

 

Eucharistic Exposition

Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament

Saturdays, Feb. 20-Mar. 27 | 9:00 a.m.-12:00 noon

 

“Let us know pleasure in the company of our Best Friend, a Friend who can do everything for us,

a Friend who loves us beyond measure. Here in the Blessed Sacrament,

we can talk to Him straight from the heart.”  -St. Alphonsus Liguori  

 

Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament (The Eucharist presented in a monstrance for devotional prayer) is envisioned by the Church to draw us deeper into the celebration of the Eucharist. During this time of pandemic many have not been able to participate physically in the Eucharist – a time of prayer in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament with a smaller group and only interaction in prayer with our Lord present in the Eucharist may help in uniting you more With the Lord Jesus Christ in prayer and may give sustenance for this journey.

 

The Church teaches that this Devotion is connected intimately with the Liturgy and  helps the community:

• acknowledge Christ’s marvelous presence in the Sacrament,
• leads to a fuller participation in the celebration of the Mass, culminating in the reception of Holy Communion
• encourages and foster ‘worship which is due to Christ in spirit and truth.”.

When was the last time you sat with the Lord, told Him what’s on your heart, and listened to Him?

 

This Lent, we invite you to a time of prayer at Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament every Saturday, Feb. 20-Mar. 27 from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. on the Duval Patio. Masks and social distancing are required, and all are welcome!

 

Click Here to Sign up!

 

Stations of the Cross

 

 

Special thanks to Caitlin Smith, for coordinating all the presenters!

 

There are still more opportunities for you to be a part of the Stations of the Cross this Lent.

Presenters are asked to prepare a short personal reflection and a brief prayer.

Click the sign-up button below for more detailed instructions:

Click HERE to Sign-up

 

Fasting & Abstinence

Fasting and Abstinence

Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are days when the Catholic faithful are called to fast and abstain from eating meat. What does that mean: 

 

FASTING 

• In the dioceses in the United States, Catholics aged 18 through 59 are bound to fast on both Ash Wednesday (February 17, 2021) and Good Friday (April 2, 2021). 
• To fast means to consume one full meal a day at most, although taking of other, smaller quantities of food at the other customary mealtimes is permitted. Food and drink between meals (excepting water and medicine) is not permitted on fast days. 

 

ABSTINENCE FROM MEAT 

• Catholics aged 14 and up are to abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday, all Fridays of Lent, and Good Friday.
• To abstain means refraining from eating beef, veal, pork, or poultry at least, although eggs and milk products are acceptable. The consumption of fish and shellfish is permitted, though the penitential character of the abstinence should be kept in mind.