♦MASS SCHEDULE♦Daily Mass Mon-Fri 9am | SAT 5pm | SUN, 8am, 10am & Noon Please review Mass changes due to COVID before attending Mass or reconciliation. |
♦NEW MASS SCHEDULE♦ FULL DETAILS HERE - Mass Changes and Reconciliation, COVID-19 Message from Bishop UPDATE May 30, 2020 Follow us on:
|
||
A Recipe for Prayer
Dear Parish Family,
From our earliest days we have learned to “follow the directions.” Whether a recipe or changing a tire or a final exam, often we bend our ears and minds to the instructions of another. This is Week Three of our Message Series and we are in Part Three of the book, I Heard God Laugh, where we will spend two weeks. Our task this week is to put into practice the Prayer Process. We might think of it as a recipe for prayer.
For most of us, prayer is not new. We may have prayed our whole lives. As a boy, my mother taught me to pray. The instructions were basic: fold your hands, bow your head, talk to God as a father, don’t forget to thank Him. In high school, I learned that lifting our mind and heart to God can be a prayer, no words, just the acknowledgement of presence, more of a connection than a conversation. In college, Mother Mary helped me to make the rosary my own and some friends showed me the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. Later, I took up the Breviary or the Liturgy of the Hours that priests and religious commit themselves to pray daily for the whole Church. In seminary, the prayer tool kit expanded with the Daily Examen, Lectio Divina, the Jesus Prayer, and a host of other techniques. All of these forms of prayer are not for everyone. We have to find what works for us, but I confess that having many tools and techniques at our disposal helps us to keep that connection with God.
God Becomes Really Real
Dear Parish Family,
We are underway with our first message series of 2021. Last week we began to read, I Heard God Laugh, by Matthew Kelly. Not many of you were present for Mass last week with the bad weather. I hope you were able to participate remotely, but it is not too late to join us on this journey to nourish our spiritual lives, to feed our souls, and to develop a beautiful friendship with God. We still have some books available in church or at the rectory, or you can download it to your favorite e-reader.
A word about remote worship. Currently, it is possible to participate in all our Masses via three ways: (1) the StreamSpot portal from our website (ww.olphparish.com), (2) from our parish Facebook page, or (3) by my YouTube channel.
Recognizing Our Epiphanies
Dear Family in Christ,
For three years now, I have elected to provide a small Christmas gift to our parish family. Nothing fancy, just a book we buy for a buck or two, but it's the story that matters. As we know from the greatest reads of our lives, the contents of the pages can be a treasure beyond price, like that great pearl the merchant discovered.
I admit that I am a bit of a bookworm. A full decade of post-baccalaureate education will do that to anyone. Have you ever bought a book but never read it, only to discover its rich and meaningful content years later? I have even scanned my shelves and said, “I didn't even know that I owned this one!” A friend of mine in seminary used to say in jest, “Having things is better than knowing things!” He would often buy books with the best of intentions yet ended up reading only a percentage of his purchases. Amazon Prime in graduate school can do that to anyone.
