SCCR Parish Blog

UPDATED 4/2/20 I have two recommended videos  regarding how to carve out a prayer space in your home and how to pray during this epidemic.  Both are short 5 minute clips by a local priests from SE Indiana, Fr. Jonathan Meyer.  I also recommend this prayer booklet including prayers to St. Roch, the patron saint of protection from plagues.

I will be offering drive-up confessions at St. Mary's in Bethel tomorrow, Wed., April 1st, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.    (This is for real, not an April Fools).   If anyone is still waiting at 7:30 I'll stay as long as needed. Here is how I would like this to work: I will be at the end of the front porch of the parish office, facing the school next door and behind a folding screen (so confessions can remain anonymous).   When you come, please just come up to the folding screen and announce yourself. You can park nearby.  If you see others at the confessional, please remain  in your car  some distance away to preserve the privacy of the other penitents. Please note that you will have to speak a little louder than usual, due to social distance I need to maintain. If you are hard of hearing, please call the parish office to make arrangements.  Also, there is one small step to get up to the porch from the parking lot.  For any...

For this Friday and Good Friday, during these quarantine times when we will not be able to celebrate Stations of the Cross publicly, I recommend praying these stations by the late Venerable Fulton Sheen at home by yourself of with your family.

UPDATED 3/31/20.  See new entry for St. Mary's confession time. OK.  So my makeshift confessional won't look quite as elegant as the confessional booth in this photo, but I have set up a temporary outdoor confession station at St. Peter's, in the picnic shelter behind the church. I will be posting more hours here on this blog and also posting a sign on the shelter posts as I add hours over the next few days.  The first confession hour will be Monday, 3/30, from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m.  Please spread the word.  If there are still penitents waiting at 6:00, I will wait too. I am also giving thought to when and how I can hear confessions at St. Mary's.  Will keep you posted on that. Please note that the church allows confessions outdoors in these unusual circumstances, so the sacrament will be valid even though not offered in church. Here are instructions for using the makeshift "drive through" confession station at St. Peter: Confessions will be ...

UPDATE: 7:00 p.m. (added Magnificat reading) On this 5th Sunday of Lent, I remind you again to pray and make a spiritual communion . Again, a reminder that it would be good to set aside time to pray the Rosary (especially the glorious and sorrowful mysteries today), read the Scriptures from Mass , or perhaps even watch one to help you pray.  Bishop Barron has a livestreamed Mass already available and ETWN will post theirs later (under the "Latest Video" section). The local Catholic radio station, Sacred Heart Radio (740 AM, sacredheartradio.com ) also broadcasts Mass.  (Check their website for times). Finally, the Magnificat devotional magazine has a helpful format for offering spiritual Communion and reflecting on today's Mass readings.  I highly recommend it.  I will try to post their information for Holy Week as soon as it becomes available.

I am including some homily notes for my  reflection on today's Gospel for the 5th Sunday of Lent.  The Scripture readings are included at the end.   A video reflection on YouTube is also available.  (Thanks to David the seminarians for making this possible). This is the first time I have ever recorded a homily, so I apologize in advance for the sound quality and the squinting.  It will take me a little practice to get used to preaching to a camera!  Homily –– March 29, 2020 – Fifth Sunday of Lent (A) When I am preparing my weekly homilies, I often read through a commentary compiled by St. Thomas Aquinas of the 13 th Century entitled the “Golden Chain.”   He weaves together the commentary of the timeless wisdom of the great saints and Church Fathers over the centuries verse by verse of the Gospels, including St. Augustine, St John Chrysostom and many others.   In these unusual when the faithful can’t attend Mass, I was str...

During this time of being stuck at home, I recommend Catholic film critic Steven Greydanus' article on good Catholic content to watch for those of you who have streaming services.  (This is in addition to formed.org ). Some of his picks are available for free on Amazon Video for those who have Amazon Prime membership.  I particularly enjoyed watching the 1999 move, " Molokai " (available on Amazon Prime).  This has some mature content, so might not be suitable for young children.  It is beautifully filmed on location in Hawaii. It's a story that might connect with our times, when St. Daimen the 19th century Belgian missionary travels to he Kingdom of Hawaii, to minister to a secluded colony of lepers who have this then-highly contagious and incurable disease.  Not caring first about his own life and health, he chooses to lay down his life to bring Christ to those living in the leper colony.  There he makes the love of Christ very real and tangible i...

This is a reminder that in this time of "quarantine," there are many good resources available for free to all parishioners on the "Formed" Catholic platform.  All you have to do is sign up once by email.  Just go to their website at formed.org I recommend this 6-minute devotion on the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary to pray with your family.  It's especially fitting for this season of Lent.   It is worth watching just for the very beautiful Marian and Christian art included in it. The image  here is French artist Bouguereau's version of the Pieta (the poignant scene where the Blessed Virgin Mary holds the dead body of Christ her Son after He has died on the Cross).

This Sunday the Church enters into the season of "Passiontide" (the last two weeks of Lent). It is traditional to cover the statues and crucifixes in a church during this period. Read more about this season and this practice at this National Catholic Register newspaper article . I will be veiling the statues and crucifixes at St. Peter's where I live with the help of seminarian-in-residence David.  It won't be as elegant as last year, sadly, because our decorating ladies will not be able to help. A church decorated for Passiontide

Here are the readings for Mass on this 5th Sunday of Lent as we begin to enter into Passiontide (the last weeks of Lent).

As we approach the second in a row where the faithful will not be able to attend Mass, I wanted to remind you of the very helpful practice of making a spiritual communion on Sunday.   Read more about what a spiritual communion is here and here ..  (I love the quote from St. Catherine of Siena).  I am including a couple of options for that prayer.  Choose one you like and pray it by yourself or together with your family. ====  Saint John-Marie Vianney (18th and 19th century priest from France and patron saints of priests) once said “when we feel the love of God growing cold, let us instantly make a Spiritual Communion. When we cannot go to the church, let us turn towards the tabernacle; no wall can shut us out from the good God.”  Spiritual Communion prayer by St. Alphonsus Liguori   Spiritual Communion prayer by His Excellency Gregory Mansour (an Eastern Catholic bishop) "O Divine Ocean of Mercy and Compassion, be with us in o...

We have recently installed mail slots at both parish offices, in case you would like to drop something off during this time of office closure.  The one at St. Peter's is to the left of the lower-level door, the silver slot just below the glass panel (see photo below).  The one at St. Mary's is in the door itself.   Please know that these are secure in case you would like to use these to drop off contributions.

Archbishop Emeritus Daniel Pilarczyk died about one week ago.  He served as ordinary (bishop) of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati for 27 years until his retirement.  His funeral Mass will be livestreamed from the Archdiocese's website at 11:00 am. today (Friday, 3/27).  It will also be aired on Sacred Heart Radio (740 AM, sacredheartradio.com ). Here is the program for the funeral Mass. May his soul and he souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace.

I am currently working on a plan to provide for confessions.  We priests are going to have to get creative and figure out how to do this while maintaining mandated "social distancing" requirements.  Stay tuned here for details, coming by early next week.  They might involve some kind of outside or "drive up" confessions. In the meantime, it is good to make a prayerful examination of conscience -- praying with the help of the Holy Spirit to know what sins to bring to the Lord for forgiveness. Here is one helpful confession guide , including that examination of conscience, provided by the Knights of Columbus.

I will be posting later on this blog suggestions for observing Holy Week.  As you remember, Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday (April 5th this year) remembering Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem.  Even though we won't be able to celebrate Palm Sunday together as a community at mass, I encourage all families and individual to observe this at home.  I will be blessing palms to give to parishioners to take home for Holy Week.  They will be by the main entrances to each church.  ======= UPDATE March 27th:We have just been informed by the diocesan worship office that the Vatican is NOT allowing the blessing of palms outside of Mass.  Since the Mass will be celebrated privately without the customary palm blessing and Gospel procession, we will NOT be able to provide palms to take home this year.  I am sorry. We will have more details closer to the time, but I recommend as part of your Palm Sunday and Holy Week prayer that you listen to some fitting...

The Holy Father has asked the whole world to join him in prayer from Saint Peter’s Square this Friday, March 27, at 1:00 p.m. EDT. This event will be streamed live by Vatican News .  Please watch this video from our U.S. Bishops explaining the event.        During the prayer,  the Holy Father will grant to all participants a Plenary Indulgence before imparting his Urbi et Orbi blessing.  Read more about this indulgence here . The "Urbi et Orbi" blessing means the Pope will be blessing the people of Rome and Christians around the world.  Note that it is usually required to go to Mass and confession before receiving a plenary indulgence, but under the circumstances the Pope might waive that requirement for those  who pray with him.]