Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

On this Quinquagesima Sunday (yes, I confess I just wanted to be able to use the word in a sentence), we come into the final days before our forty-day Lenten journey begins. The words of the Gospel today are helpful as we prepare for the imposition of ashes this Wednesday and take on our disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Remove the beam from your eye, Jesus tells us, so that you can see clearly. Strive to be the healthy, good tree so that the fruit you bear will be the evidence of your inner goodness.

Lent will give us the opportunity to remove the beam from our eyes. It may seem ironic to mention that as we read a Gospel passage in which Jesus calls hypocrites those who point out the splinter in their brother’s eye. But our Lord’s point is more akin to a pre-flight announcement telling you to put your own oxygen mask on first, before helping others, than it is an admonition against making note of eye splinters. And so we return to the point: Lent is an opportunity to put on our own oxygen mask, to remove the things that blind us, so that we can more effectively serve, assist, and accompany our brothers and sisters on the path to holiness. With that in mind, aware of the beam which I am working to remove from my own eye, allow me to make some suggestions for our Lenten disciplines this year.

• Prayer: Time spent with the Lord in prayer is of inestimable value. To help with this, I’d encourage you to take the Lenten meditation books available at the doors of the church. Additionally, consider participating in the Hallow Lenten Challenge with our parish. When you download the app and make your account, you can select St. Pius X in Fairfield as your parish and join your fellow parishioners in prayer. Finally, I would like to challenge all of us to one particular practice: commit one hour per week in our parish Adoration Chapel. To sign up for an hour, simply visit www.st-pius.org/adore365. Please try to sign up for an hour that no one has taken yet, but if the best hour for your schedule already has a committed adorer, please don’t hesitate to add your name to the list anyway!
• Fasting: This discipline applies first to food and drink. Many people opt to fast from sweets, alcohol, meat, or coffee. Eating less, or with less frequency, can also be an effective way of fasting. So that our fasting is not merely a diet-plan, we should try to be intentional and prayerful about the fast. In prayer, tell Jesus why you’re fasting, and when the hunger pangs or craving for a particular food hit, bring it to prayer again.
• Almsgiving: This discipline applies most especially to giving to the poor. Its meaning can extend to charitable giving as well. Service to our neighbors in need is also of tremendous value. Throughout the Lenten season, we will have opportunities to make sandwiches for those in need, and I encourage you to sign up to help. You might also consider a direct donation to the Thomas Merton Family Center in Bridgeport.

Peace,

Fr. Sam