February 22, 2004
An adventure to life
If
You're Reading This Online or On Ash Wednesday
If you’re here at St. Brigid’s on Ash Wednesday (or reading
this online) , you’re invited to come along for a journey to life.
Ash Wednesday is only our beginning. Come to Mass each weekend to celebrate
Lent and experience how God will unfold a richer life for you and your
loved ones. We all know that we get out of life what we put into it
and during the days of Lent and Easter ahead, we’re moved to put
a lot more into our spiritual life. And we’ll get a lot more out
of it. Come to life. Come to any of the Lenten services and celebrations
that are ahead and know that God will bless you with a more fulfilling
experience of life. Deeper life in Christ leads to peace, to freedom,
to forgiveness, to hope. Come and find that here at St. Brigid’s.
At College?
At St. Brigid’s we like to stay in touch through
e-mail “letters from home.”
Once a person has an e-mail address at school (or if he/she uses a personal
address), please let us know what it is so we can include them when
we write.
Here's a handy college link so you
can send this info online.
e-mail Father Ralph:
Past Columns:
Feb15: A rose by another
name?
Feb 8: If at first...
Feb 1: Our Patron Saint
Jan 25:A View From Inside
Jan 18: Our School
Jan 11: Baptism with Fire
Dec28: Our Holy
Family
Dec 21: Home
For Christmas
Dec14: Meddling
Grace
Other Colums from 2003
Columns from 2002
By the time you read this, I’ll be
back from a week’s visit to my cousin in England. But I write this
from her home, overlooking the English countryside thinking about what
I’ve seen so far and where I’m going. Along with you, I’m
going to Lent. This trip has been so wonderful -- I’ve seen so much
and understood so much only because my cousin and her husband have taken
me around and shown me their world.
So too with Lent. Lent at St. Brigid’s
is a special world in which we discover how to live life more deeply in
God’s love, accompanied by a vibrant community of faith. So I was
wondering...is there someone who you could invite to accompany you through
Lent at St. Brigid’s? Just as my cousin could lead me to Stonehenge
and Salisbury and through the beautiful quaint towns of the Cotswalds,
and the busy sights of London, perhaps you could invite someone to come
with you to Ash Wednesday or our Tenebrae Services, or Sunday Mass, or
our Lenten Soup Supper, or one of our deeply moving Holy Week services.
I suspect there was some added benefit to
my cousin and her husband. Not only did they get to enjoy familiar places
through my eyes as I saw things for the first time, but they too ended
up in new places, seeing towns they had never visited or enjoying sights
they had long forgotten. When we bring someone else through Lent at St.
Brigid’s it can do the same for us. It’s not “just Lent
again”, but it’s “Lent anew!” There’s new dialogue,
new things to notice, new things to discover about ourselves as a community
and about God who wants so much to be close to us.
After I write this I’m about to set
out on my own for the first time. I’m excited and a bit nervous that
I’ll be able to get where I want to go and back. I hope the people
will be friendly. I think that there are those who will try Lent alone
too. So it’s important that we are welcoming and friendly to those
who are joining us in the days ahead -- especially if we haven’t
met them before. We’ll all get more from this journey to life.
You are Person
