Sat., February 17

4 PM … Charles Richard by Simone Richard

Sun., February 18 I Sunday of Lent

7:30 AM … Mary Marszal; Ernest, Carl & Jeanne Bievenue by

Richard Bienvenue

9:30 AM … Veterans of SRP, living and deceased

5 PM … Our Parish Family

Mon. February 19

12 PM … Presider’s intention

Tue., February 20

12 PM … Presider’s intention

Wed., February 21 Saint Peter Damien

12 PM … Presider’s intention

Thur., February 22 The Chair of St Peter the Apostle

8:30 AM … Elmer Soderberg by Jaye Soderberg

Fri., February 23

6 PM … Presider’s intention

Sat., February 24

4 PM … Ronald Robichaud (10th Anniv.) by Mary Robichaud

Sun., February 25 II Sunday of Lent

7:30 AM … Our Parish Family

9:30 AM … Edward Heroux by Bridget Heroux

5 PM … Rose Magarian by Maria Ryan

First Sunday of Lent

Weekend of February 11, 2018 Regular Offertory $8,011.00 Loose Offertory 507.70 Make-Up Offertory 233.00 Online Offertory 350.00 Total Offertory $9,101.70

Stewardship $1,926.00 Stewardship Loose 203.00 Stewardship Online 60.00 Total Stewardship $2,189.00 Food Pantry $ 60.00

********************** Last Year: Wknd of Feb. 12, 2017 Total Offertory $10,669.00

Thank you for your sacrificial

Mon. February 19 7 PM … Food Pantry Tue., February 13 12:45 PM ... Parish Nurse Wed., February 23 7 PM … Finance Council Meeting Thur., February 22 6:30 PM … Holy League Group

February 18, 2018

Sanctuary candle The sanctuary candle burns this week for Our Parish Family.

READINGS FOR THE WEEK of February 18, 2018

Monday: Lv 19:1-2, 11-18; Ps 19:8, 9, 10, 15; Mt 25:31-46 Tuesday: Is 55:10-11; Ps 34:4-5, 6-7, 16-17, 18-19; Mt 6:7-15 Wednesday: Jon 3:1-10; Ps 51:3-4, 12-13, 18-19; Lk 11:29-32 Thursday: 1 Pt 5:1-4; Ps 23:1-3a, 4, 5, 6; Mt 16:13-19 Friday: Ez 18:21-28; Ps 130:1-2, 3-4, 5-7a, 7bc-8; Mt 5:20-26 Saturday: Dt 26:16-19; Ps 119:1-2, 4-5, 7-8; Mt 5:43-48 Sunday: Gn 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18; Ps 116:10, 15, 16-17, 18-19; Rom 8:31b-34; Mk 9:2-10

Saint Raphael Food Pantry On Monday, Feb. 12, the food pantry served 29 families and gave out

68 bags of groceries.

Year B Hymnal #884

Save the Date! Our annual Saint Patrick’s Dinner will be Saturday, March 10, 2018 at 5:30 PM. Tickets are $15 and available following weekend

Masses or at the rectory during regular business hours. We welcome your dona-tions, (items or funds towards the event for the raffle prizes.). Don’t miss out! Get your tickets before they sell out.

Have you down-

loaded our app

yet? We will be

having a raffle

for a prize, to be

drawn at the end of this

month. Watch for a special

notification via the app!

Daily Reflections for Lent by Michelle Francl-Donnay are available in the Information Nook for $2. You

may pay for the book by includ-ing it with your offertory or leave your donation in the dona-tion box in the nook. Thanks.

The Seven Precepts of the Church The Catechism of the Catholic Church lists five precepts, or commandments of the Church (Nos. 2041-2043). The last two are included elsewhere in the catechism but are not listed as precepts. They are equally important, however. The original seven are listed here for historic educational value. 1.) To attend Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation, and resting from servile

works. 2.) To observe the days of abstinence and fasting. 3.) To confess our sins to a priest, at least once a

year. 4.) To receive Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist at least once a year during Easter Season.

5.) To contribute to the support of the Church. 6.) To obey the laws of the Church concerning Matrimony.

7.) To participate in the Church's mission of Evangelization of souls. (Missionary Spirit of the Church)

Book Discussion Group Please join us as we continue our Lenten journey by reading The

Cloister Walk, the true story of American poet Kathleen Norris' spiritual conversion during her two prolonged stays at a Bene-dictine monastery. Structured around the monastic liturgy of the hours and the litur-gical calendar, the book offers us a peace-ful, insightful, lyrical look at Norris' joyful experience. We'll meet on Thur., March 15, at 7 PM downstair s in the pastor 's classroom. Books are available at the rectory for $11. Please consider partici-pating in this wonderful event!

Lenten Prayer Help me be patient on my Lenten journey, and

open to the grace that will help me recognize

opportunities to reach out to others.

to parishioner, Barikuma “Joy” Mawo on becoming a U.S. citizen on February 16. Joy, mother of four, has been a parishioner

for 8 years.

to parishioner and altar server, Maeve Smith, daughter of Patrick & Kim Smith and granddaughter of Dennis & Eileen Smith, who won the Knights of Colum-bus “Respect Life” essay contest. There were 5 winners statewide.

From the Pastor: Fr. Jerome Joseph Day, O.S.B.

Lenten prayer, fasting and almsgiving can help reignite fire of love

“Because of the increase of iniquity, the love of many will grow cold” (Mt 24: 12) Once again, the Pasch of the Lord draws near! In our preparation for Easter, God in

His providence offers us each year the season of Lent as a “sacramental sign of our conversion.” Lent summons us, and enables us, to come back to the Lord wholeheartedly and in every aspect of our life. With this message, I would like again this year to help the entire Church experi-ence this time of grace anew, with joy and in truth. I will take my cue from the words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew: “Because of the increase of iniquity, the love of many will grow cold” (24:12). These words appear in Christ’s preach-ing about the end of time. They were spo-ken in Jerusalem, on the Mount of Olives, where the Lord’s passion would begin. In reply to a question of the disciples, Jesus foretells a great tribulation and describes a situation in which the community of be-lievers might well find itself: amid great trials, false prophets would lead people astray and the love that is the core of the Gospel would grow cold in the hearts of many. Let us listen to the Gospel passage and try to understand the guise such false prophets can assume. They can appear as “snake charmers,” who manipulate human emotions in order to enslave others and lead them where they would have them go. How many of God’s children are mesmerized by momentary pleasures, mistaking them for true happi-ness! How many men and women live entranced by the dream of wealth, which only makes them slaves to profit and petty interests! How many go through life believing that they are sufficient unto themselves, and end up entrapped by lone-liness! False prophets can also be “charlatans,” who offer easy and immediate solutions to suffering that soon prove utterly useless. How many young people are taken in by the panacea of drugs, of disposable rela-tionships, of easy but dishonest gains! How many more are ensnared in a thor-oughly “virtual” existence, in which rela-tionships appear quick and straightfor-ward, only to prove meaningless! These swindlers, in peddling things that have no real value, rob people of all that is most precious: dignity, freedom and the ability to love. They appeal to our vanity, our trust in appearances, but in the end they only make fools of us. Nor should we be surprised. In order to confound the human heart, the devil, who is “a liar and the

father of lies” (Jn 8:44), has always pre-sented evil as good, falsehood as truth. … In his description of hell, Dante Alighieri pictures the devil seated on a throne of ice, in frozen and loveless isolation. We might well ask ourselves how it happens that charity can turn cold within us. What are the signs that indicate that our love is beginning to cool? More than anything else, what destroys charity is greed for money, “the root of all evil” (1 Tim 6:10). The rejection of God and his peace soon follows; we prefer our own desolation rather than the comfort found in his word and the sacraments. All this leads to violence against anyone we think is a threat to our own “certainties”: the unborn child, the elderly and infirm, the migrant, the alien among us, or our neighbor who does not live up to our expectations. Creation itself becomes a silent witness to this cooling of charity. The earth is poi-soned by refuse, discarded out of careless-ness or for self-interest. The seas, them-selves polluted, engulf the remains of countless shipwrecked victims of forced migration. The heavens, which in God’s plan, were created to sing His praises, are rent by engines raining down implements of death. Love can also grow cold in our own communities. In the Apostolic Exhor ta-tion Evangelii Gaudium, I sought to de-scribe the most evident signs of this lack of love: selfishness and spiritual sloth, sterile pessimism, the temptation to self-absorption, constant warring among ourselves, and the worldly mentality that makes us concerned only for ap-pearances, and thus lessens our mission-ary zeal. Perhaps we see, deep within ourselves and all about us, the signs I have just de-scribed. But the Church, our Mother and Teacher, along with the often bitter medicine of the truth, offers us in the Len-ten season the soothing remedy of prayer, almsgiving and fasting. By devoting more time to prayer, we enable our hearts to root out our secret lies and forms of self-deception, and then to find the consolation God offers. He is our

Father and he wants us to live life well. Almsgiving sets us free from greed and helps us to regard our neighbour as a brother or sister. What I possess is never mine alone. How I would like almsgiving to become a genuine style of life for each of us! How I would like us, as Christians, to follow the example of the Apostles and see in the sharing of our possessions a tangible witness of the communion that is ours in the Church! For this reason, I echo Saint Paul’s exhortation to the Corinthians to take up a collection for the community of Jerusalem as something from which they themselves would benefit (cf. 2 Cor 8:10). This is all the more fitting during the Lenten season, when many groups take up collections to assist Churches and peo-ples in need. Yet I would also hope that, even in our daily encounters with those who beg for our assistance, we would see such requests as coming from God Him-self. When we give alms, we share in God’s providential care for each of His children. If through me God helps some-one today, will He not tomorrow provide for my own needs? For no one is more generous than God. Fasting weakens our tendency to vio-lence; it disarms us and becomes an im-portant opportunity for growth. On the one hand, it allows us to experience what the destitute and the starving have to en-dure. On the other hand, it expresses our own spiritual hunger and thirst for life in God. Fasting wakes us up. It makes us more attentive to God and our neighbor. It revives our desire to obey God, who alone is capable of satisfying our hunger. … Above all, I urge the members of the Church to take up the Lenten journey with enthusiasm, sustained by almsgiving, fast-ing and prayer. If, at times, the flame of charity seems to die in our own hear ts, know that this is never the case in the heart of God! He constantly gives us a chance to begin loving anew. …

Extracts from the Holy Father’s message for Lent 2018.

From the Holy Father: Pope Francis

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