St. Pius Catholic Church

Hello Everyone,

Happy Tuesday or should I say Happy Fat Tuesday!  I had a great weekend this past weekend, serving as the priest Spiritual Director of TEC 271 at the Believers Together Center at Christ the King.  We had 18 young men on the weekend and everyone, including the team, walked away on fire with Christ from the weekend.  At the same time, however, we also had a loss at the parish, when Mary Solis passed away on Sunday afternoon.  Mary is the mother of our long time housekeeper, Vera Solis.  Vera has been the housekeeper at Saint Pius X for over 25 years now and has been a staple of the rectory for so many priests over the years.  The funeral mass will be held on Thursday morning in the church at 10am.  Please pray for the repose of Mary's soul and for Vera and her family.

Tomorrow as well marks the beginning of Lent with Ash Wednesday.  Ash Wednesday is not a holy day of obligation, however, for those interested in coming to mass on Ash Wednesday, which is highly recommended to get the Lenten season started right, masses will be at 7am, 8am, 11am (Jordan Mass), and 5:15pm.  The church does not allow vigil masses for Ash Wednesday so there will be no masses on Tuesday night.

Have you thought about how you are going to grow closer to God this Lent?  Please check out the bulletin for our schedule of activities to help you better prepare for the pinnacle event of our faith, Easter.  We will again have Stations of the Cross every Friday during lent at 4:45pm followed by 5:15pm Mass.  Our penance service for Lent will be on Monday night March 29, at 7pm in church as well.  Please also keep all of our RCIA catechumenates and candidates in your prayers as well, as they enter into their last weeks of preparation to receive their sacraments this Easter vigil. 

The next TEC (Teens Encounter Christ) weekend is TEC 272 (Girls Weekend) from March 6-8, 2010 at the Believers Together Center at Christ the King Church in Moline, Illinois there is still room available on the weekend, it is not too late to sign up.  Please sign up as soon as possible for this upcoming Girls Weekend as space is limited and we are over half full already.  And for the boys interested in going on TEC, the next boys weekend is April 17-19, 2010 also at the Believers Together Center at Christ the King Church in Moline.  Remember you must be at least 16 years old to attend a TEC weekend.  Details and registration are available at: www.northwest-tec.com

I would like to continue to invite everyone to continue praying about joining the pilgrimage that I will be spiritual director for coming up in October.  There several parishioners who have told me that are seriously considering going on the trip, as well as people from other pilgrimages that I have been a part of over the last 2 years.  Your not going to want to miss this trip, we again are going to: Portugal, Spain, and France, with stops in: Fatima, Lisbon, Santarem, Salamanca, Avila, Burgos, Loyola & Lourdes from October 9-19, 2010.  Then there is also a post-trip excursion, for four more days in France, available for an extra fee to: Nevers (This is where St. Bernadette's incorrupt body is), Lisieux (To see the Carmelite Monastery where Saint Therese of Lisieux was a nun), Rouen, and Paris.  All the details and information, as well as, registration are available at: www.pilgrimages.com/frzorjan

For those who listen to the Christian Music Station K-Love here in the Quad Cities.  There is a great Christian concert coming up at the I-Wireless Center on Friday night March 12 at 7pm.  My brother and I plan on attending the concert.  The event is called "Winter Jam" and is going to feature some great bands.  Headlining the show is Third Day, and if you have never seen Third Day then you are in for treat.  Joining Third Day is also: Newsboys, Tenth Ave. North, Fire Flight, Sidewalk Prophets, Revive, and more.  Tickets are only $10, and only are available at the door the day of the show, there is no advance ticket sales for the show.  First come, first served until the event sells out that day.

Other than that there is not much more to say for now.  Below is a great article from EWTN on why fasting and not eating meat are so important during Lent. 

Till next week.

In Christ,

Father Peter Zorjan
Assistant Pastor at Saint Pius X
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"The Holy Season of Lent"
(This article is taken off of the EWTN website, full citation at the end of the article)

Fast and Abstinence.

It is a traditional doctrine of Christian spirituality that a constituent part of repentance, of turning away from sin and back to God, includes some form of penance, without which the Christian is unlikely to remain on the narrow path and be saved (Jer. 18:11, 25:5; Ez.  18:30, 33:11-15; Joel 2:12; Mt. 3:2; Mt. 4:17; Acts 2:38).  Christ Himself said that His disciples would fast once He had departed (Lk. 5:35).  The general law of penance, therefore, is part of the law of God for man.

The Church has specified certain forms of penance, both to ensure that the Catholic will do something, as required by divine law, while making it easy for Catholics to fulfill the obligation. Thus, the 1983 Code of Canon Law specifies the obligations of Latin Rite Catholics [Eastern Rite Catholics have their own penitential practices as specified by the Code of Canons for the Eastern Churches].

    Canon 1250  All Fridays through the year and the time of Lent are penitential days and times throughout the entire Church.

    Canon 1251  Abstinence from eating meat or another food according to the prescriptions of the conference of bishops is to be observed on Fridays throughout the year unless they are solemnities; abstinence and fast are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and on the Friday of the Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

    Canon 1252  All persons who have completed their fourteenth year are bound by the law of abstinence; all adults are bound by the law of fast up to the beginning of their sixtieth year. Nevertheless, pastors and parents are to see to it that minors who are not bound by the law of fast and abstinence are educated in an authentic sense of penance.

    Can. 1253  It is for the conference of bishops to determine more precisely the observance of fast and abstinence and to substitute in whole or in part for fast and abstinence other forms of penance, especially works of charity and exercises of piety.

The Church, therefore, has two forms of official penitential practices - three if the Eucharistic fast before Communion is included.


Abstinence: 

The law of abstinence requires a Catholic 14 years of age until death to abstain from eating meat on Fridays in honor of the Passion of Jesus on Good Friday. Meat is considered to be the flesh and organs of mammals and fowl. Moral theologians have traditionally considered this also to forbid soups or gravies made from them. Salt and freshwater species of fish, amphibians, reptiles and shellfish are permitted, as are animal derived products such as margarine and gelatin which do not have any meat taste.

On the Fridays outside of Lent the U.S. bishops conference obtained the permission of the Holy See for Catholics in the US to substitute a penitential, or even a charitable, practice of their own choosing. Since this was not stated as binding under pain of sin, not to do so on a single occasion would not in itself be sinful. However, since penance is a divine command, the general refusal to do penance is certainly gravely sinful. For most people the easiest way to consistently fulfill this command is the traditional one, to abstain from meat on all Fridays of the year which are not liturgical solemnities. When solemnities, such as the Annunciation, Assumption, All Saints etc. fall on a Friday, we neither abstain or fast.

During Lent abstinence from meat on Fridays is obligatory in the United States as elsewhere, and it is sinful not to observe this discipline without a serious reason (physical labor, pregnancy, sickness etc.).


Fasting:

The law of fasting requires a Catholic from the 18th Birthday [Canon 97] to the 59th Birthday [i.e. the beginning of the 60th year, a year which will be completed on the 60th birthday] to reduce the amount of food eaten from normal.  The Church defines this as one meal a day, and two smaller meals which if added together would not exceed the main meal in quantity.  Such fasting is obligatory on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.  The fast is broken by eating between meals and by drinks which could be considered food (milk shakes, but not milk).  Alcoholic beverages do not break the fast; however, they seem contrary to the spirit of doing penance.

Those who are excused from fast or abstinence.  Besides those outside the age limits, those of unsound mind, the sick, the frail, pregnant or nursing women according to need for meat or nourishment,  manual laborers according to need, guests at a meal who cannot excuse themselves without giving great offense or causing enmity and other situations of moral or physical impossibility to observe the penitential discipline.

Aside from these minimum penitential requirements Catholics are encouraged to impose some personal penance on themselves at other times. It could be modeled after abstinence and fasting. A person could, for example, multiply the number of days they abstain. Some people give up meat entirely for religious motives (as opposed to those who give it up for health or other motives). Some religious orders, as a penance, never eat meat. Similarly, one could multiply the number of days that one fasted. The early Church had a practice of a Wednesday and Saturday fast. This fast could be the same as the Church's law (one main meal and two smaller ones) or stricter, even bread and water. Such freely chosen fasting could also consist in giving up something one enjoys - candy, soft drinks, smoking, that cocktail before supper, and so on. This is left to the individual.

One final consideration. Before all else we are obliged to perform the duties of our state in life. When considering stricter practices than the norm, it is prudent to discuss the matter with one's confessor or director. Any deprivation that would seriously hinder us in carrying out our work, as students, employees or parents would be contrary to the will of God.

----   Colin B. Donovan, STL

Source: http://www.ewtn.com/faith/lent/fast.htm