For His Friends

Early reports about Thursday night’s THE LIGHT IS ON FOR YOU are that despite the heavy rain and strong wind throughout the five counties, many people still made use of the opportunity to approach the sacrament of reconciliation, including many who were returning to the sacrament after a long period away. In the Church in which I heard confessions, we were not busy or “slammed” and I thought perhaps that last year’s success was wearing off. But, when outside the sacrament, I would inquire what was the impetus for seeking the sacrament this night , many told me that they had seen the thirty-second spots on TV (especially ESPN) and decided to come home. Today, we have heard from a number of pastors that confessions last night in their Church were steady and extremely worthwhile.

Sunday is Laetare Sunday which is Latin for “rejoice”. We are at the halfway point in Lent and Holy Week and the reenactment Lord’s passion and resurrection are drawing near. It is also the Sunday when we take up in all the parishes and missions around the country the annual collection for Catholic Relief Services. CRS’s work and importance shown once again in their response to the earthquake in Haiti and no Church has a disaster and development program to rival our own CRS. Some of the money also goes to Migration and Refugee Services, the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, the USCCB Committee for International Justice and Peace and to the Holy Father for his assistance to nation’s suffering from disasters, natural and manmade. Please be generous this week-end to one of the best causes for which special collections are taken in the United States.

This afternoon (Friday) I took the occasion to visit the Intensive Care Unit and the fifth floor of St. Anthony’s Hospital which took such great care of me in the days and weeks of my hospital confinement. The reason for my visit which was spontaneous on my part was to thank those wonderful, dedicated women and men (nurses, aids, cleaning people) who took care of me and take great care of all. I would say that they loved seeing me and a number commented that they seldom see people whom they have nursed back to good health after they leave the hospital upon discharge. Many could not believe how much weight I have lost. I had a great time telling of the lady who approached me at the Cathedral to ask if it was really Bishop Lynch standing before her and then commenting on my loss of weight asked me if it was “Weightwatchers” or “Jenny Craig.” Even the ST. PETERSBURG TIMES declared me healed. One could not ask for a better source on the subject!

The Diocesan Pastoral Council meets tomorrow (Saturday) at the Bethany Center and on Sunday I will be celebrating the 1030am Mass at St. Mary’s parish, Lutz, where the pastor has returned to the Philippines for kidney replacement surgery. I wish to assure the parishioners of my concern and prayers for their Father Jude Vera and my concern for them during this time without a shepherd.

Finally, it is not too late to get serious about Lent and preparing for Easter. Starting on Palm Sunday, this space will include a special reflection for each day of Holy Week. I will shut down for the week after Easter and return on “Low Sunday” – a term which I will attempt to explain when the day gets here.

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You may recall that last year for the first time and during Lent we had what we called “The Light is ON for You“. Every Catholic Church in the diocese was open one evening at the same time for the purpose of making the Sacrament of Reconciliation (“Confession” to most of us) available at the same time everywhere -- no phone calls to ascertain when confessions would be heard, checking the bulletin for the same. Every Church was open and priests were hearing confessions from five to eight p.m. throughout the diocese. It was an idea inaugurated by Archbishop Donald Wuerl and the priests of Washington, D.C. (no need to reinvent the wheel) and I brought it to our Presbyteral Council. Legitimate concern was expressed in that body concerning the effect it might have on Lenten Penance Services and would anyone come or not. But they “let the old man” have this one and as regular readers of this blog will recall, our parish Churches were “slammed” with people seeking the sacrament. This year the priests themselves asked to repeat the experience, and on Thursday, March 11th, from five in the evening until eight, every one of our Churches and missions will be open again with priests hearing confessions throughout the evening. In subsequent years until it becomes passe or few use it, the opportunity will always be provided on the Thursday of the Third Week of Lent.

Why the success here in this diocese and in other places? I will offer my thoughts. It is often difficult and nearly impossible to find out what time confessions will be heard or a Lenten Penance Service scheduled if you failed to bring the parish bulletin home, misplaced it, or do not regularly attend week-end Mass. This way you are guaranteed that if you find a Catholic Church on Thursday, March 11th, from 5-8 p.m., at least one and perhaps several priests will be there to welcome you back to the sacrament. A second reason, perhaps you are just a little uncomfortable confessing to a priest in your home parish and wish a higher level of anonymity. A third reason, you may pass a Catholic Church every night commuting from work to home or from one of your children’s after school activities and on this night, at least you can just stop in even though it is not your parish. Last year the priests reported they were amazed both at the number of penitents and the good confessions after being away from the sacrament for a long time. Whatever the reason, it met a need and our priests are happy to make themselves available.

To help remind you of the evening, there will be some 100+ thirty-second “spots” running on BayNews 9, ESPN, ESPN2, and the ABC Family Channel (all on Bright House Networks) between now and March 11th.

Spirit FM 90.5 will also be reminding its listeners of the upcoming opportunity throughout the next ten days. Parishes will highlight the opportunity in their bulletins for this coming week-end. Newspaper ads are out of our price range which I regret but we will be using whatever opportunities are afforded for getting the word out. Each year we will become a little more sophisticated in communicating this opportunity.

So come home if you have been away from this marvelous sacramental encounter with the loving, forgiving Jesus. Experience the relief of the words of absolution and the welcome of a priest acting like the father in the parable of the prodigal son. It is not just Motel Six that is leaving the lights on for you, but the Church of your Baptism offering an unusual opportunity for reconciliation, wiping the slate clean, experiencing the love of God through a wonderful sacramental moment. Try us on March 11th, you will like us. We are leaving the light on for you.

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For a Lenten week-end, it has been kind of crazy. First, last night (Saturday night) Transfiguration parish in St. Petersburg celebrated its golden anniversary as a parish with a Mass and dinner. I celebrated the Mass and preached the homily. For a long time I could not figure out why a parish would choose a week-end in Lent to celebrate  an anniversary, until I started looking at the readings and discovered that the Gospel was Luke’s account of the Transfiguration of the Lord. However, even with that Lent is a time during which we all need to hear again and again the call to conversion and more radical discipleship. I left uncertain as to whether or not I had served the parish occasion or the scriptures well. Preaching is always a challenge for me though some would likely dispute it but when one is a bishop, the occasions often tend to suffocate the liturgical seasons. Congratulations to Transfiguration parish on five decades of existence and service to God’s people, to Monsignor Avellino Garcia, its pastor and to its tri-cultural community who respect one another’s traditions, language and style of worship (Anglo, Hispanic and a growing Tongan community).

Today I found myself still celebrating the Second Sunday of Lent but it was Marriage Jubilee Mass afternoon at the Cathedral of St. Jude. 390 couples from around the diocese gathered for this annual celebration representing 19,697 combined years of marriage. Here are the statistics:

• 60 parishes represented  with 54 couples celebrating twenty-fiver years of marriage sometime this year
• 138 celebrating fifty years
• 122 celebrating between fifty-one and fifty-nine years
• 75 married over 60 years.

Bishop Lynch Congratulating Charles and Barbara Wellen for their 71 years of married life. Photo credit: John Christian.

Charles and Barbara Wellen were present today as the longest married couple in the Cathedral, an amazing 71 years. They have four sons, fourteen grandchildren and thirty-five great grandchildren celebrating the occasion with them. When I asked the assembly to stand and to face each other, join their right hands and renew their wedding vows, they looked at one another with the same eyes and delight at they must have shown on the day of their wedding.

Marriage is another sacrament of the Church which is in some trouble. We notice less and less young people coming to Church for weddings and from time to time I will see that a certain graduate(s) of our Catholic high schools will have gotten married on the beach, at Disney World or some other secular place. Being married in a Catholic Church no longer carries for many of our baptized the reality of yet another sacramental encounter with Jesus and so it is abandoned or ignored. Granted, it is not always easy to get married in a Catholic Church. There is a lengthy period and program of preparation but those couples who still embrace the sacrament in Church often comment how beneficial the program was to them even if there was initial reluctance. One of my pastors once commented that there is less time on Saturday for marriage in most of our Churches since the advent of the Saturday Vigil Mass for Sunday. Where once there may have been two or three slots in the afternoons for weddings, there is now likely only one.

I also think sometimes that like many other things in society and our world today, the indissolubility of marriage which the Church proclaims leads some to just ignore sacramental marriage in the Catholic Church. It has become somewhat easy to  get out of most of our fiduciary responsibilities (via bankruptcy, abandonment, dissolution of prior promises) and perhaps Church weddings just do not seem that important any more, especially a Church which takes the vows of fidelity “until death do us part” so seriously.

The bishops of the United States addressed the issue of marriage in the Church in a document released this last Fall and have established “strengthening marriage” (http://www.foryourmarriage.org) as one of the five primary goals and objectives of USCCB activity.

Today in the Cathedral the fundamental and enduring grace of the sacrament of marriage was present for all to see. I know how tough it can be to endure “good times and bad, sickness and health. . .” but 390 couples came to Mass today to ask God’s help in strengthening their promises and providing abundant blessings until “death do them part.”

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Bishop Lynch making the sign of the cross with ashes on the forehead of a student at Ash Wednesday Mass at St. Petersburg Catholic High School. Photo Credit: John Christian

Hard as it may be to believe, our celebration of Lent 2010 began yesterday with Ash Wednesday and now will continue through Easter Sunday on April 4th. I began my liturgical celebration of this holy and penitential season by celebrating Mass for the students of St. Petersburg Catholic High School. They are unfailingly attentive at Mass when I am there and make it a genuine pleasure. The provincial superior of the Salesians, Father Thomas Dunne, was present and preached the homily to the assembly.

Bishop Lynch and Fr. Tom Dunne, SDB at Ash Wednesday Mass at St. Petersburg Catholic High School. Photo Credit: John Christian

On March 11, 2010 we will repeat last year’s highly successful The Light is ON for You event. If you recall, we promise that all 75 parish churches and missions will be open on that Thursday night from 5pm until 8pm for the celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Most Churches will also continue their practice of Penance Services sometime during Lent, so what’s the big deal about The Light is ON for You? To begin with, it will be easy to go to confession. You need not call the parish and ask what time confession is because every parish in the diocese will offer confession between five and eight that night. If you find a place closed during those hours that night, I want to know about it.

Secondly, if you have been away for a while or wish true anonymity, you can go to confession at any Church. Perhaps you work in downtown Tampa and live and worship in New Tampa at St. Mark’s as an example. You could choose Sacred Heart downtown, Corpus Christi in Temple Terrace, St. Mary’s in north Tampa and just stop by on the way home. Chances are you would have the anonymity which you feel you need for peace. Just come in, reflect on your mortal sins and your life in general, enter the confessional space and talk to the Lord and the priest. Listen carefully to his words of absolution and leave feeling healed and clean.

You may recall that last year when I presented the idea of The Light is ON for You to the priests they were skeptical. Well, to their amazement many of them were slammed that night by the number of people who made use of this opportunity and they were pleased in the end. It is now the priests who have asked that this opportunity become an annual one and it will be repeated on the Thursday night of the second full week of Lent for the foreseeable future or as long as it meets a need. Word came to me that many were wonderful confessions of people who had been away from the sacrament for a long, long time.

This Sunday finds me  at the Cathedral of St. Jude for two “Rite of Election” ceremonies. This is always a day that makes a bishop feel particularly good as he officially and formally welcomes the catechumens (those who will be baptized at the Easter Vigil, confirmed and make their First Holy Communion) and the candidates (those who have already been baptized, perhaps in another religion or if Catholic it has been years since they practiced) and who will make a profession of faith, be confirmed and make their first communion. Next Sunday there will be 385 catechumens and 678 candidates for a grand total of 1063 coming into the Church and present at the Rite of Election (there are always those who are catechumens or candidates who are unable to make this ceremony but will still be received at Easter.) By the way, this year’s number is down by only nine from the number received at last year’s two Rites of Election.

From all of this, you should be able to tell that I am finally back at work. I will do all I am physically capable of doing but still am told and suspect that it will be the Fall before I can expect to be fully recovered and back at full strength. For this reason, I have reduced my confirmation schedule this year but expect to resume full service in the Fall for confirmations.

I hope that together we can spend these forty days fasting and praying so that we may fully comprehend the great Easter mystery all the more.

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One month after the devastating earth quake in neighboring Haiti, the people of this diocese have beautifully responded to my urgent plea for donations and help for this tragic nation. As of this morning, we have collected and forwarded more than $1,356,700 to CATHOLIC RELIEF SERVICES for their use in alleviating the suffering of the Haitian people with water, food and clothing. Additionally, and I am here guessing, many of our parishes “twin” with parishes in Haiti and have sent what they collected right to those same parishes so my guess is that at least another “$250,000″ has been collected and forwarded to parishes. Such generosity in a time of need must be pleasing to God. I know that I am proud of your generosity.

Also, Catholic Charities of the Diocese of St. Petersburg has been asked by the U.S. government to handle all of the sick and wounded from that country who have been airlifted to Florida. The government chooses the hospitals for the care of the sick, but each patient is allowed to bring two people with them and it is now our duty to find them places to stay and to support them while their loved ones are in the hospitals of the area.

It is beginning to seem like my dream of being the first responder to urgent needs in our area and world is coming true thanks to the vision of Catholic Charities Director Frank Murphy and his colleagues. Another reason to be proud of your Church as we begin this Lenten season of prayer and sacrifice.

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I continue to hear from the priests what a pleasant surprise the response to THE LIGHT IS ON FOR YOU was. And, they mostly report that their experience was that a lot more people came back to the sacrament after being away a while than usually occurs, even at this time of year. Our Lady of Fatima in Inverness reported that they were very busy throughout the whole time period for the word of the opportunity spread also to the northern counties. It’s all good.

I am finally getting down to our college seminary, St. John Vianney in Miami, this afternoon to spend some time with the college seminarians studying for our diocese. I had to cancel an earlier visit so I am making good on my word to reschedule and visit. The overwhelming number of our seminarians are in the college program so I will be busy with my private interviews, a shared meal, and the Eucharist together before returning at midday tomorrow (Saturday).

The second and final mission for me this Lent begins tomorrow afternoon with the 500pm Vigil Mass at Holy Family parish in Northeast St. Petersburg. Territorially it is my parish but canonically the Cathedral is really where I am supposed to be pastor. Because it is less than ten minutes from my residence, my daily presentations on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday will be held twice each day (I will celebrate the morning Mass each day at 730am and make my first presentation at 815am and then I will be back in the evening at 700pm. My mission talks last about 35-40 minutes and Holy Family is not planning to “wrap” them in any other form of prayer service. Remember that the first night of the mission will be Tuesday, not Monday as the parish had a previously scheduled commitment for Monday night. Their Mass schedule on Sunday is 730am, 900am and 1100am.

This week-end the second collection in all our parishes will be taken up for Catholic Relief Services. The gifts of the people of this country in this collection are also shared with the Migration and Refugee Services department of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, and to the Holy Father for his charitable work throughout the world. The generosity of American Catholics to the desperate throughout the world is no where better exemplified than in the work of Catholic Relief Services. Be generous and I know that hard times will not make for hard hearts.

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