While we journey through the season of Lent, we encounter another season: the season of Spring on Monday, March 20. Spring brings a season of hope! The time change that we just experienced, where we spring forward an hour, gives us more daylight in the evening. The cold and darkness is nearly conquered.
As we celebrate Laetare Sunday, we rejoice with joyful anticipation of the victory to be won in Christ! We turn our focus on the Resurrection to come—the conquering of sin and death. Laetare Sunday is the Church’s way of giving us a “shot in the arm” as we approach the darkness and horror of the days through Good Friday and Holy Saturday. It’s an opportunity to keep in the back of our minds what awaits us on Easter Sunday—the reality that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, and that our hearts will always be filled with joy!
I cannot mention all of these seasons without mentioning Tax Season! Part of my Lenten journey is organizing my paperwork in my office. I am almost done, thanks be to God! It does feel good to get organized. Just the other day I was going through my tax papers and came across some paperwork for the Angel Scholarship Fund that the diocese sent me about our parish’s participation in it so far. In 2022, our Final Total for Allocation amount available to use for tuition assistance in the 2023/2024 school year was $40,170. These funds came from any person from any parish who wanted to support St. Francis de Sales School. I received another letter that explained how 48 of our parishioners donated to 13 of our catholic schools in the diocese for a total of $38,600. Of those donors 39 were from St. Francis de Sales at a value of $30,550.
If you haven’t spoken to your tax person yet, I encourage you to participate in this easy way of helping our catholic schools at essentially no cost to us. The State of Ohio is letting us choose where we want our tax dollars to go. Thank you for taking advantage of this opportunity in the days ahead. If you want to learn more, go to https://www.catholiccommunity.org/angel-scholarship-fund/overview. I rejoice in your goodness and support of Catholic education.
God Bless you and our children,
Fr. Jeremy
Ps. Please come to Fr. Bill Bartoul’s Lenten Talk on Sunday, March 19 @ 7:00pm in the Church. Thank you for supporting a retired military chaplain and our new priestly neighbor on the lakes!
