Living for the Day of the Lord

from the Pastor for this year (emphasis is the editor's)

"Living for the Day of the Lord" is an invitation to a conversion of life, through which God becomes truly the center of everything and the priority to which everything is ordered. Like Israel during the Exodus, we hope to undergo this conversion as a family and in stages in the course of the coming year. Recognizing the primacy of grace and God's will that we live for Him as members of a Body, in September we will focus on Communion, first with God through prayer and the sacraments, then with His Church through our parish community. In October we will examine our habits of Giving, through service and tithing, recognizing that we become like God in the measure that we learn to give of ourselves for His sake. In November, we strive to imitate God's greatest attribute, His mercy, through a month dedicated to practicing the corporal and spiritual works of mercy towards those in need. In December, we engage the annual exercise of preparing for the Lord's coming, both at Christmas and at the end of our lives. After the New Year, our attention will quickly turns toward that great "Day" of the Lord on which He won our salvation through His passion, death, and resurrection, a mystery the liturgy unpacks throughout the Easter season and beyond. This Lent, our parish will be Living for the Day of the Lord by preparing for Sunday together: in this season, every Saint Mark’s small group will be reflecting on the coming Sunday readings with the help of reflections by Dr. Brant Pitre, Catholic scripture scholar at the Augustine Institute. Our Lenten Soup Supper & Speaker Series will also focus on a summit for the year's focus with a preparation for June's National Consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus that the US Bishops are inviting parishes across the nation to join.

Throw in a few more dashes of whimsy and extra helpings of prayer and who knows what transformations will be wrought at the Church of St. Mark!