St. Teresa Catholic Church

Lent begins: Ash Wednesday this year is on February 10th. Mass will be at 9:00 am at Saint Teresa and at 7:00 pm at Saint Bernard.

A Time for Life Changes

Lent is here. Ash Wednesday is on February 10th this year. See the EVENTS calendar for scheduled Lenten services.

Lenten Fast and Abstinence: Fasting is by those between 18 and 59 on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Abstinence from meat is by those 14 and older on Ash Wednesday and all Fridays of Lent.

Here are some options you may want to consider as a Lenten practice this year:

Stations of the Cross:

Join us during the season of Lent as we commemorate Christ's passion and death by praying the Stations of the Cross each Friday evening. Following Stations we offer Soup Suppers downstairs in Father Collins Hall. On First Fridays of the month the Stations will be at 5:30 (Friday March 4th). On these First Fridays of the month Mass will follow the Stations and the Soup Supper will be after Mass. The Stations will be celebrated at 6:00 p.m. on all the other Fridays of Lent (February 12th, 19th, 26th and March 11th and 18th). 

See the EVENTS  Calendar for scheduled Lenten services. 

Enjoy the Parishes gift for you:

The Parish has a special gift for you. It's a special opportunity for you to grow in your faith this year.

Go to Formed.org to sign up for access to Programs, Videos, Pod Casts, Movies and eBooks. When you sign up use Parish Code: BZZ66P

It's all free and you can use it anytime.

 Additional options to improve your spiritual life:

  Liturgy of the Hours:

How about improving your prayer life this year? An option to do this is to begin praying the Liturgy of the Hours.  

"The Liturgy of the Hours, which is the public and common prayer of the Church, is the prayer of Christ with his body, the Church. Through the Liturgy of the Hours the mystery of Christ, which we celebrate in the Eucharist, sanctifies and transforms the whole of each day. It is composed mainly of psalms, other biblical texts, and readings from the Fathers and spiritual masters."

                                                      —From the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church

It's not very difficult to start praying the Liturgy of the Hours. In fact you can add an "app" to your smart phone, tablet or computer and the web site will provide the prayers for each day. Click on the web site ( http://divineoffice.org/ ) and take a look. The buttons across the top give you a choice of the different hours of the day to be prayed.  Pick the time that works best for you (Morning Prayer, Daytime Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Night Prayer). All it takes is a commitment to give God 25-30 minutes a day this Lent. Once you start you may decide that you want to do more than one of the hours each day. I did and I find it very enriching.

A nice thing about this site is that if you have difficulty reading on screen you can listen to the prayers by hitting the "Listen to podcast of article" button above the prayer. Give it a try and enrich your prayer life this lent! If you try it, feel free to give us some feedback on your experience.

The "app" store is down the right side of the page.

 Lectio Divina:

Lectio Divina is a slow, contemplative praying of the Scriptures. It is a four step process.

1. Read: Slow and attentive reading a Sacred passage several times.
2. Meditate: Meditate on the selected passage.
3. Pray: Speak to God from your heart about what you discover in the text.
4. Contemplate: Simply, joyfully rest in God's presence.

For more information related to the process go to  http://www.thereligionteacher.com/lectio-divina-steps/      

The Fortnight for Freedom:

The theme this year is “Freedom to Bear Witness.”  Visit the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Fortnight for Freedom page to learn more .

This page of resources has been compiled for our ongoing attention to the human right of religious liberty and our need for advocacy to protect it.

Additional information is available at our Archdiocese web site: http://www.catholiccincinnati.org/ministries-offices/catholic-social-action/calendar-events/preservereligiousfreedom/

At Saint Teresa we will be celebrating the Fortnight for Freedom by conducting vespers (evening prayers) from June 21st to July 4th at 6:30 pm.

 CRS app for your smart phone: http://www.crs.org/ricebowl-app/ 

 Have a question. Try this link for some answers: http://www.catholic.org/clife/lent/faq.php 

Here is a fun site for kids to visit some Holy Heroes: 

http://www.holyheroes.com/Articles.asp?ID=163&Click=921 

Now is a good time to start thinking about the changes we want to make to improve our spiritual life and our relationship with God  Below are some options you may want to consider.