From the Desk of Fr. Schaller - April 3, 2022

Today’s Gospel recounts an incident in the Lord’s life which expresses a fundamental theme of Lent. This story of the woman caught in adultery was so startling to some of the early copyists of the Bible that some of them did not include it when they recorded the Gospel of John! How - they wondered - could Jesus so lightly excuse this grievous sin? But He did not lightly excuse the sin. He forgave the person who committed it! Then He exhorted the woman not to commit this sin again. The Lord’s mercy is always directed towards our salvation. He forgives us our sins and desires that we not simply return to them but repent from them. Lent affords us the opportunity to appreciate more deeply this mystery of God’s mercy. Through our Lenten disciplines (prayer, fasting, and almsgiving) and through a “turning away from sin” we open ourselves up to receive God’s mercy. Have you been making good spiritual use of this Lent? We are on the home stretch now. It’s time to make our sprint to Easter!

Next week starting with Palm Sunday, we begin Holy Week. The end toward which we are running is the celebration of the greatest mystery of our faith: the commemoration of the suffering, death, and resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Plan now to participate in the whole Sacred Triduum: Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday (7:00pm,), Passion Service on Good Friday (12:30pm), and the most important celebration of the year, the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday (8:30pm).

This Tuesday, April 5, is the Spring Election. We Christians seek the common good for our society, and an important means of that is voting. Of particular importance (in my opinion) is the WI Rapids Public School Board, in which two candidates are challenging two incumbents. Whether you have children in the WR Public Schools or not, we all have an obligation to ensure our local youth receive a sound education. Many destructive ideologies have infected our public schools: critical race theory, gender theory, etc. Ask your friends and do some simple research to see where the incumbents and the challengers stand. Then Vote!

May God bless you!
Fr. Schaller 

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