Praying at Mass

Tuesday was the official beginning of our Meet Jesus Lenten initiatives. We hosted the first of four sessions for our Lenten Series. Our focus for the Lenten Series is how to meet Jesus in prayer. As James tells us in his letter: "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you." We all long for the experience of God and His love for us. But too often, we don't sense that He is close to us. We don't experience his love in our hearts. Our goal for the Lenten Series is to help each of us know God's closeness and know how much He desires to pour His love into our hearts.

The topic for the evening was how to pray at Mass. The Mass is one of the greatest ways for us to experience God's closeness and His love for us. Fr. Royce gave us great advice to enhance our experience with God at Mass. The main message is beautiful. We don't rely on our own efforts in Mass because it is not our prayer. Rather, this is the prayer of Christ to the Father on our behalf. Christ invites us into this prayer. We have a spirit of reception, we receive the blessings, gifts and very life of Christ. If you were not able to attend, you can listen to the full audio of the talk.

Our session was divided into 3 groups who each had their own teaching session, English Adults, Spanish Adults and Middle School/High School students. Between the three groups, we had close to 100 attendees.

Special thanks goes to Susan Schneider, Darlene Leitz, Sara Roeder, Joann Hartman and Alice Wheeler for providing our soup dinner. Dinner provided a great time of fellowship for our community.

The highlight of the night was ending with Adoration. We spent 20 minutes before Jesus, being able to be in His presence and pray directly to Him. It was a great first session and we look forward to the sessions to come. Even if you missed our first session, you can still attend any of the upcoming sessions. Next week's topic is praying in the midst of suffering. Suffering can affect us negatively in so many ways. We are going to explore how God is there in the midst of any suffering we endure. We’d love for you to join us!