FROM THE PASTOR'S DESK……     

SUNDAY,  FEBRUARY 6, 2005


Dear Fellow Parishioners,

This coming Wednesday, February 9th, is Ash Wednesday. Again, the Church calls us to another Lent. Lent is a time of preparation meant to help us enter more fully into the Christian experience called 'EASTER." It is a time set aside for dying and rising. Dying to our old life of selfishness, self-centeredness, and sin, we then are ready to rise to a new life centered in Jesus and others in a generous spirit of self-giving following our Saviour's example.
Down through the centuries of the Church's history, Christian believers have taken advantage of many different customs or practices. Some, for example, have fasted on the days of Lent. Others have abstained from eating meat. Others have spent more time in daily prayer and meditation. Still others, would make a pilgrimage to a special shrine or set aside some money on a daily basis in "mite boxes" for the poor. It really doesn't matter. What matters is that each of us do something. My father, who worked at the Boadway Department Store in downtown Los Angeles for many years, used to go to daily Mass during Lent on his lunch hour at St. Joseph's Church on 12th and Los Angeles Streets, formerly a Franciscan Church. Perhaps that's why I am a Franciscan today. I know some people who spend some of their free time during Lent helping out at drop-in centers serving food to the people living on the streets.
What are you going to do for Lent? The Old Mission San Miguel Parish Staff has put some suggestions in today's bulletin regarding special Lenten programs. On Fridays there will be the traditional soup supper in the Parish Hall, and Stations of the Cross in Church beginning at 6:00 pm. On Wednesdays in Lent beginning at 7:00 pm there will be a reflection on prayer.
It is our hope that these and other opportunities for spiritual growth will enable you to enter more fully into the Easter mystery this Lent so that when Easter comes you will become part of God's Easter People and bring hope to a hopeless world.
    Sincerely yours in Christ,

    Fr.Raymond J. Tintle, OFM
                 Pastor