On Eagle s Wings. Lent & the Lenten Mission. Father Don West

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1 On Eagle s Wings This Month s Highlights Page 2: Business Manager Report Parish Directory Page 3: Lenten Reflection 5 Ways to Pray Page 4: Resolution or Mission? Lenten Mission Page 5: Going Green St. Gabe Update Page 6: Growing Closer to God Page 7: Lent/Easter Calendar Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God. For gracious and merciful is he, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment. These are words found in the first reading for Ash Wednesday. I am always amazed at how many attend the three liturgies on Ash Wednesday. The church is bursting at the seams at noon and 7:30 p.m. Mass. There is a pretty good turn out even at the 6:30 a.m. Mass. I wonder what the draw is. Is it the fact we receive something different i.e., the blessed ashes on our foreheads? Whatever the reason, it is truly powerful to be a part of. I wish this participation continued the rest of the season. Many people put a lot of thought into what they are going to do for Lent, but do they have the same success as New Year s resolutions? Thinking about that is what drew me to the passage from the prophet Joel. The biggest thing we need to do is rend our hearts. We can be most successful with something that goes on in the heart. That is the place where God sees who we truly are. We spend way too much time on judging external things in our life. If our actions do not match what is in our hearts, how true can those actions be? If we tell everyone who will listen to us about what we are doing or not doing for Lent, what does that accomplish? Lent is a time to clean house in order to be ready for the Easter joys. The journey of Lent is more of an inward journey to reconcile with the Lord and accept his unconditional love. When we open our heart to his healing touch, we will be able to celebrate the journey to the cross, to the tomb, and to the resurrection. It is a journey that we do not take alone. When we open our hearts to the Father, we begin the journey home where the Lord is there with open arms. The season of Lent is a time of repentance. It is a time for letting go of things that keep us from fully appreciating what God has waiting for us. The Lenten season is rich with opportunities to enrich your life and prepare for the Easter season. We have our parish mission (February 23-25), each Friday we will have the Stations of the Cross, and we have a Tuesday night Mass. Why not make an effort to join us for some spiritual nourishment? There will be a number of opportunities to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The Archdiocese is again sponsoring the program: The Light is ON for You. Every parish in the Archdiocese will be open for reconciliation from 7 to 9 p.m. on Tuesday, March 3. Our parish penance service will be Thursday, March 12, at 7 p.m. Whatever you choose to do for the Lenten season, make sure it is motivated by the heart. Have a great month! Father Don West Lent & the Lenten Mission

2 From the Business Manager We are more than halfway finished with our fiscal year and I want to thank you for all that you do for our parish. At week 27 of our 52 week budget, we are 6% ahead of budget on income and 4% ahead of where we were last year. This is truly awesome. Our parishioners are a blessing to us in so many ways. I want you to know that I think about you every day. There isn t a day that goes by that I don t pray for the parishioners of St. John. As many of you know, I have a particular fondness for Mary. So, I pray the Hail Mary every day in my office for our parish, its staff and members. On days like today, when I am trying to squeeze as much as possible out of every hour, it helps me to focus and remember why I am here. I am here to serve our parish and to make sure that all we do is for the kingdom of God. I think of the sacrifice you make in giving to us each week. It is in honor of the one true sacrifice of Jesus that we all come together to serve in His name. Thank you for helping us to do this by giving to our parish. Usually at this time of the year, I would be announcing our Split-the-Pot Fundraiser. Because we just finished paying off our debt in March of last year, Father Don, the Finance Committee, and I felt that we should take a year off from our Split-the-Pot raffle. Perhaps it will be back next year! For now, we ask you to save that ticket money to spend at our Parish Festival which will be here on August 7, 8, and 9. As always, don t forget that you can set up your weekly offerings using our electronic giving, available from our website, If you want to make a stock donation or have any questions about giving, please feel free to contact me any time at , ext. 124, or jseibenick@stjohnwc.org. February is full of great celebrations! St. Valentine s Day is on the 14th and we celebrate Mardi Gras on February 17 as we begin our Lenten season on Ash Wednesday, February 18. I hope to see you at one of our Lenten Fish Fry-Days! God bless you and your family. Joan Seibenick, Business Manager 2015 St. John Parish Directory Over five years ago, we created a parish directory. This directory serves as a pictorial piece of history for our parishioners and our goal is to have a new directory created every four to five years. We have a committee of volunteers who have come together to help us with this work and we have chosen Universal Church Directories to manage the photo sessions and creation of the final book. Fourteen photo session dates are on our calendar, and we will be taking family photos between February 24 and March 21. This is a great opportunity for you to have your photo taken with your family members, including your well-behaved pets! Each family or individual who sits for a photo for our directory gets a free 8X10 picture and a free directory. Universal will be providing a complete professional portrait studio in Favret Hall during our photo sessions. There will be a variety of backgrounds, finishes, and framing options if you choose to purchase any family photos as well. We hope to have all 2,400 of our families included! It is easy to schedule your portrait session. Simply go to and click on the box on the right that says Schedule your photography session. Enter our church code of OH1678 and the password of stjb1. Choose your desired date and time and click on the reserve button. Enter your information and then the schedule appointment button. If you have more than six people in your family, please schedule two sessions in a row (each session is for ten minutes). Any questions? Feel free to contact Joan at jseibenick@stjohnwc.org. We can t wait to see all of the smiling faces in our directory. And thank you to our committee members for their hard work: Judy Lenihan, Carol Thomas, Stephanie Monsanty, and Patty Hunkler. This book will surely be a keepsake for you and your family. February 2015 On Eagle s Wings Page 2

3 Lenten Reflection Years ago when I was a seminarian, I lived above a soup kitchen in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of Cincinnati. At the time, it was the poorest community with the highest crime rate in the metropolitan area. Along with a friend and co-seminarian Tom Geiger, we would cook and serve hot meals daily to mostly homeless people, with a few of our customers living in subsidized rental units. Once I was invited to visit the apartment of one of our patrons. She was a single mom with two children. It was a horribly hot and humid day. The place had no air conditioning, and the windows were wide open without the benefit of screens. Consequently, quite a few flies were buzzing around the room. In the corner was a two-year-old child lying in a crib crying from the heat and the annoying bugs. Suddenly, running frantically around the room was a thin, severely retarded boy about age 11, almost naked, wearing nothing but a diaper. He was moaning and eventually began crawling on the floor. I asked his mother what was wrong. She answered: Oh, he is 90% blind and just lost his flashlight. Soon after, he found his light under their couch and quickly shined it up close to his eye. Immediately he was calm again. This sad event took place in the summer of 1978 and is something I will never forget. I have often been haunted by this incident and have pondered many questions as a result. How do people end up in such miserable conditions and what can we as a church and society do to help? In other words, recalling our parish theme how can we Be Christ to One Another in the face of such abject poverty? This question makes me realize how incredibly blessed I am and greatly appreciate the expression By the Grace of God go I. Also, the boy s infirmity gives me pause to consider what forms of blindness we may suffer from. How do we view people of a race different from our own? How do we see people that have different political or religious views from our own? How do we perceive people of the opposite sex? Are we mindful of our prejudices and can we see our way clear of them? Sometimes we are unaware of our blessings as well as our own blind spots. As we enter the season of Lent, not only should we look at how we can improve, but also how we are fortunate. Lent is an Anglo-Saxon word that means Spring, a liturgical season that affords us time for new spiritual growth. I pray we may use this time wisely to remember the poor (almsgiving), count our blessings, and recognize the ways we are blind, so that, with the help of God s Grace, we can better recognize the Light of Christ. If so, we will be in a much better posture to renew our baptismal promises this coming Easter. God bless. Deacon Jerry Barney 5 Ways to Pray During Lent Adapted from Loyola Press. For more, visit 1. Make your abstinence a prayer-in-action. Whenever you encounter the thing you are abstaining from or the time of day that you would normally enjoy it, take a moment to say a prayer in recognition of your wholeness in God even without the thing you have given up. 2. Renew yourself through personal reflective prayer. Lent is a time of spiritual renewal. There are many resources available online to reinvigorate your prayer life. Visit the link above for some examples. 3. Pray the Stations of the Cross. Opportunities every Friday of Lent in St. John Chapel (7-8 p.m. February 20-March 17; noon on April 3). 4. Reflect deeper on your liturgical prayer. When you attend Mass during Lent, be conscious of and meditate on the words you pray in the liturgy. 5. Start a practice of daily prayer that will last after Lent. Perhaps the best prayer advice is to use Lent as a time to instill prayer habits that will last long after Lent has concluded. February 2015 On Eagle s Wings Page 3

4 Resolution or Mission? We are about one month into the New Year. How are your resolutions going so far? Good? Fair? Terrific? Terrible? What resolutions? When I started pondering my own resolutions for the year, I first thought to myself, What does resolution really mean? I looked up the definitions and it says a decision or determination; a course of action to do something. I ve certainly made resolutions in years past following this definition, but I felt like I needed a different direction this year some other more meaningful word to grasp and follow during To find the word that would guide me, I looked at what guides our parish each year. One word that we discuss a lot throughout each year at our parish is mission. Different ministerial groups have mission statements that they live by and follow whole-heartedly. We also have a mission statement as a parish that we proclaim as a group of devout Catholics. We do our best to bring it to life within ourselves and our community. We have a mission retreat during Lent that draws our parish together as we head toward Easter and celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord. Our own theme for the next couple of years, Be Christ to one Another, is a mission in itself to do just that! This word mission struck me as possibly the word I was searching for. So, I looked up its definition, too. Mission means an important goal, task or purpose that is accompanied by strong conviction; a calling or vocation. This is just what I need: A strong conviction in my tasks, a purpose and calling forth to not just make resolutions, but also create a personal mission for the year! This gives me drive and direction. The word mission seems to pull us deeper into something and gives us, as the definition says, duty and purpose. In using this word, I feel that I am sending myself forth as I strive to meet my goals for the year. Maybe this word can also bring you deeper purpose, meaning, and conviction in your personal and spiritual life as you call yourself forth and strive to reach your goals. I do hope at this point your resolutions for this New Year are going well. Keep the word mission in mind as we go forward in Setting yourself on a mission may help you reach some wonderful goals in your personal and spiritual life that you never thought possible. Scott Steinke Scott Steinke, Pastoral Associate Lenten Mission 2015 "What It Means To Be Catholic In Today's World" February 23, 24, & 25; 7-8:30 p.m. Pope Francis has challenged the whole Church to reassess what is expected of a true Christian. He encourages the faithful to embark on a new chapter of evangelization marked by Gospel joy. He invites all Christians to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus. He reminds us that God never tires of forgiving us. He is consulting with Catholics worldwide to offer their perceptions and advice about problems facing family life today. Something inspiring, challenging, and exciting is happening in our Church, and the upcoming Parish Mission (February 23-25, 7-8:30 p.m. in the Church) is an ideal occasion to think about and pray over the request of our Holy Father Pope Francis. It is a time of prayer, song, Scripture, and preaching a perfect start to the Lenten season. Mark your calendars now. Fr. Norm Langenbrunner and Jeanne Hunt will be our presenters. February 2015 On Eagle s Wings Page 4

5 Going Green at St. John Did you know that we spend between $7,000 to $8,000 per month on gas and electricity across our campus? This equates to $84,000 to $96,000 a year! Energy bills are one of our largest expenses. Over the past year, we have been working on upgrading our lighting with low energy bulbs and fixtures. We have even had a generous donor help us pay for many of the new, more efficient light bulbs we have purchased. In a large building like our Church, the electric for lighting can account for up to 40% of the monthly bill. We are trying to reduce our energy usage in order to save money for our parish and to better respect our environment. Using our in-house staff, we have transitioned to more efficient light bulbs in many areas. We have completed the Spirit House inside and out and all of the hallways and lobbies in Church. All low ceiling fixtures in the Chapel and Gathering Space and all exterior incandescent bulbs have been changed to LED bulbs as well. All of the low ceiling fixtures in Favret Hall and all halls, stairwells, restrooms, and frequented storage rooms in our weekday office area have been changed. Two parking lot lights have been changed to LED and as we replace any lighting fixtures, we will always use more energy efficient equipment. Our next steps are to replace the South Wing, Youth Room and all low ceiling fixtures in the main Church with LED bulbs. Any fluorescent fixtures in all buildings will be changed to energy saving T8 bulbs as they need to be replaced. When technology permits, we would like to replace all the higher fixtures in Church with LED and also all halogen quartz fixtures in Favret Hall and the main Church. As you can see, we are heading in the right direction. And, remember, you have a part to play as well! Make sure that when using our restrooms that you do not turn off the light sensors. If you are here for meetings, make sure that all lighting is turned off before you leave and that manual cooling and heating systems are turned down. Do you see places where we can save energy and costs? Let us know! We want to be the most diligent stewards of our money and our earth! Any questions or suggestions? Contact Joan Seibenick at jseibenick@stjohnwc.org or , ext Joan Seibenick, Business Manager Update from St. Gabriel Consolidated School By Principal Nicole Brainard On January 22, the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion, Washington, D.C. is alive with thousands of people marching for life. Because this is a difficult trip for elementary age students to make, the members of the third grade Brownie Troop at St. Gabriel Consolidated School, led by Mrs. Sara Hinckley and Mrs. Julie Wells, have become active participants in the Respect Life movement in their own way. These young ladies are working toward the Archdiocesan Respect All Life Award. This award recognizes the contribution of girls and adult leaders in Girl Scouts in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati who proclaim that human life is a precious gift from God; that each person who receives this gift has responsibilities toward God, self, and others; and that society, through its laws and institutions, must protect and nurture human life at every stage of its existence. (Pastoral Plan for Pro-Life Activities: A Campaign in Support of Life. USCCB, 2001) In order to earn their award, the girls had to read the story of creation in the book of Genesis and complete a minimum of two additional activities one of which was making artwork to brighten the day of the residents of a nursing home. There are four levels to this award, each corresponding to the appropriate Girl Scout designation. These young ladies are working on level one (grades K-3) for Daisy/Brownie. Over the course of their tenure in Girl Scouting, they can earn three more levels of this award. Their adult leaders can earn their award only once. These awards will be conferred at a special Girl Scout Religious Recognitions Awards Ceremony at St. Peter in Chains Cathedral. February 2015 On Eagle s Wings Page 5

6 Growing Closer to God Through Prayer Each year during Lent, we are asked to pray, give alms, and fast. Of course, this is good practice throughout the year, but it can be a struggle to remain steadfast for 40 days. Lenten promises, like New Year s resolutions, begin with many of us feeling hopeful and inspired, but often we soon get distracted and lose our way. Yes, we are imperfect but we must continue trying. I take solace in the realization that many of us are going through the same trials and in that we are not alone. Lent is the most meaningful season to me because the sacrifices we would not ordinarily make can be so enlightening. It is a time to challenge ourselves to grow closer to God. There are times when we stumble during Lent, but it helps to not get hung up on failure. Nothing is preventing us from trying again. This Lenten season, one of my goals is to set aside more time during the day to pray. When I was a teacher, I prayed with my students at the beginning of every class period. I made copies of the Serenity Prayer for all of my students because I thought it would speak to their internal struggles. It is no secret that many teenagers can be self-concerned, but it s easy as an adult to be this way, too. We get caught up in our own battles and forget to look at the world around us. That is why it is important to live one day at a time. Sometimes our personal challenges seem insurmountable, but it helps to step outside of ourselves and remember that some things are out of our control and other things just take a little courage to change. Praying can help us gain this wisdom and perspective. Saying the Serenity Prayer with my students was impactful for reasons I did not expect. Originally, I chose it because I thought teens could relate, but the prayer took on a different form. It took us from being self-centered to other-centered. We weren t just saying it for ourselves, but also for each other. We all have our hardships, and we all must learn to accept these as the pathway to peace. We must trust God. I hope that you can join me this Lent by saying the Serenity Prayer so that it again moves beyond a personal prayer and becomes one that we say for each other, our brothers and sisters in Christ. Peace, Auriel Buchanan, Pastoral Associate of Communication Serenity Prayer God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next. Amen. February 2015 On Eagle s Wings Page 6

7 2015 Lent & Easter Schedule St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church Stations of the Cross in the Chapel 7-8 p.m. Fridays during Lent February 20, 27, March 6, 13, 20, 27 Noon on Friday, April 3 Lenten Mission in the Church 7-8:30 p.m. February 23, 24, & 25 Ash Wednesday, February 18 6:30 a.m. Mass in Church with Ashes 12 p.m. Communion Service in Church with Ashes 7:30 p.m. Mass in Church with Ashes Weekly Lenten Fish Fry in the Center 4:30-8 p.m. Fridays during Lent February 20, 27, March 6, 13, 20, 27 The Light is ON for you! Quiet Prayer & Opportunity for Confession at every parish in Archdiocese. Tuesday, March 3 at 7 p.m. Lenten Reconciliation Services St. John, Thursday, March 12 at 7 p.m. St. John, weekly on Saturdays at 4 p.m. (except April 4) St. Maximilian-Kolbe, Saturday, March 14, at 10 a.m. and Thursday, March 26, at 7 p.m. St. Susanna, Monday, March 9, and Wednesday, March 18, at 7 p.m. Kids/Parents Show N Tell Mass Monday, March 9, 7-7:45 p.m. in the Chapel Eucharistic Adoration in the Chapel 7:30-8:30 p.m., Tuesday, March 24 (following Mass) Easter Egg Hunt Sunday, March 29, 12:30 p.m. Food in the Center and Egg Hunt in the Grove Archdiocesan Chrism Mass St. Peter in Chains Cathedral Tuesday, March 31, at 7 p.m. Holy Thursday, April 2 7:30 p.m. Mass Eucharist Adoration from 9 p.m.-midnight in the Chapel Good Friday, April 3 Noon - Stations of the Cross in the Church 7:30 p.m. Veneration of the Cross/Communion Service in the Church Holy Saturday, April 4 Blessing of Food at Noon Easter Vigil Mass at 9 p.m. in the Church (no Reconciliation or 5 p.m. Mass) Easter Sunday, April 5 Masses at 8 a.m., 9:30 a.m., and 11:30 a.m. in the Church February 2015 On Eagle s Wings Page 7

8 Our Prayers and Sympathy Go Out To November Pailin Pitaniello on the death of her husband Robin and to Christopher and Joseph on the death of their father Judy Deutsch on the death of her mother December Norma Cromer on the death of her brother Ann Hemmerle on the death of her grandmother The Detzel family on the death of Mary Angela Detzel Judi Detzel-Brown on the death of her sister-in-law Gary Musengo on the death of his mother Bettie Burns on the death of her twin brother and a sister January Kevin Hughes on the death of his father and mother Sharon Skerski on the death of her husband Ray Skerski John Campbell on the death of his mother May God s blessings flow to all parishioners who have suffered the loss of a family member or friend. (513) St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church 9080 Cincinnati-Dayton Road West Chester, OH Return Service Requested Non Profit Organization US Postage Paid Permit #1 West Chester, OH PLACE LABEL HERE