PAROQUIA – Nssa. Sra. Do Rosário
Residência Nssa. Sra. de Fátima 11 March, 2017 XLVII:1
Trav. Carlos Portes, 171
62.900-000 Russas, Ceará e-mail: [email protected]
BRASIL http://www.egfbenya.com
Dear Friends, Benefactors, Collaborators, Colleagues and Family:
Celebrations are crucial to our “being”. They help define us. Some celebrations are strictly hedonistic; debauchery in their origin and manner; a drunken binge, a divorce, an abortion, mere degradation. Some celebrations are of a singular moment; conception, Baptism, Confirmation, Bar Mitzvah. Others are remembrances as an annual event, commemoration of a personal step, a rite of passage, a dynamic; birthdays marriage, ordination, maturation, victory in life.
A celebration may be stark or sobering; national victories in combat, battle and even war whose costs temper the joy of victory. Personal victories over proclivities, addictions and degeneration are humble memorials to degradation that is recognized and conquered each day in small, short, certain steps, not by our own power but by virtue in Almighty God. Saint Paul had a least one such memorial in him whose origin he called a “thorn of Satan”. He apparently had to face it each day and had various degrees of success in that battle. He prayed to be completely free of it but God left him to face it each day as a reminder of his dependence on the Savior.
However, most celebrations are joyful. Usually on an annual basis, we thank God for a unique, singular blessing without which we would not be where we are. Birthdays into this world are instituted by relatives for family rather than celebrations of an event by children who have no recollection of the date or event.
Wedding anniversaries are celebrations of initial attraction between a man and a woman, but, given time and virtue, develop into celebrations of victories large and small over temptation, doubt and personal limits as the “two become one” in Almighty God.
Consecration to the Creator, personal or public, merits celebration especially considering the hedonistic onslaught that such consecration must endure.
However all legitimate celebration carries an aspect of sobriety, recognizing that one has overcome a challenge beyond one’s self. Humble gratitude is the hallmark.
One annual celebration is steeped in sobriety; the Passion, Death and Resurrection of the Savior. Our participation is indisputable as culprits for the event. Yet His Compassion, Mercy and Charity are the arms with which He conquered evil. We gratefully mark that conquest in the humble preparation and celebration of the Lenten-Pascal Season. Join us in this CELEBRATION with a:
most BLESSED LENTEN-EASTER Season!
Gratefully in Jesus Christ