Are you or someone you know interested in becoming a Catholic Christian? Do you know of a child over the age 7 who has not been baptized, or baptized Catholic but not confirmed and/or receiving Holy Community? We offer an opportunity to come together in a small group to grow in our relationship with the Divine Person Jesus. Sessions focus on Jesus’ new life that unites one and all with God our Father in the power of Holy Spirit. We reflect on Jesus’ teachings as carried on in the daily life of the Church and so are formed to celebrate the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist through the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults at Easter. There are separate sessions for children, youth and adults. You are welcome to participate with your questions, your insights and your faith story in a warm accepting setting. For information please contact the Faith Formation Office, (267) 803-0774.
Ladies Retreat
Take some time out of your busy schedule to reconnect with the Lord; enjoy the faith and friendship of others and recharge your soul with a prayer, wine and chocolate retreat. We are blessed to welcome Amy Brooks, our retreat Master. She is the founder of Prayer Wine Chocolate and the owner of Catholics Online, LLC. Our Women’s Retreat will be held on Friday, 12 April 2024 in the Parish Center. Each lady is asked to bring a blank notebook and a pen. If you have a few holy cards that you are not sure what to do with, bring them along. After a brief explanation of praying with a journal, all will be invited to gather supplies in order to decorate the front of their journals and start an entry. Wine will be provided. Please bring an appetizer and your favorite chocolate to share. For planning purposes registration is necessary. Doors will open at 5:00pm for fellowship. Retreat will begin at 6:00pm. Cost $20.00 per person. Please complete the form found in the bulletin and return to the Faith Formation Office no later than 5 April 2024.
Eucharistic Revival Holy Hour
The Parish-focused second year of the Eucharistic Revival officially began on 11 June 2023. During this year of the Eucharistic Revival, one of our goals at Saint John Bosco Parish is to promote and encourage increasing Eucharistic Devotion.
You are invited to join us for a Holy Hour at 10:00am in our Adoration Chapel on 7 February 2024, 3 April 2024 and 5 June 2024.
Treat yourself to some quiet time in prayer and adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. The Holy Hour provides each person an opportunity to bring before Jesus, in the Blessed Sacrament, the cares, concerns, joys, sorrows and thanksgivings that we all experience each day. Come join us as we pray together, as the Apostles did, in the presence of Jesus.
Come as a family or as an individual as all are most welcome.
Wedding Anniversaries
Your life as a couple through the years has been a witness to the sacramentality of Marriage and celebrating your anniversary will strengthen the graced-bond between each of you, your children and the parish community. As a parish, we will pray for couples celebrating a wedding anniversary. All couples who wish to participate can submit their names, anniversary date and contact information. Please email the information and your names will be listed by month in the Sunday Bulletin and on the Saint John Bosco Electronic Message Board.
O God, Creator of all things,
Who in the beginning made man and woman
that they might form the marriage bond,
bless and strengthen the union of
our parishioners that they may show forth
an ever more perfect image of
the union of Christ with his Church.
Through our lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The Sacred Paschal Triduum
Schedule
Lent, the Season of purification and enlightenment, focused on the Elect [1] in their final formative moments to be made members of the Body of Christ. The Faithful [2] had a baptismal focus for Lent as well. Recognizing that the radiance of baptismal life has been tarnished by sin, the Faithful responded to the promptings of Holy Spirit to permit baptismal holiness to shine forth through grace-initiated acts of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. These works involve the whole person – body, mind and heart – and now equips one to renewal Baptismal Promises at the celebration of Jesus’ Resurrection. So as the sun sets on Thursday of Holy Week, the Season of Lent draws to a quiet close and the Church enters the most solemn time of the year: the Sacred Paschal Triduum.
“Since Christ accomplished His work of human redemption and of the perfect glorification of God principally through His Paschal [3] Mystery,[4] in which by dying He has destroyed our death, and by rising restored our life, the Sacred Paschal Triduum of the Passion and Resurrection of the Lord shines forth as the high point of the entire liturgical year. Therefore the preeminence that Sunday has in the week, the Solemnity of Easter has in the liturgical year.[5]
The Paschal Triduum of the Passion and Resurrection of the Lord begins with the evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper, has its center in the Easter Vigil, and closes with Vespers (Evening Prayer II) of the Sunday of the Resurrection.
On Friday of the Passion of the Lord [6] (Good Friday) and, if appropriate, also on Holy Saturday until the Easter Vigil, [7] the Sacred Paschal fast is everywhere observed.
The Easter Vigil, in the holy night when the Lord rose again, is considered the “Mother of all holy vigils,” [8] in which the Church, keeping watch, awaits the Resurrection of Christ and celebrates it in the Sacraments. therefore, the entire celebration of this Sacred Vigil must take place at night, so that it both begins after nightfall and ends before the dawn on the Sunday.”[9]
[1] Elect are those chosen (elected) by the Bishop at the beginning of Lent to be incorporated into the Body of Christ through the Easter Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and the Most Holy Eucharist.
[2] Faithful are those who have been fully initiated into the Body of Christ through the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and the Most Holy Eucharist.
[3] The word Paschal is the English translation of the Hebrew word pesah — “Passover.”
[4] The word Mystery, so important in Catholic Theology, originates in the Greek root verb muo. Translated literally, muo was used often in antiquity ‘to close or shut the mouth’ thus listen. Closing or shutting the mouth also conveyed a sense of fasting. Thus aspects of Catholic Christian living that are described as Mystery or Mysteries is or are NOT primary about being unknown but about living the reality by listening and fasting.
[5] Second Vatican Council, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, 5.
[6] Paul VI, Apostolic Constitution, Paenitemini, February 17, 1966, II §3: Acta Apostolicae Sedis 58 (1966), p. 184.
[7] Second Vatican Council, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, 110.
[8] Augustine, Sermon 219.
[9] Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year and the Calendar, 18-21.