Dear Parish Family,
The readings today for Palm Sunday and throughout Holy Week invite us to journey to the Holy Land where the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus took place. Whether or not you've made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, we all have a special connection to that place where our Lord lived, died, and rose again from the dead. As we approach the Triduum, or "three days" of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, I cannot overstress the importance of coming to these liturgies of our Church. Participate in the Passion of our Lord with us this Holy Week. 

Chrism Mass at Cathedral
Every Tuesday of Holy Week, all the priests of the Diocese of Cleveland gather downtown for a Presbyteral Day of Sanctification and for Chrism Mass with the Bishop. We start with time together to listen to a spiritually uplifting presentation from one of our brother priests, share a meal together, and renew our priestly promises together at the Mass with the Bishop. Moreover, the oils that we will use this next year for Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Orders, and Anointing of the Sick are all blessed by the Bishop at this Mass. This week offers us all a chance for all of us to pray for those who will be baptized, confirmed, ordained, and receive anointing this year. The blessing of these oils used for these Sacraments are all made possible by the sacrifice of Jesus which we commemorate in a unique way this week. The Chrism Mass is open to all, so consider coming this Tuesday, April 4 for the 7:00 pm Chrism Mass at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist.

Good Friday Collection
Remember that the Good Friday Collection is an annual appeal of our Holy Father which provides direct support to the Holy Land. The Pontifical Good Friday Collection supports various needs in the Holy Land: parishes and schools, students and families, food and housing assistance, homes for children caught in domestic violence, seminarian education, Holy Land employees, shrines, and restoration work of churches. Our generosity is most appreciated to the Holy Father's appeal. 

Accessing "The Chosen" Series
Since I mentioned "The Chosen" in my parish mission talks, some have asked me how to access these episodes. I would recommend you visit the website to stream the episodes: https://watch.angelstudios.com/thechosen. You could also download the Angel Studios app on your device and stream from your phone. I set up a Chromecast device for my TV and stream episodes from my Angel Studios app on my phone. I highly recommend watching "The Chosen" series for its creative approach to biblical imagination. 

In fact, St. Ignatius of Loyola recommends using our God-given imagination and guidance of the Holy Spirit for contemplating the Scriptures. As moderns, we tend to overvalue literalism and productivity so much that we devalue the use of our imagination in prayer and meditation of the Scriptures. Because of this, we may approach the Bible as an instruction manual rather than as God's story to us. "The Chosen" can help to restore our imaginative contemplation of God's stories of salvation, enhance our reverence for the mystery of Christ's redemption, and humanize some of the Gospel dialogues and portrayals in a way that helps us grasp what some of the non-biblical backstory may have looked like. "The Chosen" is not a replacement for reading Scripture, but can be a powerful complementary tool to help our contemplative prayer.

Little White Books
Our Little White Books for Easter are available in the back of church for pickup. We distributed the Little Blue Books (Advent) and Little Black Books (Lent) this year and will continue to offer these books to you for free during these seasons. They are insightful 6-minute daily devotionals that focus on Scripture and an element of our Catholic traditions. Thank you for your continued generosity to our parish that make offerings like this possible!

I am yours in Christ,
Fr. Scott Goodfellow