Sometimes our Lenten prayer, fasting and almsgiving remind us about the suffering and sacrifices we are encouraged to make as disciples of Jesus. While these activities, within this context, are worthwhile motives, we continue to become more open to deeper significance to Lent. Another sense of prayer, fasting and almsgiving is to remind us about how much more we need to rely upon Jesus. These external sacrifices, though difficult, bring challenge to us; we can will ourselves to bear their burdens for 40 days at a time.

So what's this all about, anyway? In preparing for Lent, which began shortly after Christmas, there are countless resources and ideas to enrich the season. With my new responsibilities as Director of Religious Education, we were looking over activities and ideas for the young people. Needless to say, combining the adult ideas with the youth ideas can be quite overwhelming. There are unique emphases from both perspectives. There are many ways to engage a number of our human senses. There are countless approaches to prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

February eleventh is the annual feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes. The day when our Blessed Mother appeared to Saint Bernadette in France and helped her discover a font of flowing water. From this font, countless people have experienced miraculous cures. In turn, our annual World Day of Prayer for the Sick is held on February eleventh.

Today is the conclusion of Catholic Schools Week 2018. We continue to be very mindful of the presence of Saint Boniface Catholic School; the only Catholic school in our county. We are also mindful of many of us who have been influence by Catholic schools at some point of our life. Often its Catholic school education which helped form a parent, grandparent or influential adult in our lives who, in turn, influenced us to take our role in the life of our Catholic Church. And so we continue to ask the question to ourselves personally and collectively about what we do to support Catholic schools locally and beyond.