Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

New and Notes:

Lent is Coming Soon... Looking ahead a few weeks to Ash Wednesday, which falls on March 6 this year, the schedule of liturgies with distribution of ashes will be as follows:

7AM Mass at SMG, 9AM Mass at OLA, 4PM Liturgy of the Word at SMG, 7PM Liturgy of the Word at OLA

Almsgiving Reports... Our “250 Beds for 250 Children” Advent Almsgiving program raised a remarkable $10,233.16 in December.  This money has been sent to the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless to provide about 40 beds for children on the North Shore.  Thanks to parishioners from OLA and SMG along with the OLA School community for this amazing outpouring of generosity to help children in our area sleep better at night. 

Our Lenten almsgiving this year will benefit the Catholic Church in the Central African Republic where Father Francis Barka Nada from the African Mission Fathers (who was with us last summer) is stationed. Our main goal is to help expand and improve a Health Clinic, so that it provides better care for pregnant women, AIDS patients, and the elderly (especially by providing refrigeration of medicine through rechargeable inverter batteries and by installing solar panels).  In addition, we are also hoping to raise enough funds in our Lenten Almsgiving this year to pay for a supply of food for school children during their upcoming academic term and for children in a local orphanage.  Needless to say, these are projects worthy of our support.  I invite you to consider making a generous contribution to our Lenten Almsgiving program again this year.

Blessings to all of you in the week ahead!