Archive: Father Simon Sez

Happy Easter! The Lord has risen as He said! People had much suffering this past Lent, an opportunity to have a closer union with Christ on the Cross. St. Paul says, “If we have died with Christ, we shall also rise with Him! If we accept our suffering and offer it up to God, it will bear fruit. We could possibly have our best Easter season ever, if we had our worse suffering this past Lent and offered it up! We may not want to suffer, but it is necessary for us to suffer so that we may share in the Resurrection.

Fr. Simon on Vacation: I will be gone on vacation this Easter Sunday afternoon through Thursday night. In case of funerals or other serious concerns, contact the secretaries of our parishes who can contact me.

Divine Mercy Sunday Promise: Divine Mercy Sunday is next Sunday, the Second Sunday of Easter, every year. Be sure to take advantage of this only day of the year when you can receive the same effects as “a second baptism” by going to confession and receiving Holy Communion on the weekend. That means, Jesus, the Divine Mercy promised that faithful people that go to confession and receive Holy Communion on Divine Mercy Sunday will have all of their sins wiped away and all punishment due to sin (no punishment in purgatory will be required for all past sins forgiven in the Sacrament of Penance, a.k.a. confession). If you are not able to go to confession before Mass and receive communion, you can request to do this immediately following the Divine Mercy Holy Hours scheduled for next Sunday afternoon at SHC in Gettysburg 3:00 p.m. and SPX Church in Onida at 5:30 p.m. I am providing two single-sheet pages of bulletin inserts explaining this devotion in more detail.

I will have extra copies of the Divine Mercy bulletin inserts available in our church gathering spaces. If you have any extra Divine Mercy materials, you can leave them in our church entries to share as long as they have been formally approved by a bishop in union with the Pope or myself. The Chaplet of Divine Mercy has many promises attached to it as well.

Beginning & Present Altar Servers: I trained present and new Altar servers multiple times. Since there are significant differences in the previous ways, all Altar servers are required to have training. If any existing Altar servers still need training, please let the parish secretaries know. Our parish secretaries can start scheduling all Altar servers who have been trained and not the Altar servers who have not been trained

Visiting Priest Celebrant & Fr. Simon Con-celebrant: Fr. David Axtmann (retired in Highmore) is the celebrant this weekend with me con-celebrating and preaching the homily. He will be offering confessions before all of the Masses while I am training the Altarservers. We welcome Fr. David!

Holy Week Services & Altar Server Training: Please check our Holy Week schedule on our parish bulletin pages. I have extra confession opportunities on Wednesday, Holy Thursday, and Good Friday. The locations for Holy Thursday and Easter Vigil will rotate each year, unless there will be RCIA in a particular parish at Easter Vigil. (An individual priest is allowed to celebrate only one Mass of the Lord’s Supper.)

On Wednesday I will have instructional Stations of the Cross 4:15 pm - 5:00 pm and 6:45 pm - 7:30 pm with confessions available after both sessions for adults. (SPXP will have Stations 7:15 pm - 7:45 pm.) I ask that SPXP Altar servers arrive at 5:45 pm for training before the 7:00 pm Mass of the Lord’s Supper. On Good Friday I ask the Altar servers to come for training at 4:15 pm for the 5:30 pm Passion in SHP and at 7:00 pm for the 8:00 pm Passion in SPXP. At the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday, I ask the Altar servers to come to practice at 7:30 pm for the 8:45 pm Easter Vigil. (This is high point of Church liturgy for the year, lasting about two hours.) On Easter Sunday we will not have confessions offered before the Masses due to Altar server practice at 8:30 am for the 9:00 am Mass and approximately 10:10 am for the 11:00 am Mass. Altar servers should robe upon arrival for Easter Sunday practices. Thank you!

Beginning & Present Altar Servers: I trained present and new Altar servers multiple times. Since there are significant differences in the previous ways, all Altar servers are required to have training. If any existing Altar servers still need training, please let the parish secretaries know. I will be having Altar server training before all of the Holy Week special liturgies.

VISITING PRIEST CELEBRANT & FR. SIMON CON-CELEBRATING
Fr. David Axtmann (retired in Highmore) will be the celebrant this weekend and next weekend with me con-celebrating. He will be offering confessions before all of the Masses. We welcome Fr. David!

PALM SUNDAY MASSES NEXT SUNDAY
Next weekend, there will not be any confessions before weekend Masses. Fifteen minutes before each Mass, Altar servers need to be robed and ready for instructions. We will begin with palm processions.

BEGINNING & EXISTING ALTAR SERVERS I trained existing and new Altar servers. Since there are significant differences in the previous ways, all Altar servers are required to have training. If any existing Altar servers still need training, please let the parish secretaries know. I will be having Altar server training before all of the Holy Week special liturgies.

NEWSPAPER ARTICLE INTRODUCING FR. SIMON 
Sheila Ring wrote an excellent article introducing me to the Onida area in the “Onida Watchman” newspaper Thursday, March 24, 2022. See www.onidawatchman.com

DIOCESE OF SIOUX FALLS MASS ATTENDANCE PROJECT
As a project for the past few years, our diocese has asked the parishes to take Mass attendance. We took the following Mass attendance: St. Pius X Parish 51 (March 13), 62 (March 20) & 47 (March 27) Sacred Heart Parish 60 (March 12), 71 (March 13), 43 (March 19), 98 (March 20), 41 (March 26), 100 (March 27). Thank you all for you participating at Mass and those who did the count