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
