Lent’s 40-day observance is a season of repentance. By prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, we learn to reject the allure of power, pleasure, and money to live more totally for God and his purposes.
“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
40-Hours Devotional (not held this year)
Father Daniel’s Lenten Letter
Dear Saints,
Writing to you at the beginning of Lent is one of my favorite traditions. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to connect with you as we set out on our 40-day trek!
Our Lenten undertakings remain very much evergreen and intact. We commit ourselves to works of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving in order to grow in love of God, self, and neighbor. The simple disciplines of Lent generate serious power for transformation. No big changes here.
Every Lent takes its own shape and has its own character. To that end, I’d like to offer you a couple of thoughts that have surfaced in prayer recently. They’ll serve as my Lenten theme this year, and a possible starting point for intentional engagement with the season: smallness and sincerity.
The first point is that, against our cultural inclination, Lent isn’t about going big or going home. More often than not, the really big stuff of heart and life change happens in small and even unseen acts. My challenge to you, then, is to go small with your penitential practices. (If you haven’t yet established the baseline I outline below, take another baby step this year.)
The second point enlivens the first. Sincerity, the quality of being free from pretense, deceit, or hypocrisy, makes our small acts great. We know that we have been called to lives of great and costly love -- what God is getting across to me these days is that love demands sincerity.
By starting off sincerely and small, we will gain traction in the way of love. And if we grow in love throughout Lent and over the course of our lives, we’ll find that nothing at all can derail us from going God’s way.
God bless you, my friends. If you need anything at all, please be in touch.
In the Peace of Christ,
Father Daniel
δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ
PS Our beyond-the-tithe challenge for this Lent is Several Sources, a well-known local charity that saves babies’ lives and shelters their young mothers. Our goal is to raise at least $20,000 for this great work.
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Addendum: the OLMC Lenten Baseline
If you’re looking to engage Lent with more intentionality, prayerfully consider the following disciplines:
Pray for 30 minutes a day
Fast every day except for Sundays and Solemnities
Give a true tithe (10% to the parish)
Prayer: pray for 30 minutes a day.
Our commitment to praying for 30 uninterrupted minutes a day reflects the wisdom of the saints. With almost universal testimony, the Church’s spiritual masters recommend half an hour of meditative silence a day as the source of Christian life.
If 30 minutes at a shot is too steep an ask, start this year with 15 minutes and add five a year. Don’t be discouraged – remember that making time for God is one of prayer’s most important accomplishments, and you learn to pray by praying!
If you would like a resource to help launch or develop your prayer life, check out Jacques Philippe’s Time for God or Timothy Gallagher’s The Examen Prayer.
Fasting: fast every day except for Sundays and Solemnities
Our commitment to eating only one main and two smaller meals every day in Lent helps us to check our desire for worldly pursuits and pleasures to focus more fully on God and meeting the demands of love.
If smaller meals with no snacking every day is too tough, start with a day or two a week (Friday and Wednesday are traditional fasting days) and add as we go, either through Lent or from one year to the next.
For a concise and accessible study on fasting, I recommend Charles M. Murphy’s The Spirituality of Fasting: rediscovering a Christian practice.
Almsgiving: give a true tithe (10% to the parish)
In a money-driven world, there is no better way to prioritize the purposes of God than by giving the first ten percent of what we make to our parish. Almsgiving actually implies giving beyond a tithe – great if you’re there, but if not we’ll use this year to help get us to a tithing baseline.
(By definition, a tithe is a ten-percent offering to the parish. It is an act of worship, which means it is a way of centering our lives on God and his purposes. You have probably seen that OLMC’s revenues are higher than they have ever been – I am making this appeal not for the sake of our budget, but for the sake of your spiritual wellbeing.)
Although I’d encourage you to jump in the deep end with the tithe, we all have to start somewhere. If you can’t give ten percent now, try increasing your offering one or two percent a year until you hit a true tithe (and then we can go beyond it!). If you need help with the concept or the calculation, check out www.olmc.church/give.
For resources on tithing, I’d recommend Randy Alcorn’s The Treasure Principle: unlocking the secrets of joyful giving, or his Managing God’s Money: a biblical guide.
Schedule of Activities
Click below for an expanded view. All events are streamed live where possible.
Ash Wednesday Schedule of Services
All of our Ash Wednesday activities will be in-person and livestreamed.
February 14, 2023:
7:00am Mass
8:00am Mass (with the School)
12:00pm Liturgy of the Word and Distribution of Ashes
4:00pm Liturgy of the Word and Distribution of Ashes
7:00pm Mass
Holy Week Schedule of Services
All of our Holy Week services will be held in-person and livestreamed.
Holy Thursday (March 28)
Morning Prayer: 8:00am
Confessions: 8:30-9:30am
Mass of the Lord’s Supper: 7:00pm
Altar of Repose*: after the Mass of the Lord’s Supper until 6:00am Friday morning
Good Friday (March 29)
Morning Prayer: 8:00am
Confessions: 8:30-9:30am
Celebration of the Lord’s Passion: 3:00pm
Stations of the Cross: 6:00pm
Holy Saturday (March 30)
Morning Prayer: 8:00am
Confessions: 8:30-9:30am
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*On Holy Thursday, we “watch and pray” at the Altar of Repose. Immediately following our 7:00pm Mass of the Lord’s Supper, join us in Gordon Hall to adore Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament. We “keep watch” with Christ in a solemn way until midnight, and then in silence until 6:00am Friday morning.
In addition to watching at our Altar of Repose, we also invite the faithful to participate in a Holy Thursday devotion called The Seven Churches Visitation. The pilgrimage is accomplished by visiting the Altar of Repose at seven different Catholic Churches before midnight on Holy Thursday.
Stations of the Cross
Every Friday in Lent (February 16 to March 29) we pray the Stations of the Cross together in the church. Join us at 6:00pm (also streamed live).
Booklets to pray the Stations of the Cross are available at the church and can be found here.
Mass, Confession, and Adoration
During Lent, our regular schedule of Masses, Confession Times, and Adoration continues.
OLMC also takes part in the Diocese of Paterson’s Welcome Home to Healing initiative. On the Mondays of Lent - from February 19 to March 25 - every church in the diocese is open for confessions from 7:00pm to 8:30pm.
Easter Masses
All of our Masses are streamed live when possible.
Saturday, March 30
8:00pm Easter Vigil (a two-hour Mass)
Sunday, March 31
7:30am, 9:00am, and 11:00am
OLMC Livestream
Give Now
Our Lady of Mount Carmel runs on your generosity. Thank you for continuing to support our mission to light up the world with God’s love!
For help with proportional giving, and making progress towards the tithe, check out www.olmc.church/give.
Our Lady of Mount Carmel manages automated giving with DonorBox, an industry leader that harnesses the security, reliability, and convenience of PayPal, Apple Pay, and Stripe.
We also accept contributions the old-fashioned way. Please contact us with any questions.
Lent 2024: Several Sources
Every Lent we are encouraged to go beyond the tithe in order to meet the needs of the world.
Our beyond-the-tithe challenge for this Lent is Several Sources, a well-known local charity that saves babies’ lives and shelters their young mothers. Our goal is to raise at least $20,000 for this great work.
Our beyond-the-tithe campaign is a great opportunity for us to give sacrificially this Lent.
OLMC Parish Fish Fry
Our OLMC Fish Fry - provided by Tastefully British - will be on Friday, March 1st from 6:00 to 8:00pm. Pre-ordered dinners can be picked up in our school gym.
Ordering is closed at this time. Thank you for your support!