My Dear Friends:
As we celebrate this much needed long weekend, as a parish we start preparing for a busy few months of retreats and activities by our ministries. As I wrote last week, this coming Wednesday, September 4 at 8pm, we will go as a parish to the feet of Our Lady to celebrate Mass and offer the Mass for all our parishioners and ministries at the Shrine of Our Lady of Charity at 8pm.
In two weeks, we will have a Spanish Women’s Emmaus Retreat (September 13-15) which will offer the ladies of our parish a chance to spend quality time with our Lord and meet new sisters that will fill their hearts with joy. (The next Men’s Emmaus Retreat is scheduled for November.)
Our next Marriage Covenant Retreat will be in Spanish and it will take place here in Comber Hall the weekend of September 27-29. This is a wonderful invitation that our Lord is offering our married couple to rekindle the spark of their marriage and to center their married life on Jesus Christ.
Finally, I want to invite all of you to a very important event next week. As many of you know from reading the bulletin the last few weeks, there is an amendment on the ballot this November that will enshrine unregulated abortion in our state constitution, making Florida one of the most pro-abortion states in the nation. The amendment language on the ballot is misleading, and if it passes, as the chaplain of the Respect Life Office told me last month, “it will set our pro-life gains back 20 years.” As a Catholic community, we must do everything we can to protect the unborn in our state. On Monday, September 9th, I have invited Dr. Grazie Christie to speak to us about “Amendment 4: The Facts and Dangers.” Dr. Christie is a regular contributor to EWTN, a mother of five, and the Director of the Archdiocese’s Pregnancy Care Centers. We need to educate ourselves so that we can educate others in defeating this amendment. Please join us on September 9th for a frank conversation on this important issue and pray that we may stand up to defeat this amendment as we continue our commitment as Catholics to stand up for the dignity of every human life.
God bless you all,
