~ Masses ~
Have been Canceled
The Church will be open for private prayer & devotions
Daily from 6:15 am to 7:00 pm
This weeks Bulletin is available in the church foyer or download below.
We will continue streaming an 8:00 am Mass daily
through the SMMA Facebook page.
Go to: SMMA Facebook Page
~ Confessions ~
We will continue to offer confessions per our normal schedule,
along with the extra times, we offer during Lent.
The schedule is as follows:
Note time change for evening confessions
Monday, 3/30 and Wednesday, 4/1 – 7:00 pm
Tuesday, 4/7 – 7:00 pm
Saturday mornings 8:30 am
Saturday afternoons, 3:30 – 4:15 pm
As you come for confession, we ask that you do not line up outside the confessional,
but keep the proper amount of space by waiting in a pew until the confessional is open.
While we will maintain a safe distance for face-to-face confession,
going “behind the screen” may be the best choice during this time.
~ The Adoration Chapel is currently closed ~
Here is a website with online adoration:
www.savior.org/devotions.htm
USCCB is offering free resources to support prayer
and engagement during these difficult days. Go to:
usccb.org/coronavirus
There is a free online version of The Magnificat, a booklet
offering the Daily Mass Readings,
reflections for the day, as well as other prayers.
It would be a great way to prepare for
our daily live stream Mass.
Go to www.magnificat.com/free
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As always thanks for supporting our Parish!
March 2020
Well…I love the front cover of this week’s bulletin. Very Creative! As is the excerpt from C.S. Lewis’s book, The Screwtape Letters.
As we continue to do our part to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus, I’m sure we are all grateful for the blessings of technology. We’re able to stay connected as a parish family with our daily virtual Mass and I know our students and teachers are connected with a virtual classroom.
We are able to do Funerals, Weddings, and Baptisms but with a very limited number attending. Bringing Holy Communion to the sick and homebound is now limited to emergency, in danger of death, situations only. If you have a sacramental emergency, do give me a call.
We continue to focus on the value of Spiritual Communion a long-standing tradition of the Catholic Church when attending Mass is not possible. Again, I offer this Prayer for a Spiritual Communion:
My Jesus, I believe that you are present in the Most Blessed Sacrament. I love You above all things and I desire to receive You into my soul. Since I cannot now receive You sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart.
I embrace You as if You have already come, and unite myself wholly to You.
Never permit me to be separated from You. Amen.
Since the cancellation of public Masses has now been extended through Easter, we will all experience a most unusual Holy Week this year. We will bless the palms during our virtual Mass on Palm Sunday and have them available in the church lobby that week. I suppose our Easter Lilies have already been ordered. We may decorate our main altar in church with the hope that we would be back together before the Easter Season concludes on Pentecost Sunday, May 31st.
This week’s bulletin has a page about Divine Mercy Sunday, April 19th, but that may have to be observed privately also.
Thanks to those who are mailing their contribution envelopes. Very much appreciated! Just to let you know, when you come to church to pray privately, you could place your donations in the large white mailbox in the Sacristy. Since our church is open for private prayer 6:15 am – 7:00 pm daily, this would help you save postage.
Dear Lord, bless us with a cure for this virus.
 Msgr. Norb Ernst – Pastor
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NEW SYSTEM FOR SAFE ENVIRONMENT COMPLIANCE
The Archdiocese of St. Louis has developed a new system for safe environment compliance called Prevent and Protect STL. Everyone (clergy, employees and volunteers) ministering to minors and vulnerable adults in the Archdiocese are required and asked to register in the new system before December 31, 2020. Click here for more information.
Help Us Keep You Informed!
You can help us during the COVID-19 pandemic.
During this challenging time, we depend on online donations to continue our ministry. Use eGiving from your computer, smartphone or tablet to set up a recurring donation or make a one-time gift.
Sign up today by visiting faith.direct/MO843
"The devotion to the Eucharist is the most noble, because it has God as its object; it is the most profitable for salvation, because it gives us the Author of Grace; it is the sweetest, because the Lord is Sweetness Itself."
— Pope St. Pius X
St. Benjamin (d. 424 A.D.) was a deacon martyred in Persia during a forty-year-long Christian persecution under two tyrannical Persian kings. He was imprisoned for a year due to his Christian faith and then released with the help of the Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius II. As a condition of his release he was ordered to no longer publicly proclaim his faith. Benjamin declared that it was his duty to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ and he refused to be silenced. He continued preaching Christ crucified, and, when word reached the king, he was arrested again. In response, Benjamin asked the king what opinion he would have of any of his subjects if they were to renounce their allegiance to the king and join in war against him; in the same way Benjamin could not renounce his allegiance to Christ. This comment enraged the king, and he ordered Benjamin to endure cruel tortures. Sharpened reeds were repeatedly jammed underneath his fingernails, toenails, and other tender parts of the body. He died when a knotted stake was jammed into his bowels. St. Benjamin's feast day is celebrated on March 31st.
Memorare Monday
We invite you to pray the Memorare prayer as you start your Monday morning:
Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary,
that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help, or sought your intercession, was left unaided.
Inspired with this confidence, I fly to you, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother. To you I come, before you I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in your mercy hear and answer them. Amen.
www.amm.org/PrayWithUs/Memorare.aspx?emlcode=F3O0
www.amm.org/petition/?FormID=316&emlcode=F3O0
"I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power."
Ephesians 1:17-19