Dear Detroit, Catholic Deaf Community, It has been just a few weeks since we celebrated Christmas and the New Year, and this month, we are starting the Lenten Season. Can you believe it? Ash Wednesday, February 14, marks the beginning of Lent. Fr. Ken will celebrate three different Masses: 2 p.m. & 7 p.m. at St. John’s Deaf Center and 4 p.m. at St. Valentine’s School Chapel. This day and every Friday of Lent are days of Fasting. Please refer to the chart included in this newsletter for more information about fasting and abstinence. During Lent, we are called to make concrete adjustments to our lives, to focus on more simplicity and less reliance on worldly goods in our lives, to become representatives of Christ to those around us, and to strengthen our faith through prayer, fasting and acts of charity. Pope Francis has designated 2024 as the year of Prayer, and we are still commemorating the Eucharistic Revival until 2025. I invite you to join us at St. John’s Deaf Center at 11 a.m. every Friday during Lent for Adoration and Prayer. Lastly, Pope Francis reminds us that acts of charity include taking care of our environment. He calls us to examine our lifestyle: how we use natural resources and minimize our carbon footprint. During this Lenten season, consider creating healthy habits to protect our planet, like sharing a ride, taking shorter showers, buying fewer packaged goods, recycling, and reusing more. Our actions today are already affecting future generations. “Inasmuch as we all generate small ecological damage”, we are called to acknowledge “our contribution, smaller or greater, to the disfigurement and destruction of creation”.… For “to commit a crime against the natural world is a sin against ourselves and a sin against God.” (Laudato Si' Note 8) Please pray for me and my family while celebrating my nephew’s wedding in Guatemala. In my absence, please contact Paul Kuplicki ([email protected]) for any emergency. Stay blessed, and let us be “…the light of the world." (Matthew 5:14) , Veronica