For the entire month of April, the Roman Catholic Church is celebrating the Easter Season. In fact, this year we go through May 19 with the celebration of Pentecost. In total, it is a fifty-day celebration with the forty days of Lent as our preparation. There is hopefulness in the month as we celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord.
Nature cooperates with us as we see the winter give way to spring. The flowers are blooming, the leaves are forming on the trees and around here, new crops are being planted.
The Sunday following Easter, April 7, is known as Divine Mercy Sunday. Once again, this year we will have the traditional Divine Mercy Devotions at the church beginning at 3 p.m. All are welcome to attend!
During the winter season, our weekly Monday Eucharistic Adoration was moved to 3 p.m. to accommodate our members who did not want to drive in the dark. Starting April 8, we will be moving back to a 6 p.m. start time. April 8, Holy Hour will be dedicated to praying for an increase to the response for vocations. We will pray that we can all respond to our baptismal call/duty to proclaim the message of God’s love in the world as priests, deacons, religious/consecrated women and men and as married people. This is in cooperation with our newly formed parish vocation ministry. This committee works within the program of our Archdiocesan Vocation Ministry.
One of the big events in the parish is the annual cemetery clean-up for the St. Joseph Cemetery on Hill Street. The clean-up will take place on Saturday, April 27. Members of our Knights of Columbus will be clearing away any remaining Christmas decorations and other old plantings. The American flags on the graves of our veterans will be removed as well. The flags will be replaced with new ones by Memorial Day. Please note if there are any items on your family grave site that you would like to retain, please remove them before April 26.
We are now also able to stream not only our weekend Masses but also our daily Masses. For those who are unable to join us in person, especially during the week, the streaming is on our parish Facebook page, Sacred Heart, Suffield CT and our parish website at www.sacredheartct.com.