I was really happy to see a lot of people at our recent Penance Service. Given that a number of people went to Confession during the 24 hours of Adoration the previous week, I expected less people than usual at our Penance Service. But lots of you were there, testifying to your faith in Jesus' mercy and the power of Confession!

As we begin Holy Week, I want to encourage everyone to make a real effort to come to Church on both Holy Thursday (7 PM) and Good Friday (3 PM). Our church really should be filled on those most holy days. Indeed, if you can get to church on those days, you really should. They are the days on which Jesus gave us His greatest gift – His Body and Blood, offered on the Cross to take away our sins so we can have eternal life in Heaven! Our presence in church on Holy Thursday and Good Friday is a token of our appreciation of all that He did.

Can you believe that next Sunday is Palm Sunday? It's amazing how quickly time passes! Palms will be blessed and distributed at all Masses next weekend. I look forward to celebrating Palm Sunday and entering Holy Week with all of you.

I want to congratulate the Girl Scouts who received their religious medals last Sunday. These girls put in a great deal of time learning about our Catholic Faith and completing the requirements for these medals. They also learned about Our Lady of Fatima and earned a special patch for doing so. It's good to see so many girls making such an effort to grow in their Faith!

Remember that there will be a Penance Service in Church tomorrow (Monday) evening at 7 PM. At least ten priests will be there to help hear Confessions. As usual, there will be old friends (like Fr. Juan Carlos and Fr. James) and priests you probably never met. My hope is that having so many priests will make it easy to go to Confession and experience God's healing mercy.

I want to begin by thanking everyone who either helped out at last week's Ministry Fair in Mercy Hall. Thanks also to those who stopped by to learn more about what goes on in our parish. The attendance varied a great deal between the Masses – and it would have been even nicer to see a few more people there. But those I spoke to at the Fair seemed to enjoy it. I know that several families got information about CCD, some new parishioners met new friends in our parish, and some folks who visited after the Spanish Mass spoke with the Food for the Needy representative about how they could get more involved as a group in that and other ministries to the local poor. I was happy to hear that!

Lent is off to a great start in our parish. It was nice to see lots of people at Church on Ash Wednesday. There was a good number at Stations of the Cross on Friday – and an upturn in Daily Mass attendance. I'm happy to see so many people making the most of this holy season.

There are still some copies of the book The Case for Jesus. This book, which was given out on Ash Wednesday, is a good thing to read for Lent. It makes the historical case for the truth about Jesus, and refutes a lot of the nonsense that we hear too often.