Sacred Heart Church

 Announces Lenten Workshops

SOUTHBURY — “In Your Hearing, Luke Tells the Good News” is the theme of Lenten Workshop Sunday being presented on March 25, at Sacred Heart Church in Southbury. Attendees will begin this rich and varied experience with a light lunch at noon followed by two workshop sessions, ending with a prayer service from 3:30 to 4 pm. The workshops have been designed to help participants focus on the special way in which the Lenten message comes to them, here and now, and how they may best respond to it.

The presenters for Lenten Workshop Sunday are all known for their diverse backgrounds and their animated styles of presentation. Rev James Stewart, a favorite workshop leader throughout this area, is back again. Rev Stewart, OFM Cap., currently hospital chaplain at Westchester Medical Center, as well as spiritual director for the Secular Franciscan Fraternity at Sacred Heart, will present “Sing Joyfully! Luke’s Canticle of Praise Then and Now,” exploring evidence that the first Christians incorporated psalms from their Jewish heritage and their own hymns into daily worship.

Sister Jeanne McGorry CSJ is Director of the Mariandale Retreat and Conference Center in Ossining, N.Y. While pastoral assistant in Our Lady of Lourdes parish in Queens, she established the Bethsaida Spirituality Center. Sister Jeanne will present “Mary and the Women in Luke’s Gospel,” detailing the special attention Luke gives to women in his version of the story of Christ’s life.

“On the Road to Enmaus: the Church in the 21st Century” will explore where the church is today in relationship to the excitement following Vatican Council II. Rev Thomas Ptastzynski, a fellow seminarian of Father Flynn of Sacred Heart, is pastor of Our Lady of the Lakes in New Milford. Father Tom will engage workshop participants in a discussion of present realities, asking what the church will be like if we bring the documents of the Council to fruition.

Registration forms for Lenten Workshop Sunday are available at Sacred Heart Church, Main Street South, Southbury, Conn. This program, presented by the CORE Education Committee of the church, invites you to discover that the Jubilee message of 2000 continues in Luke’s Lenten message of 2001.