Dear Parishioners, Guess what? Lent begins a month from today! Most of us don’t get as excited about Lent as we do at the beginning of Advent and Christmas. Yet the upcoming season of Lent is always a great occasion for us to look at our interior spiritual life. The beginning of Lent, February 22,is also the time that your priests can start using a new prayer for the celebration of confession. A new, revised book for the Sacrament of Penance has been published (and copies have been ordered for the parish) and will be arriving in just a few days. Similar to the revised Missal that was put into use over 10 years ago, there are a few words that are going to be changed. Most notably, some of the words in the prayer of absolution that the priest uses will be different. We are definitely going to ease into this transition as we have a few weeks to get used to this before all priests have to start using the new form on Divine Mercy Sunday. Thankfully, there are not as many changes to the prayers as we had in the missal transition. But we will also have some additional options and other resources to choose from for our penance services. When we get the official copy of this new book in our hands during the next few weeks, I will take some time to introduce you to a few of these changes as we start to incorporate them during confessions in Lent. Thanks for reading! Fr. Mark