St. Michael's Parish is very happy to announce that rolling out "Open Our Hearts" in Lent 2022 for our parishioners to accompany our spiritual journey through the holy season of Lent.
"Open Our Hearts" is a small faith sharing program developed by Paulist Evangelization Ministries for parishes to augment and enhance the Lenten journey in the parish.
Take time this Lent to engage with scripture and reflect on different aspects of your spiritual life with Open Our Hearts. Look at how you live out your faith at home, in your parish, and in the world. Connect at a deeper level with the Sunday gospels and take time every day to reflect and pray.
As the name suggests, this process is designed to be implemented within several small groups in the parish. The groups size and the design of the program allows for members of the group to share their individual faith and experiences with each other, enhancing the faith of the whole group.
We have implemented some form of Small Faith-Sharing Groups several times over the last 7-8 years. In the past, these have included "Lenten Longings", "ARISE", and "Living the Eucharist". Feedback from those previous programs has reflected a deeper level of spiritual engagement in each season.
The program is structured in six sessions, or meetings. Each group would meet once per week for approximately 90 minutes each time. This is an excellent structure of the Season of Lent. Each weekly small-group session includes scripture, prayer and reflections along with concrete ways to live out that faith. The book also provides a meditation and reflection question for each weekday of Lent.
For the optimum group dynamics which have been The program is structured in six sessions, or meetings. Each group would meet once per week for approximately 90 minutes each time. This is an excellent structure for the Season of Lent.
The groups meet either in a home of one of the group members, or at the parish in one of the parish classrooms available. The group leader arranges for the meeting place and selects a time to best accomodate the group members' needs.
When registering for "Open Our Hearts" each person selects a primary of backup day of the week and approx. time of day (such as morning or evening) that will work for his/her schedule. The registration process places registrants in groups that accommodate there scheduling requests.
The basic focus of each of the six meeting sessions involves study and sharing of the Gospels of each of the six Sundays of Lent. This suggests that the program ideally needs to begin in the week prior to the First Sunday of Lent and end before Palm Sunday.
Referring to the section above (planned dates for the program to begin and end), we need to strive to do most of the registration concluding with this weekend (Feb. 26-27). We will have a table in the Family Life Center hallway with "Open Our Hearts" team members available to assist registration after all Masses. Registration will continue to be available via our parish website, www.smlj.org, or by contacting Mike Caserta (see below).
For help in registering, don't hesitate to contact:
Mike Caserta
mikecaserta@gmail.com
Home: (979) 297-6054
Cell: (979) 236-2635