It is Lent again. For many of us this means a time of sacrificing a favorite food or activity with the idea that this will challenge us to call out in need to our God over the course of the next six weeks. It may entail an added activity or volunteer opportunity that, hopefully, will again remind us to be more focused on our relationship with our Savior, Jesus Christ. If you are like me, you have developed a “Lenten Routine” that has been pretty much the same for years now. One thing I always like to add during the season of Lent is a special Prayer or intention for the whole season. In years past, as in this year, our parish has had the shared special intention of praying for and sacrificially giving to our sister parish in Haiti, Saint Eugene’s. Usually we give out our “Haiti Bowls” and a copy of a prayer for Haiti on Ash Wednesday and collect them over the course of the Lent. This year we are in the unfortunate situation of not being able to distribute them to everyone due to Covid-19. This does not mean that we will not be doing anything for our sister in Haiti. I am going to ask that you take home a copy of the Haiti Prayer with you and that you use it to pray with during this season. (If you are currently not attending mass the prayer may also be found on our parish website and Facebook page.) Pray it with your family at dinner or at bedtime. Put it on your refrigerator or your bathroom mirror to remind yourself to pray for our brothers and sisters in Haiti. While you are using this prayer over the course of Lent I also want you to consider giving a gift to our Parish Haiti Fund. The monies donated to our Parish Haiti Fund are sent to Haiti, none of it is used here in the parish so this is a separate donation than the money put in our collections each week and needs to be marked as such. In years past we have sent $5000.00 to Haiti, the vast majority of which was collected in our Haiti Bowls. Last year because of the shutdown we were only able to send $3,000.00. It would be nice to be able to return to our previous figure, but anything is helpful. So let us pray this special Parish intention for our friends in Haiti all through Lent and may we be generous in our financial support of them as well.