Announcing a Deanery Day of Prayer and Penance
09/16/2018
We invite all Catholics in the
greater Fort Smith-Van Buren area to a “Day of Prayer and Penance” for the
sexual abuse scandal in the Church. First and foremost we will pray for healing
for the victims, and secondly, for renewal in the Catholic Church.
We will retrieve an ancient
biblical practice of fasting and abstinence (see Jesus’ fasting in the desert
in Mt. 3), and treat Friday, September 21, 2018 essentially like Good Friday.
That is, we will abstain from eating meat and eat only one normal meal and two
smaller meals (think: two snacks) that day.
At 6 p.m. Friday evening, the
priests of the deanery will celebrate a Mass at Christ the King in honor of St.
Matthew (whose feast day is Sept. 21), and for the intention of “reparation of
sins.” Immediately following the Mass, we will hold a Holy Hour with Exposition
of the Blessed Sacrament, a period of silence, and recitation of the Divine
Mercy Chaplet.
Finally, we suggest you consider
the on-going personal penance of abstaining from meat on all Fridays, as well
as possibly daily recitation of the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel,
ideally included at the end of the Rosary. These practices are part of the
much-needed spiritual renewal of the Church.
When the disciples could not expel
an especially stubborn demon, they were perplexed and asked, “Why could we not
expel it?” Jesus answered them, “This kind does not come out except by prayer
and fasting” (Mt. 17:21). May our prayer and fasting rid the Church of the
stubborn demon of sexual abuse!
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