Lenten Opportunities

Happy Lent! We’re off to a good start here at Gesu. Even with the weather on Wednesday, we saw close to a thousand people come through our doors to receive ashes.

There were lots of things going on in the days leading up to Lent as well. As you can see from the minutes below, the pastoral council had a busy meeting on February 13 which generated some significant news.

Basilica Committee: Over the past several months a committee of parishioners has been exploring the process for applying for the designation of minor basilica. We have received initial approval from the Archdiocese and the Midwest Province of the Society of Jesus to move forward with the application. We’ll communicate much more about what this means for us in the coming weeks.

Parish Goals: The council approved goals to shape our next few years. The next steps will be to articulate more specific objectives to move us toward those goals.

Capital Campaign Feasibility Study: One of the key findings of the study was that in general the parish supports a campaign but wants to know more about the various projects. We still have significant work to do in refining the plans for the upper church and determining a process for making decisions about the project and the campaign. We will have extensive discussions in the months to come. Thanks again to all who participated in the feasibility study.

Finally, please note a couple of Lenten opportunities coming up.
Wednesdays with Ignatius: Fr. Doug Leonhardt, S.J. will offer some input and experience of Ignatian prayer on Wednesday evenings during Lent beginning this coming week.

Novena of Grace: Fr. Michael Simone, S.J. will preach the Novena of Grace of St. Francis Xavier from March 4-12. The Novena of Grace is a traditional Jesuit devotion in the days leading up to the anniversary of the canonization of St. Ignatius and St. Francis Xavier.

Please see below for more on both of these opportunities for prayer this Lent.
Blessings on your Lenten journey!

Fr. Ben