| Ecclesia Semper Reformanda
(The Church is always in Need of Renewal)
Bishop Nickless's Pastoral Letter on the Future of the Church in the Diocese of Sioux City.
Click HERE for letter
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Bishop Nickless's
Lenten Letter
Tempus fugit - time flees. It hardly seems a year since my last Lenten letter to you. We celebrate Ash Wednesday this year on February 17 as thus begin a special journey of grace. The forty days of Lent are truly a gift to us and a special time to enter into prayer and fasting with our Lord. The penances that we keep, the fasting, abstaining from meat and the things we "give up" are all meant to change us not just in preparation for Easter, but also for the rest of our lives. We want to get to heaven and Lent gives us time to once again wean ourselves away from the sins, failures and temptations that make the journey to holiness so difficult.
Lent offers us a blessed reminder of that need always to renew our praise to God. Every year, every day, every minute, He gives us countless gifts from His divine mercy. Every material and spiritual good thing we have, we have only from the one benevolent Giver. It is so easy to take this truth for granted, and to fail to praise and thank God every day. Lent helps us remember to do so, by confronting us once again with our baptismal call to holiness. How shall we strive to be more like Christ, to love God more, to praise Him more gratefully?
The readings for Holy Mass on Ash Wednesday exemplify this Lenten return to God. We will hear the prophet Joel say, “Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God” (2:12-13). We will sing with King David, “O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will proclaim your praise” (Psalm 51:17). And we will hear Christ in St. Matthew’s Gospel, teaching us how to pray, fast, and give alms so as to please our Heavenly Father (Mt 6:1-18).
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