Kaukauna Catholic Parishes

Each year during Lent, we are given this amazing opportunity to journey into the desert with Christ. This journey is meant to open us up to the transforming power of God’s unconditional love. By dying to self, we are offered, through the mercy of God, the ability to rise to new life. In other words, the Lenten journey is a focus on the transforming power of God. 

Over the years, this journey has opened me up to healing, hope, the difficulty of letting go, the challenge of surrendering to God’s will and ultimately Resurrection. 

We are called to come to a fuller understanding of ourselves, others and the obstacles that keep us from the life God wants for us and the fullness of life we are meant to have.  

The transformation process is about being molded by the love of God into the very image and likeness of Jesus Christ. Make no mistake - sometimes the molding we experience is extremely painful. Yet it is always done in love and mercy and always brings us to Resurrection.

Lent is a season that invites us to be bold and courageous, to be rigorously honest and to be extremely vulnerable. It is about placing our lives in the hands of God and surrendering to God’s will.

In my spiritual journey, some of the fruits that I have experienced include a better understanding of who I am as a child of God, an openness to Christ that is encountered through my brothers and sisters of faith and the humbling reality of
realizing I had made some grave errors and
because of this needed healing and mercy. 

As a family of believers continuing our journey into Lent this year, let us seek to encourage each
other, take bold risks together and help each other discover in the process of dying to self to come to the glory of Resurrection. 

Here are some suggestions that might help you experience the transformation this year:

* Reflect about each station of the Cross and how  

  we have had an experience similar to Christ.  

  (Ex: Carrying a particular cross, being betrayed 

   or abandoned, surrendering to God will.
* Spend time in adoration.
* Seek the experience of Reconciliation
  (especially if you haven’t in some time.)
* Go to the parish mission.
* Find ways as a family to reach out to others. 
* Find a prayer partner for Lent.
* Keep a Mass journal.
* Commit to doing random acts of kindness.
* Spend time reaching and reflecting on the Word of God. 

Lent is about the transforming power of God’s love.  May this Lent lead you to the glory of the
Resurrection in new and powerful ways. 

Peace and Joy,   
Fr. Don Everts, Pastor
Holy Cross & St. Katharine Drexel Parishes