Vol. 2, No. 10 Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Please note: The Wednesday Update will take a break while the Pastoral Center offices are moved. It will return on Wednesday, April 3.

Pastoral Center closes Monday, March 25

The Diocesan Pastoral Center will be moving into its new location at Cathedral Square, at 192 S. Stone Ave., Building #2, the week of March 25.  As of 4:30 p.m. on Monday, March 25, the switchboard at the existing Pastoral Center and diocese offices will close to the public.  The offices will reopen at the new location just north of St. Augustine Cathedral on Monday, April 1 at 8 a.m.

Please note that email will be out of service for one or more days, and that Pastoral Center staff may not be able to view or respond to email for one or more days during the week-long closure. When the offices reopen, all phone numbers and emails will be the same as before the move.

How is your Lent going?

Check out Bishop Weisenburger’s Lenten Minutes on our diocesan homepage at www.diocesetucson.org. Each week, Bishop suggests ideas for meditation or different ideas to ponder.  Look for the icon above to locate the video at the diocese homepage or view the video on Bishop Weisenburger’s Facebook page.

The video for the Third Sunday of Lent will be posted on Friday.

Prayer & Action

Registration now open to teens enrolled in high school

This is the second year that our diocese is sponsoring its Prayer & Action program for young Catholics.

Prayer & Action is a program that brings high school aged youths together to work at a mission service retreat where they help elderly or other homeowners with yard work, painting or cleaning. 

Prayer & Action is a six-day (and five night) summer camp.  Kids are dropped off at a host location at noon on Sunday and picked the following Friday at noon. The experience emphasizes service to others. There is work, but also fun and games and prayer. It is a program that was successful in my last  diocese and very much taught teens by giving them a better understanding of the needs of others, what they could do to help, and how wonderful it is to  be of service.

It is our hope that the experiences gained in Prayer & Action programs can become the starting ground for these teens to consider future ministries and careers dedicated to others.

Prayer & Action provides a great opportunity to take a week or two in the summer to help others, to make new friends and to develop new perspectives about the world around us. 

I encourage teens, their parents and guardians to take a look at Prayer and Action and consider whether it might be a good way to spend time this summer.  

See the graphic for more details. There is a registration fee of $50.

Upcoming

Lüthen Lecture Series

This series (named for an early Salvatorian priest) is intended to help enrich the faith and ministry of those who serve in official capacities in parish and school communities, as well as for the people in the pews.

Here are the next two presentations:

Lisa Hendey

Thursday, March 28

 St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church, 7 p.m.

5150 N. Valley View Road in Tucson

Today's families are busier and more in need of the graces of the Church and the promise of the Gospel than ever before. Lisa Hendey, founder of CatholicMom.com, delivers a model for busy families partnering with their parish, school and communities, providing tools to more efficiently form the faith of their children, including how to relate lovingly with teenage, young adult, and adult children who separate themselves from the Church. Lisa is a bestselling author of books for adults and children and serves as editor-at-large for Ave Maria Press. Her "Chime Travelers" fiction series is being read and studied nationwide and she is a frequent television and radio guest. She has traveled worldwide with non-profit organizations to support humanitarian missions and has spoken internationally on faith, family and technology.

Film: The New Stained Glass Window

Brother Antonio Sison, CPPS

Thursday, April 4

Corpus Christi Catholic Church, 7 p.m.

300 N. Tanque Verde Loop Road

What if film, as a new stained-glass window, can help us to see the mystery of faith within the contradictions of the world, and to rouse our passion for worship, reconciliation, and greater human flourishing? Brother Antonio "Ton" Sison, CPPS, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, introduces us to the imaginative and thought-provoking inter-discipline of Theology and Film where image births into insight. Br. Ton has given lectures and presentations both within the United States and internationally (Kenya, Indonesia, Mexico, the Netherlands, among others). He has served as co-chair and member of the Religion, Film, and Visual Culture group of the American Academy of Religion (AAR), and as co-editor of New Theology Review. Paying attention to "what the world is watching," Ton also serves as film critic of world cinema for the National Catholic Reporter.

The presentations are free of charge.