PSA 2014

Our Lady of La Vang parish is launching the campaign for the 2014 Pastoral Services Appeal (PSA). The Diocese of Orange is comprised of 62 parishes and 4 pastoral centers. It would be impossible to accommodate the various minis-try and organizational needs that the diocese provides without the ongoing support of the PSA. We would like to remind you that you are an important part of the parish family and the larger family of the Diocese of Orange. With the start of the new calendar year, you are encouraged to pledge what you can to support the 2014 Pastoral Services Appeal. Each parish has an established diocesan contributions target. Once that goal has been met, all other funds automatically revert to the parish itself. This PSA feature has become an important asset to our parish as these additional funds have enabled building projects, educational upgrades and other important parish-based improvements to occur. Please pledge generously so we can together say that we are “Proud to be Catholic”.

Dear Parishioners of Our Lady of La Vang,

We just started the Lenten Season with Ash Wednesday. The Church reminds all of us throughout these forty days that we are called to practice: Prayer, fasting and almsgiving. I ask all of you to use this special occasion in order to live out the values of our Lenten faith and commitments. I invite the Vietnamese Parishioners to the Mission this coming Friday and Saturday March 14 and 15, with Father Thinh Pham, professor from St John Seminary in Camarillo. He will help us to reflect on the life of Jesus. The Spanish Community please continues the Mission with Father Tim Peters on Thursdays Mach 13 and 20 from 6pm. Please continue to pledge for 2014 PSA. Have a holy Lent!

Lent is a time to look at our temptations, sin and the consequences. During Lent, we are challenged to die to sin so that we may rise again to the new life in the Risen Christ. Today’s readings give us the notion that testing comes to us by an outside agency – the devil. However, the Good News is that, though we are tempted and often succumb, God’s grace provides the way of salvation for us. Prayer, penance and acts of charity enable us to defeat our temptations.

The first reading, taken from the book of Genesis describes the “Original Temptation" – “You will be like gods, knowing what is good and what is evil." Adam and Eve were given the possibility of making a choice to live for God, dependent upon and obedient to His will, or to say no to God. The temptation to evil led Adam and Eve to an act of faithlessness and sin. In contrast, today’s Gospel from St. Matthew shows us how Jesus Christ conquered temptation by relying on faith in God's Word and authority. In the second reading, St. Paul describes how the disobedience of Adam who fell to Satan’s Original temptation brought him and us death and a broken relationship with God. Paul explains that just as sin and death came through Adam, salvation and life come through Christ. Christ regained for us the right relationship with God which Paul calls justification and which comes to us as undeserved grace. Today’s Gospel teaches us how the "desert experience" of fasting, praying, and soul-strengthening enabled Jesus to confront his temptations successfully and then to preach the Good News of salvation. The Gospel also prescribes a dual action plan for Lent: (1) We should confront our temptations and conquer them as Jesus did, by fasting, prayer and the Word of God. (2) We should renew our lives by true repentance and live the Good News of God’s love, mercy and forgiveness. Hence, during this Lent, let us confront our evil tendencies by prayer (especially by participating in the holy Mass), by penance and by meditative reading of the Bible.

Your humble servant in Jesus Christ and Our Lady of La Vang
Reverend Joseph Luan Nguyen- Pastor