Message from Msgr. Schwanger
My Dear Family of Our Lady of Lourdes,
Summer is over and the Youth and Young Adult groups are starting to meet again on campus. We have youth groups for elementary school students, for middle school students, for high school students, and for college students as they expand their engagement in the life of the parish through the young adult group of the parish.
These groups are where the catechetical formation that our youth receive is expanded and lived out in practice. Sunday Mass attendance, home-based learning of the essentials of the faith, and our on-campus youth ministry provide both a foundation and continuing formation that supports our young people as they live their life in Christ.
A particular blessing that our young adults have enjoyed for years and that I would like to see opened up to all our youth is the pilgrimage to Lourdes. When Archbishop Wenski was in Lourdes with us in 2019, he had lunch with all the bishops who were at Lourdes with their diocesan pilgrimages. Those bishops told the Archbishop of the powerful blessing that the pilgrimage to Lourdes has been for the youth of their dioceses and for their parishes. The youth experience the faith alive in the universal Church and bring that spiritual fire home.
It is important that the Lady of Lourdes parish family expands the participation of our young people and their families in that pilgrimage. The pilgrimage to Lourdes is so important that the parish covers the first $1000 of the cost of the pilgrimage for our youth and young adults. I would like us all to focus on helping to make this blessing a reality. It is a central to what our Blessed Mother is doing through us and for us and of course, through them and for them.
Msgr. Schwanger
Pastor