Please join Saint Philip and Saint Thomas More parishioners for a Movie Night Friday, March 28 at the Regal Ballston Quarter in Arlington for a showing of the new release of The Chosen, “The Last Supper.” Show time is 6:30 pm. Season 5 focuses on Holy Week, leading to Jesus' arrest and betrayal. This first episode begins with the events on what is now Palm Sunday with Jesus's entry into Jerusalem on a donkey.

Ticket sales open on Wednesday, March 19. The theater is reserved for our parishes only, and we will celebrate the participation in the filming of the movie by our common Lector, May Respicio. Theatre costs have been reduced thanks to the generosity of a parishioner, and the event is only possible thanks to the support of Fathers Posey and Donahue. Open early as seats are limited.

Doors will open at 5:30 pm. There will be a short greeting before the movie and a Q&A session immediately after, hosted by Saint Philip’s Sister Marie Benedict. May Respicio and her friend who served as extras for the filming will discuss and answer your questions about their experiences.

The button above will take you to a registration form available on the webpage of the Cathedral of Saint Thomas More where you can order tickets.

Each Friday in Lent, St. Philip will have bilingual Stations of the Cross after the 7 pm Mass, followed by Adoration

Wednesday in Lent, The Light is On. Confession will be held at 6:30 pm before the 7 pm Mass, in addition to the regular Confession schedule.

Take part in the Lenten Scripture Challenge, and use the booklets below to read the daily Gospel passages.

The Vatican, the Diocese of Arlington, and the USCCB have prepared many materials to help us celebrate this milestone in the Catholic Church.

This Lent join us for a series of talks and discussion over 5 weeks that will deepen your understanding of the Good News of Jesus Christ and his gift of the Spirit. These talks will be presented by members of the People of Praise Community. For more information and to register contact: John Mitchell @ 703-855-8976 or jhwmitchell@yahoo.com.



St. Philip has chartered a bus to take parishioners to Richmond for the March. We will have a special Mass at 7:00 am, then depart at 8:00 am from the parking lot. After participating the march, we will leave Richmond and return by around 4:30 pm.

Reserve your spot by using the button below and register on our Signup Genius site. Questions can be sent to Matthew Lang at matthew.r.lang95@gmail.com

Dear Friends in Christ,

I hope and pray that this season of Lent has been fruitful for you. Here at the 3rd Sunday of Lent, we are just about at the halfway point of this season. Even though it may seem that Easter is far away, these days of preparation are a gift from God to refine our souls.

This week, I invite us to continue our journey through the Seven Vices by focusing our attention on the vice of gluttony. Gluttony is the vice that causes us to have an inordinate desire for eating or drinking. As human beings created with a body, we naturally need to sustain our bodies through the food and drink that we consume. However, if we allow food and drink to dominate our lives, we can easily be ruled by an inordinate desire to make them the goal of our daily lives.

The vice of gluttony attacks our human nature by distorting our desires for the pleasures we experience in this world. Just as the gift of our sexuality can be distorted by inordinate desires, so too our appetite for food can be distorted. Both our desire for sexual intimacy and our desire for food are linked because they both are instrumental and necessary for the preservation of the human species. Unfortunately, if our desire for these natural pleasures become our center of attention and become obstacles in our relationship with God, then they can easily dominate our lives as vices.

St. Thomas Aquinas shows us that there are a number of different ways in which we can fall into the vice of gluttony.

1. We can fall into gluttony when we desire and choose to have sumptuous food because of how costly it is compared with other foods. We see this especially in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus when we are told that the rich man dined sumptuously every day (Lk. 16:19). We are told that for his lavish lifestyle, this man ended up suffering great pain while Lazarus was carried to the bosom of Abraham.
2. We can also fall into gluttony by being inordinately concerned about the quality of the food. If we become overly occupied in the way that food is presented to us, and only choosing food that is properly prepared according to our tastes. As Jesus tells us in the Gospels, “Do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” (Mt. 6:25)
3. Another way we can fall into the vice of gluttony is by being overly concerned with, and indulging in, the quantity of the food we consume. This is the type of gluttony that we are most familiar with, especially in our culture that has an excess of access to food in our daily lives.
4. Finally, we can fall into the vice of gluttony in the way we consume our food, either in a hasty manner when we do not give ourselves sufficient time to eat, or when we eat with a greedy manner that focuses our attention simply on the food itself. Food is meant to give us nourishment and pleasure, but not in a way that makes us indiscriminately consume it.

In the end, food is such an incredible gift that God has given to us. He himself made himself food for us in the Eucharist. We are called to make him the true food for our lives by coming to him humbly in the Mass. 

May Christ’s Peace be with you,

Fr. Briggs