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“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” 

(Luke 6:36)

"The practice of pilgrimage has a special place in the Holy Year, 
because it represents the journey each of us makes in this life. 
Life itself is a pilgrimage and the human being is a visitor, 
a pilgrim traveling along the road, making his way."
Pope Francis

During the Holy Year there will be opportunities for Exposition and Sacrament of the Sick, TBA; 

Pilgrims are encouraged to add petitions to our Book of Prayers for the Faithful, 

Add names to our Book of the Faithful Departed,

Place petitions in our prayer wall (in our parking lot).  

       Pilgrims may also bring canned goods for our food pantry.

                                                                  Click here for the Prayer of Pope Francis for the Jubilee Year of Mercy

It is hard to believe that the Holy Year of Mercy officially closes next Sunday, November 13 in all local churches. 

The official closing of the Holy Year of Mercy at St Peter and Chains Cathedral will take place Saturday, November 19. Our Bishops are at a meeting of Bishops the week of November 13 so Archbishop Schnurr will not be able to do the closing of the Holy Year until November 19. 

The ritual is very simple. After the prayer after communion, I will ask you to join me in prayer of thanksgiving for God’s mercy and the ways we are able to celebrate it and will continue to celebrate it in the Sacraments and the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. 

Mary became aware of the Lord’s mercy in her life when the angel announced to her that she was going to be the mother of Jesus and she sang her Magnificat. We will all sing the Magnificat together and the final blessing and dismissal follows. 

Although the Holy Year comes to a close, receiving and living with God’s mercy never ends. May we always be merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful.


Please come to the parish office.

Sunday - 10:00am - 4:00pm

Monday to Friday - 9:00am - 3:00pm

Adoration:  anytime church is open




Francis: “Our passing through the Holy Door today
may commit us to making our own
the mercy of the Good Samaritan.”


THE ROLE OF THE CHURCH: 

Mercy is the very foundation of the Church’s life. All of her pastoral activity should be caught up in the tenderness she makes present to believers; nothing in her preaching and in her witness to the world can be lacking in mercy. The Church’s very credibility is seen in how she shows merciful and compassionate love. The Church “has an endless desire to show mercy.” Perhaps we have long since forgotten how to show and live the way of mercy. The temptation, on the one hand, to focus exclusively on justice made us forget that this is only the first, albeit necessary and indispensable step. But the Church needs to go beyond and strive for a higher and more important goal. On the other hand, sad to say, we must admit that the practice of mercy is waning in the wider culture. In some cases the word seems to have dropped out of use. However, without a witness to mercy, life becomes fruitless and sterile, as if sequestered in a barren desert. The time has come for the Church to take up the joyful call to mercy once more. It is time to return to the basics and to bear the weaknesses and struggles of our brothers and sisters. Mercy is the force that reawakens us to new life and instils in us the courage to look to the future with hope. The Church is commissioned to announce the mercy of God, the beating heart of the Gospel, which in its own way must penetrate the heart and mind of every person. The Spouse of Christ must pattern her behavior after the Son of God who went out to everyone without exception. In the present day, as the Church is charged with the task of the new evangelization, the theme of mercy needs to be proposed again and again with new enthusiasm and renewed pastoral action. It is absolutely essential for the Church and for the credibility of her message that she herself live and testify to mercy. Her language and her gestures must transmit mercy, so as to touch the hearts of all people and inspire them once more to find the road that leads to the Father. The Church’s first truth is the love of Christ. The Church makes herself a servant of this love and mediates it to all people: a love that forgives and expresses itself in the gift of oneself. Consequently, wherever the Church is present, the mercy of the Father must be evident. In our parishes, communities, associations and movements, in a word, wherever there are Christians, everyone should find an oasis of mercy.

Pope Francis, Miserircordiae Vultus, 10, 12

Vatican website for:  the Holy Year of Mercy

Misericordia Vultus:
Bull of indiction of the Jubilee of Mercy

Thursday in Spanish - 7:00pm

Saturday in Spanish - 6:00pm

Sunday in English and Kirundi - 10:30am




An invitation to St. Leo Church and Parish: 

We have been invited by Archbishop Schnurr through the Worship Office of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati to participate in the Holy Year of Mercy by being a designated “Pilgrim Church Site.” 

We are one of several churches throughout the Archdiocese that have been named as pilgrim sites for the Holy Year of Mercy. This means that we are open to visitors throughout the year who may want to make a pilgrimage to our church for prayer and the Sacrament of Reconciliation. To quote Karen Kane, The Director of the Worship Office for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, “Perhaps the most important task is that the parish truly be a sign of the love and mercy of Christ (which is the reason St. Leo is being asked). Whether through acts of mercy, such as a food pantry, or through special care for the marginalized, or through liturgy that invites people into the mercy of God and sends them out to live the mercy of God, or through some other special program, St. Leo Parish will be an “oasis of mercy” for those who come through your door of mercy. 


Moments of Mercy

Meditations on Mercy

Thursday evenings after 7:00pm mass,
by appointment

Saturday - 5:00 - 5:30pm
and after 6:00pm mass,
by appointment

Some Sunday afternoons - TBA,
by appointment


A holy door or porta sancta has been used since the fifteenth century as a ritual expression of conversion. Pilgrims and penitents pass through it as a gesture of leaving the past behind and crossing the threshold from sin to grace, from slavery to freedom, and from darkness to light. Often these rituals are associated with prayer, pilgrimage, sacrifice, confession, and indulgences. But the door finds meaning only when the believer associates the door with Christ. Jesus is the Door! In the words of Pope Francis, “There is only one way that opens wide the entrance into the life of communion with God: this is Jesus, the one and absolute way to salvation. To him alone can the words of the Psalmist be applied in full truth: ‘This is the door of the Lord where the just may enter’ (Ps 118:20).”

Saint John Paul II offers a similar exhortation: "To focus on the door is to recall the responsibility of every believer to cross its threshold. To pass through that door means to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord; it is to strengthen faith in him in order to live the new life which he has given us. It is a decision which presumes freedom to choose and also the courage to leave something behind, in the knowledge that what is gained is divine life [cf. Mt 13:44-46]” (Saint John Paul II, Incarnationis Mysterium, 8, in the year 2000).

John’s gospel clearly depicts this relationship between Jesus and us. “Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life, and have it more abundantly” (John 10:7-10).

It is fitting that a Holy Door be situated within a church building. The door of the Church is the ianua ecclesia– “the silent witness to all the moments of our lives” (USCCB,About the Jubilee Door,1999). Often sacramental rituals begin at the door–here, the priest or deacon welcomes the parents as they bring their child for baptism; here, he greets the bride and groom as they begin the wedding liturgy; here, he greets the catechumens at the Rite of Acceptance; and, finally, the priest greets the casket at the beginning of the funeral liturgy. Therefore, let us create Holy Doors in our cathedrals or other significant churches which can be worthy symbols of Christ and a welcome invitation to seek Him within our communities of faith.

Just How Does the Holy Door Work?