October 24, 1999 |
Today, with Catholics throughout the world, we are called to offer our special prayers and generous financial support, through the Propagation of the Faith, for the worldwide mission of Jesus.
Whom do we help? Mission priests, Sisters, Brothers, lay catechists, mission seminarians and Religious novices.
What do they do for the people they serve? They offer the Good News of Jesus and they are good news as, in His name, they nourish spirits, teach young minds, heal the sick, and strive for justice.
Please be as generous as possible. What we offer today will help missions around the world and here in the United States. And, please, pray every day for missionaries and for those they serve.
In a parish that has more than one Mass every weekend it is hard to notice those who are missing especially if you attend Mass at the same time every week. It is very likely that you don't even get to know all of the folks that attend the same Mass. Being creatures of habit we tend to sit in nearly the same spot every week and MAYBE we know those who sit around us and MAYBE we notice if one of them is not there and don't ask about his or her welfare. Yet we are called to be concerned about one another. We are called to visit the sick and the lonely and give them Christ's love and concern. If we can't go in person we can at least call on the phone or send a card. Showing Christ's love for one another can transform our community!
SAINT OF THE WEEK, October 28 - St. Jude. St. Jude, brother of James the Less and relative of Jesus, was also known as "Thaddeus." He is best known as the patron of desperate cases. Ancient writers tell us that he preached the Gospel in Judea, Samaria, Idumaca, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Lybia. According to Eusebius, he returned to Jerusalem in 62 and assisted at the election of his brother St. Simeon, as Bishop of Jerusalem. He is the author of an epistle to the Churches of the East. He suffered martyrdom in Armenia. Little is known of Jude's life. St. Jude is called upon in desperate situations because his New Testament letter stresses that the faithful should persevere through harsh and difficult circumstances, just as their forefathers had done before them.
Trick or treat! Yes, folks Halloween is fast approaching. It won't be long before a vigorous chorus of "Trick or Treat" will follow a ringing doorbell. This is a golden opportunity to discover the sacred hidden within practices that are becoming more and more secular. The marketing specialists have stolen so much of the sacred, and repackaged it in such a way that could be described as the "least common denominator" of my boyhood mathematics. Halloween means the Eve of All Hallows or the night before All Saints Day. It is a night that "spook is loose." Let your imagination try to picture the migration of souls in purgatory as they are released to heaven for the celebration of their feast day--the unnamed saints or All Saints. It's a wild night. So it really isn't the night of the Great Pumpkin, but the night of All Saints. It is the night of my mother and father, grandparents, and all those I've so often recalled in prayer and that all-inclusive expression "our beloved dead." Probably that is where the practice of costumes derived, either dressing as my namesake saint or dressing like my father as I knew him. The more emphasis shifts to the "spooks" being loose, the more other worldly and secular the costumes become so that ultimately God is replaced with a Great Pumpkin, so that no one's religious sensitivities can be disturbed. This was also the end of harvest time, which meant there were fruits and sweets that could be given as treats. After the festive evening, the community of believers gathered the next day in Church to celebrate the new saints. The following day, November 2, begins the cycle all over again of praying for "our beloved dead" just in case Mom or Dad or Grandpa didn't make the trip from purgatory to heaven. It has to be more than coincidence that Halloween is the night before All Saints Day and All Souls Day is one day later. They have to be connected and they are when we truly try to discover the sacred buried in the secular. This is my theory and I assure you it is not the Catholic Catechism. What do you think?
Father Michael Doyle, OSM
My dear family in Christ,
In Jesus Christ, love of God and neighbor become one. This weekend we join our Catholic brothers and sisters throughout the world to focus on
MISSION. As Jesus was sent by the Father we are sent to continue His work of sharing the Good News.
To be missionary is, first and foremost the awareness that through our baptism we are to live the message we profess. The central message which has been carried by our Holy Father to all parts of the world is simple:
Jesus is the only SAVIOR.
I would like to suggest that we all recommit ourselves to deepen the meaning of the message as we find it in the Gospel today: You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole soul and with all your mind. ... You shall love your neighbor as yourself
(MT. 22:37,39). These two commandments summarize the Law and the Prophets. The Lord Jesus has shown us how to live them by following in His footsteps.
Let us rekindle our missionary efforts among our own to be a light to our friends and be courageous in our work places.
There are many voices today that suggest happiness but only if we are attentive to the voice of the Holy Spirit will we hear what sets us free.
Let us, then, never cease to be missionary and pray for those who by their example bring the Good News to others.
The word "Halloween" actually has its origins in the Catholic Church. It comes from a contracted corruption of All Hallows Eve. All Hallows Day, or All Saint's Day, November 1, is a Catholic day of observance in honor of saints. But, in the 5th century BC, in Celtic Ireland, summer officially ended on October 31. The holiday was called Samhain, the Celtic New Year. One story says that, on that day, the disembodied spirits of all those who had died throughout the preceding year would come back in search of living bodies to possess for the next year. It was believed to be their only hope for the afterlife. The Celts believed all laws of space and time were suspended during this time, allowing the spirit world to intermingle with the living.
Naturally, the still living did not want to be possessed. So on the night of October 31, villagers would extinguish the fires in their homes to make them cold and undesirable. They would then dress up in all manner of ghoulish costumes and noisily paraded around the neighborhood, being as destructive as possible in order to frighten away spirits looking for bodies to possess.
Without learning from history, a people continues to make the same mistakes. This is as true of the Church as any other institution or group. The present Pope over the past few years has apologized for dozens of mistakes that the Church has made over the years. He has been able to do this because it is time and history that eventually reveals the truth.
In an effort to connect with the past, a three part series on the history of the millenium is taking place on the first Thursdays of October, November and December. The next session will be on Thursday, November 4th, when I will be speaking on Popes in the past 1,000 years.
Allen Moore spoke in October on heroes of the past 1,000 years and how the Church dealt with them. Kevin King will be speaking in December on the saints, the ones who keep coming out of nowhere to challenge the institution of the Church; it is through them that the Church continually renews and reforms itself. Often they are not given much of a welcome, but they have a burning fire within them to help bring the Church as an institution more into alignment with the will of God.
In my own efforts to compose my talk, I am amazed at how the tension between new insights (heroes), the concern to preserve the institution (popes) and the challenge for reform (saints) results in the Church moving towards fulfilling its calling as the sign and symbol of the unity of humankind.
Nowadays, in America as elsewhere in the world, a model of society appears to be emerging in which the powerful predominate, setting aside and even eliminating the powerless: I am thinking here of unborn children, helpless victims of abortion; the elderly and incurably ill, subjected at times to euthanasia; and the many other people relegated to the margins of society by consumerism and materialism. -Pope John Paul II, Ecclesia in America
There are a number of books published recently that deserve to be read by thoughtful Catholics. These books will reward the reader many times over, with insights and challenges. Let me offer a short list of just a few of them.
Fr. Raymond E. Brown, S.S., who died this year, was one of the foremost Biblical Catholic scholars in the world. His years of learning, study, and passion for the Church are beautifully and simply summarized in two special books: Responses to 101 Questions on the Bible (Paulist Press, 1990), a handy topic down here in the Bible Belt!
A Retreat with John the Evangelist (St. Anthony Messenger Press, 1998). This 2nd book is exactly what it says: an opportunity to enter into a prayerful retreat (a week's length) and experience Jesus as a powerful and beautiful presence, straight from the pages of the Fourth Gospel.
Fr. Nicholas Ayo, C.S.C. has written a gentle and delightful study simply titled, The Hail Mary (Notre Dame Press, 1994). From its history of the prayer, its study of the prayer's parts, and commentaries on it ranging from St. Cyril of Alexandria to St. Thomas Aquinas to Pope Paul VI, it is wonderful treatment of this favorite prayer.
Finally, with all the books on Mother Teresa, let me recommend one in a special way. It is Navin Chawla's Mother Teresa, the authorized biography (Pengiun Books, 1992). Mother Teresa worked with this man and gave him full cooperation in the writing of her story.
I hope these titles will be of some use to you in selecting reading to help you grow in holiness and in knowledge of the Faith.
Most probably you have picked up this copy of our parish bulletin while attending Mass. The various items covering activities and opportunities are included to help us all be in-the-know about Saint Gerard Majella Parish. What we celebrate in the Liturgy of the Holy Eucharist is brought into other areas of living by such helps which focus on what it means to be Catholic and on how we can live our Catholic Faith. Some activities are dramatic; more are routine and sometimes even mundane. All are important when they are what we do in service to God and neighbor.
When we gather for Eucharist, we can see a sampling of how extensive our parish family is. We are older, we are younger; we are female, we are male. We are all the variety of descriptors, which can be applied to any gathering of persons. Such variety gives evidence of the efforts of our God to reveal his presence and power in our world right-here right-now, today and every day, in all his daughters and sons.
Our Eucharistic Assembly joins us to our God present in the mystery of consecrated Bread and Wine. Our sharing the Bread and Wine of Eucharist (breaking bread together with the Lord and others) reveals and renews the unity we are called to live as the People of God. We are invited to the one Table of Plenty to be nourished on the Body and Blood of Jesus.
Supporting the mystery of our gatherings for prayer are the preparations and celebrations of other sacraments which give meaning and support to our living in grace. The actions of our grace-giving God lead us to know power in his gifts and blessings in his love.
When parents bring a child to church and request Baptism, they are making a commitment to live their own faith and to share that faith with their newly-arrived daughter. When parents provide for faith education of their child, they share with the larger community a way to lead him to a deeper understanding and response to faith-call. When a child is prepared to receive sacraments like Reconciliation and Eucharist, she is guided to know the continuing presence of a loving God offering forgiveness and nurture in outward signs of grace. When an adolescent comes to a level of maturing faith, the community extends a call that he choose to live his responsibilities as a member of the larger community and make a commitment in Confirmation.
Much of the energy and activities of living our pilgrimage for holiness remain intensely personal. Yet, sacraments and public celebration allow us to express what would otherwise be hidden in the recesses of our heart. To raise our mind and heart to God is prayer. To pray publicly expands our perspective on how blessed we are to know God's goodness in the mystery of parish, our Church Family.
Just a word about...
The first reading this weekend ends with the words, "I will hear him; for I am compassionate."
Our immediate reaction is to take these words as God's reassuring message to us in times of need, and rightly so. But, since our mission is to imitate, identify with, and conform to the words and actions of Jesus Christ, these words have an added significance in terms of our mission of charitable outreach to others, which in turn is the same thing as the second part of the Two Great Commandments: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." This message and mission take flesh in many ways in our parish, two of which I want to mention:
1. I highly commend and express my heartfelt gratitude to the volunteers and paid staff of the Food Pantry, to the members of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, to the various aspects of Senior Ministry, to our parish nurse, and to our social service representative for their great and important working in bringing Christ's compassionate smile to those in need. The charity we distribute and the love behind it are "sacramental" of Christ's own evangelizing presence.
2. I appreciate very much the different efforts that are made throughout the parish by so many people to have Dutchtown South a friendlier place to live either by keeping the neighborhood cleaner and safer or by striking up peaceful and constructive interaction among neighbors. I am concerned, however, by the many signs of prejudice and the many instances of violence and crime. How do we become more welcoming and outreaching?
--Father Benet OFM
The RENEW 2000 process brings people together to share spirituality and community in order to deepen our faith, hope, and love. The topic for the fourth week of study in RENEW 2000 is "Jesus, Our Savior and Liberator." This introduction sets the stage for the week's study:
God loved the world with a Father's tenderness and sent us Jesus, his Son, to save us from our sins (1 Jn 1:1-7). In Christ, we ourselves become the beloved children of God (1 Jn 3:1-2). By his grace, we make the daily attempt to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him (Mk 8:34-38). In fulfillment of the messianic prophecies, Jesus sacrifices himself for our sins (Is 53:1-12).
In his recent Apostolic Letter on Sunday Worship, our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, wrote:
"'In Christianity time has a fundamental importance. Within the dimension of time the world was created; within it the history of salvation unfolds, finding its culmination in the 'fullness of time' of the Incarnation, and its goal in the glorious return of the Son of God at the end of time. In Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, time becomes a dimension of God, who is himself eternal.'
In the light of the New Testament, the years of Christ's earthly life truly constitute the center of time; this center reaches its apex in the resurrection. It is true that Jesus is God made man from the very moment of his conception in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, but only in the resurrection is his humanity wholly transfigured and glorified, thus revealing the fullness of his divine identity and glory. In his speech in the synagogue at Antioch in Pisidia (cf. Acts 13:33), Paul applies the words of Psalm 2 to the resurrection of Christ: 'You are my Son, this day I have begotten you' (v. 7). It is precisely for this reason that, in celebrating the Easter Vigil, the Church acclaims the Risen Christ as 'the Beginning and End, the Alpha and Omega.' These are the words spoken by the celebrant as he prepares the Paschal candle, which bears the number of the current year. These words clearly attest that Christ is the Lord of time; he is its beginning and its end; every year, every day and every moment are embraced by his Incarnation and resurrection, and thus become part of the 'fullness of time.'"
-- Pope John Paul II
