Sacred Heart Parish
MASS INTENTIONS FOR THE WEEK
Friday, May 1
12:05 PM Fernando Migliassi
Saturday, May 2
4:00 PM Anna M. Cullen
Sunday, May 3
9:00 AM Parishioners of Sacred Heart
11:45 AM Teresa Keefe and Owen Keefe
CELEBRANTS FOR NEXT WEEKEND’S MASSES
Saturday, May 2
4:00 PM Fr. Connelly
Sunday, May 3
9:00 AM Fr. Connelly
10:30 AM Fr. St. Martin
11:45 AM Fr. Imbelli
CONFESSIONS
Saturday, May 2 – 2:00 to 3:30 PM – Fr. Connelly
READINGS FOR THE FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
First Reading: Acts 4:8-12
Second Reading: 1 John 3:1-2
Gospel Reading: John 10:11-18
PARISH PARTY MAY 1ST
Don’t forget that our Parish Party is this Friday evening in the Parish Center starting at 7:30 PM. Wear your dancing shoes, bring your friends and be prepared for fun! Bring an appetizer or dessert – there will be a cash bar but no entrance fees! If you haven’t already done so, please RSVP to Peg at 617-969-2248 or peg.miller@sacredheart.ws. It will be of enormous help to know how many are coming so that we will have adequate set ups!
16TH SOCIAL JUSTICE FORUM
“Fighting the Global Sex Trafficking of Children”
On Sunday, May 3 at 7:30 PM in the lower church our Peace and Justice committee forum will feature two speakers from Minga: teens fighting the global sex trade of children. Zeba Race of Sacred Heart parish and Taryn Valley of St. Ignatius parish, both Juniors at Newton South High School, are active members of Minga who have traveled and served the disadvantaged in other countries.
OFFERTORY AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
Easter Sunday $11,452.
Rice Bowls $ 1,155.
Holy Land $ 934.
Weekend April 18/19 $ 6,622.
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION NEWS
CCD classes will be held today, the end of vacation week.
There will be a 1st Communion Workshop for all students in the Tuesday CCD Program on Sunday, May 3rd at 10:30 am in the Convent. At least one parent needs to participate in this workshop from 10:30 – 11:00 am! The workshop for students will continue after parents leave and they may be picked up from the convent at 11:45 am. The Sunday 1st Communion class will meet as usual in their classroom on that day. This is the final workshop in our student’s preparation to receive the Holy Eucharist on Sunday, May 17th.
The rehearsal for 1st Communion will take place on Saturday, May 16th in the upper church from 1:30 – 2:30 pm. At least one parent needs to be present for this rehearsal. Please mark your calendars!
Christ’s love is stronger than death and evil. Alleluia! Alleluia!
Michelle Solomon, Director of RE
“SIGNINGS”
Christ's salvation is complete. In today's Gospel we read that it is complete in three ways:
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The first reading tells us it is complete. How? It is able to take away sin completely. Sin's seriousness is not a block to Christ's salvation. The very people who were involved in the actual torture and execution of Christ are called to Christ's salvation so that their sins may be wiped away completely.
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The Gospel tells us that Christ's salvation is complete in that it is for all the nations. It is not for some or a few. It is for all starting with the Jews going out to the whole world through the Church. It is for all people and every language.
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The Gospel also shows us that Salvation in Christ is not only spiritual, it is physical as well. When we first saw Christ risen from the dead we did not understand that he was not a ghost. Jesus needed to show us his body and his wounds and needed to tell us to touch his body. Jesus asked for food. Why? To demonstrate by eating that food that he had really risen in his human body. This means that Jesus saves us soul and body. That is to say he saves us completely.
How good it is to hope in Christ's salvation. Christ's salvation is the only salvation because it is complete. Anything less than complete is no salvation at all. Jesus saves! He is risen in his human body! Now we can experience joy even in our soul and body together with all the nations with all sin removed completely!
In Christ, Fr. St. Martin
A NOTE FROM THE PASTOR
I would like to write to you this week to talk about our parish school building. It was in 1922 that our third pastor, Father Timothy Curtin, set about the task of building the school. When he first came to the parish, he noticed that the parish had 2,800 people with a Sunday School of over 450 children. His chief concern then was the building of a parish school which was completed in 1922. (Parenthetically, the eighth pastor of the parish would like to note that 1922 was an exceptionally fine year! The school has been standing for eighty-six years.) In 1932 the wings of the school were added to make room for high school classes. For many years, then, the school had twelve rooms and twelve grades.
It must have been very difficult for the parish to face the closing of the school in 1972. Many long-standing parishioners who loved the school could add more details that the present pastor does not know in any great detail.
The building did not remain idle for very long. The Massachusetts Electrical Hirers and the IBEW electrical union occupied the building and conducted a prestigious electrical apprenticeship program for budding electrical workers. In the early ‘90s the union built a magnificent facility on Morrissey Boulevard and moved the school to that new location. Shortly after that, the building was rented to Montessori Educare, Inc. The Montessori School grew and prospered over the years. When some financial tragedies overtook the school, the school went out of existence. However, a small band of parents, whose children attended the school, worked together to form the present Newton Montessori School which now occupies the building and is conducting an excellent educational establishment. To facilitate the first year of the new school’s operation, the parish lowered its rent by $100,000.
The current contract between the parish and the school is a five-year contract, commencing on August 1, 2007, with the option of continuing the contract for three more years.
Quite naturally, any good school principal and any good Board of Directors would love to own their own school building. Recently the school principal and the chair of the Board of Directors came to the rectory for a meeting. They want to begin some plans for owning their own school building. They told me that their first preference would be to enter into negotiations with the parish in the hope of buying the school building. Of course, this would take some time and the school would continue to run under its present conditions until the dream of owning a school comes true. If the parish is not willing to sell the school, then they would begin to look for another property, perhaps to build their own building or to look for another school building. I promised them that we, the parish, would explore the issue. Hopefully, we could be in a position, perhaps by the end of May or June ’09, to give an answer to the request made, either in the affirmative or in the negative.
I would suggest the following plan for parish discussion. Obviously I hope everybody would begin to think about the matter. It will be the principal subject for discussion at our next meetings of the Parish Pastoral Council and the Parish Financial Council. Following those meetings we will arrange for some open parish meetings so that every interested parishioner can have his or her say. Needless to say, no commitment has been made – either affirmative or negative. This is to be open for discussion.
Father Connelly
The Stem Cell Issue – Are you as confused as I am with regard to the scientific aspects of the stem cell question? If so, read what our parishioner, Dr. Joseph, has to say. I found it most helpful.
Father Connelly
MUSINGS ON STEM CELL RESEARCH, AT THE MUSEUM
On a beautiful spring afternoon in Madrid, I was walking the halls of the world famous Museo Del Prado. I had just presented my research on the safety and efficacy of mobilizing bone marrow stem cells in patients with advanced heart failure at an international conference. After a rigorous scientific session, my mind was now immersed in beautiful paintings, mostly Christian art painted by the greatest names in Western art. This curious juxtaposition of science with faith, I thought, may not be unlike what was going on in the minds of many Catholics when thinking about stem cell research--is it appropriate to commingle these seemingly disparate spheres of human existence?
The term stem cells denote cells that have the ability to both “regenerate themselves and produce specialized cell types” (Understanding Stem Cells” - The National Academies). This theoretically translates into an unlimited potential for creating cells that can replace damaged or dysfunctional cells in various organs; hence the excitement surrounding this research. There are several types of stem cells: adult stem cells, embryonic stem cells, induced pluripotent stem cells, umbilical cord stem cells and embryonic germ cells.
Adult stem cells reside in most organs, most notably in the bone marrow. They can proliferate and convert to specialized cells, albeit to a limited number of cell types, and pose no ethical dilemmas. Medical scientists have utilized the potential of adult stem cells, specifically those derived from the bone marrow, over the last two decades. Many of you may personally know someone who has benefited from bone marrow transplantation to cure a fatal blood disease or to regenerate the bone marrow after undergoing intense chemotherapy for cancer. There is a growing body of research that aims to understand the use of adult stem cells to repair organs like the heart (for e.g., to repair the damage caused by a heart attack). Studies both in the laboratory and in patients are underway to determine how best to collect stem cells from the blood or bone marrow, which stem cells types to use, and how to deliver them to the heart to effectively repair areas scarred by a heart attack.
Embryonic stem cells are derived from an early embryo, specifically an embryo 5 days after fertilization called the blastocyst. They can proliferate and potentially convert to any type of specialized cells, and pose significant ethical dilemmas, since the blastocyst/embryo cannot continue its development once these cells are taken out. The first successful isolation and culture of human embryonic stem cells in the laboratory was accomplished by James Thompson and colleagues in 1998. Since then scientists have attempted to utilize stem cells to create specialized cells, and to use these cells to treat specific diseases in animal models. A major scientific concern is that when these cells are taken out of their normal surroundings, i.e., the embryo, will they proliferate in an uncontrolled manner and produce tumors?
The embryonic stem cells being studied now were obtained from embryos created by in vitro fertilization. Hence another issue with embryonic stem cells is that they are “foreign” to the recipient, and can be rejected unless the immune system of the recipient is suppressed (as in case of organ transplants). This brings up the issue of cloning, or somatic cell nuclear transfer (which are one and the same thing). In this procedure, the nucleus (which contains all the genetic information) from any cell of an individual (like a skin cell) is introduced into a fertilized egg to replace the egg’s original nucleus. Thereby a fertilized egg is created that has identical genetic material to the individual from whom the cell nucleus was taken. Now if this egg is allowed to develop into an embryo, you basically have a clone of the individual. If embryonic stem cells are harvested from this embryo (with destruction of the embryo in the process), then you have created designer embryonic stem cells, which are identical in genetic make up to the person from whom the cell nucleus was taken (a clone). This is termed therapeutic cloning, which is essentially creating human life and destroying it for the benefit of a single individual. These cells obviously won’t be rejected by the (cloned) recipient, but would still have the potential to create tumors. Therapeutic cloning has not been achieved so far with human cells (there were claims of success by a South Korean scientist, which were found to be fraudulent). Now folks may split hairs to differentiate therapeutic cloning from reproductive cloning, i.e., creating a clone of yourself (like Dolly the sheep), but there is no difference between the two methods as to how the embryo is produced. The difference is what you do with the cloned embryo, i.e., do you destroy it to extract embryonic stem cells for your benefit, or do you implant it in a uterus to create a fully developed human clone of yourself.
Along came induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS cells. This was an astounding discovery by two independent
groups of scientists who attempted to reverse the clock and change an adult cell into an embryonic type cell, with the capacity for regeneration and for turning into specialized cells. Scientists have shown that iPS cells can be converted to mature nerve cells. What is exciting about these cells is that since they can be derived from adult cells of the patient into whom they will be subsequently introduced, they will not be rejected by the recipient. They will still have the potential to form tumors, and the full potential of these cells to turn into different types of cells is not known. It is early days, but this is one of the most exciting discoveries in the recent history of science, and avoids any ethical controversy.
Other type of stem cells available are umbilical cord derived stem cells, and stem cells derived from spontaneous miscarriages (embryonic germ cells), neither of which pose any ethical problems.
So there we have it: adult stem cells, with no ethical issues, less likelihood of tumor formation, able to proliferate and convert to specialized cells albeit at a lower level (at the present state of the science) compared to embryonic stem cells, which have greater potential to produce specialized cells, but with the problems of rejection and tumor formation, and the serious moral issue of the destruction of an embryo. Therapeutic cloning would avoid the problem of rejection, but would lead to the creation of an embryo for its intentional destruction, and opens the door for cloning yourself (reproductive cloning, which is illegal at present in the US). And then there are iPS cells, which are essentially embryonic like cells which are identical in genetic make up to the patient, and hence will not be rejected, and pose no ethical dilemmas.
As we mull these alternatives, it would be well worth remembering this oft repeated quote from James Thompson, the scientist who first cultured human embryonic stem cells, and who was also one of the first scientists to create iPS cells: “if human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough”.
Jacob Joseph, MD.
References:
Understanding Stem Cells. The National Academies
Why Embryonic Stem Cells are Obsolete. Bernadine Healy, MD
The Ten Great Myths in the Debate Over Stem Cell Research. Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD
PROJECT BREAD’S WALK FOR HUNGER
Join us for Project Bread’s Walk for Hunger on Sunday, May 3, 2009. It’s a fun event that this year is more important than ever. Every dollar, every mile, every Volunteer hour counts to help our neighbors in need. Register, donate, learn more at www.projectbread.org/walk..