Sacred Heart Parish
MASS INTENTIONS FOR THE WEEK
Saturday, June 20
4:00 PM Rosalie Daly
Sunday, June 21
9:00 AM Robert B. Shields
11:45 AM Parishioners of Sacred Heart
CONFESSIONS
Saturday, June 20 – 2:00 to 3:30 PM – Fr. Connelly
READINGS FOR THE TWELFTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
First Reading: Job 38:1, 8-11
Second Reading: 2 Corinthians 5:14-17
Gospel Reading: Mark 4:35-41
THE GUILD OF SAINT FRANCIS
Each year the Guild of Saint Francis brings its year of prayer and activity to a close at Mass and at the Communion Breakfast that follows the Mass. Each year it is my custom to follow the example of my predecessors as pastor and join the members of the Guild at their celebration and accept on behalf of the parish a check that represents so much hard work accomplished in their service to the parish. This year’s check amounted to $13,000. My thanks to all the members of the Guild, to the Officers and Board Members and in particular to Gloria Rausa-Thompson, the President for 2008-2009, and she will continue to be president for 2009-2010.
Father Connelly
NORTHEAST CATHOLIC FAMILY CONFERENCE
Families, mark your calendars! The Northeast Catholic Family Conference will take place on Sunday, June 28 at St. Mary’s in Waltham, beginning at 1 PM. The conference offers prayer, music and workshops for adults, children and teens. Cardinal Seán will celebrate Mass and join us for the family cookout! For more information or to register, please go to www.schoolofnazareth.org or contact Fr. Michael Harrington at mharrington@rcab.org or 781-956-0548.
ATTENTION GARDENERS
We all enjoy the lovely plants and flowers in full bloom around our property. Barbara Hatem is our wonderful gardener and keeps the flowers watered and nourished. However, Barbara is asking for help with the watering. If you have the time to help her with this task, will you please call her at 617-969-2567?
OFFERTORY INCOME
Weekend of June 6/7 $4,932
Seminary Collection $1,149
CHILDREN’S LITURGY OF THE WORD
Many thanks to the generous volunteers who have helped to guide our youngest members during Children’s Liturgy this year! They have each shared their own particular gifts (and vines!) to enrich our program and share the Good News:
Govind & Allison Sreenivasan
Joe Franco
Peg Miller
Chris Granfield
Zeba & Cathy Race
Glenn Cunningham
Our last Children’s Liturgy of the Word will be on June 14th. We will resume in the new academic year on Sunday, September 27th. If you would be willing to share your own gifts in this very special ministry next year, please let me know and specify your desired level of commitment (e.g. twice per term, once a month, etc.). As you know, many hands make light work, and should we have enough volunteers, we might be able to expand and offer more to our range of children.
With joyful gratitude,
Danielle Betancourt (617)916-1002
dbetancourt@boston.k12.ma.us
TO ALL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
The Steubenville East High School Youth Conference at URI will be held July 31st – August 2nd. Our parish would like to form our own youth contingent to go to this exciting weekend of music, youth speakers and the chance to meet other young people excited about their faith. The cost is $210 which includes housing in the dorms and meals. Fr. St. Martin will be attending this event along with the youth. American Sign Language for the Deaf is available. Anyone wishing more information and/or wishing to chaperone (over 21), please contact Michelle Solomon, Director: 617-969-4031 or email: religious.education@sacredheart.ws as soon as possible!
INTENTIONS OF THE HOLY FATHER FOR THE MONTH OF JUNE
General Intention: That international efforts to help poorer nations bring prompt, concrete results to relieve the crushing burden of foreign debt.
Mission Intention: That local Church communities serving areas torn by violence may be supported through the love and help offered by Catholics around the world.
ST. FRANCIS HOUSE
Thank you for your continued donations to St. Francis House. The item needed during the month of June is vegetable oil. Leave your donations at Church entrances.
SAINT BARNABAS AND
“THE YEAR OF THE PRIEST”
Who was St. Barnabas and how come he rates a column in our prestigious Sacred Heart bulletin? According to the Acts of the Apostles, Barnabas, born in Cyprus, is numbered among the first of the faithful in the Church at Jerusalem. He was among the first to preach the Gospel in Antioch in Syria. He was the one who went to Tarsus to look for Saul and brought him to Antioch. As the Book of the Acts tells us: “Now there were in the Church at Antioch prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Symeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Mansen who was a close friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’ Then, completing their fasting and prayer they laid hands on them and sent them off”.
Barnabas accompanied Paul on his first missionary journey and then returned to his homeland on the Island of Cyprus where he continued his apostolic activities. Although Barnabas was not one of the original twelve called to be Apostles, he sometimes is listed as an apostle and he certainly was engaged in apostolic activity. This word “apostolic” is an analogous term. It seems to have been used in a precise sense as applicable to the original twelve and also to Paul called to be an apostle at his conversion experience on the road to Damascus. Barnabas is called an apostle because his work anticipates what we call the “ministerial priesthood”. Yet are not all of us called to be apostolic? Does this not embrace religious women working on the missions? Does this not involve mothers and fathers who are called to bear witness to the Gospel? Is not every member of Christ expected to be apostolic? It’s the Holy Spirit, of course, who keeps the Church apostolic.
We can think of Barnabas, especially at this time in our own history in light of an action taken by our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI. On March 16, 2009, the Holy Father announced that he will celebrate a special year for priests. The year will begin on the 19th of June. The year will commemorate the 150th anniversary of the death of St. John Vianney, Curé d’Ars. It might be helpful to our readers to focus on an address given by Pope Benedict to the members of the Congregation of the Clergy. It will be the task of this congregation to plan ahead the activities that will take place during this “Year for Priests”.
The Holy Father began his address by highlighting the theme that will be prominent in the “Year for Priests”. That theme focuses on the missionary identity of the priest as an indispensable dimension of the priest’s specific involvement in the three tasks we associate with the work of Christ himself – Christ is Priest, Christ is Teacher, Christ is Pastor (Shepherd). Those in the ministerial priesthood today share in those three offices which belong to Christ and his saving work. Of course, the whole Church is missionary and every Christian, by Baptism and Confirmation, becomes missionary. The priest by virtue of the Sacrament of Holy Order receives the apostolic mandate first given to the apostles – “Go into the whole world and preach the Gospel”.
The missionary dimension of the priesthood is rooted in the priest’s sacramental configuration to Christ. This consists in the “new way of life” which the Lord Jesus inaugurated and which the Apostles made their own. Through the imposition of the bishop’s hands and the consecratory prayer of the Church, candidates for the priesthood in a sense become new men. They begin to participate in the three offices peculiar to Christ himself. The priest’s mission is carried out always “in the Church”. The mission is ecclesial because no one proclaims himself in the first person, but within and through his humanity every priest must be well aware that he is bringing to the world Another, God himself. God is the only treasure which ultimately people desire to find in a priest. The mission is also communal “because it takes place in a unity and a communion which only at a secondary level possesses important aspects of social visibility”.
Although the Holy Father did not mention this last point, I would like to suggest that the priestly mission in the Church must follow the pattern lived out by St. Paul. The Apostle to the Gentile often said to his new converts – “Imitate me as I imitate Christ”. This was not some personal boast. It means that the Gospel message preached by one in whom the Gospel message has not been embodied in the way of life of the Gospel will never be effective in bringing folks to Christ. As the Ordination Rite for the Diaconate says to the newly ordained deacon, when the bishop hands him a copy of the Gospel, “believe what you read, and practice what you preach”. We must pray that “The Year for Priests” have good results for today’s Church. What we have been through the past decade should find no place whatsoever in the priesthood.
In conclusion, the Holy Father warned of the “dilution” of priestly ministry. He explained that without priests, “there would be no Eucharist, no mission” or the Church. “It is necessary then, to ensure that the ‘new structures’ or pastoral organizations are not planned for a time in which it will be possible to ‘do without’ ordained ministry, on the basis of an erroneous interpretation of the promotion of the laity, because this would lay the foundations for a further dilution in priestly ministry, and any supposed ‘solutions’ would, in fact, dramatically coincide with the real causes of the problems currently affecting the ministry.”
Father Connelly
SIGNINGS
Good People,
The theme of sacrifice permeates the readings on this Celebration of Christ's Body and Blood.
This is fitting. Christ's sacrifice is the perfect one. It is the only truly valuable sacrifice; it is the only truly holy sacrifice; it is the only truly complete sacrifice.
Why is it valuable? It is the sacrifice of his blood which is a symbol of his love. Christ's love is the most valuable thing there is. It is divine love. It is the source of life itself. Nothing would exist if it weren't for this love, nothing would be redeemed and have life again if it weren't for this love. Nothing would have beauty or any good quality. All goodness comes through and from this love so his blood flowing from his loving heart is the most valuable thing. The sacrifice is most Holy - why? Because it is the sacrifice not of a stupid animal but of a free human being who has always used his freedom to its fullest and has never sinned. Maybe a young innocent lamb reminds us of innocence but Jesus truly is perfectly innocent. This makes his sacrifice most pure, clean, holy.
The sacrifice of Christ is most complete. It is of both his body and his blood. It is a sacrifice unto death, including humiliation, is public, and even encompasses the suffering of his family in the person of his mother. He has to have the sight of his mother's heart being full of such pain; it is like it was pierced with a sword!
We worship Christ's Most Holy Body and Blood. We dare to receive it in communion. We know that it will help us to grow to our full potential and discover our true value, it will help us to become truly holy, it will help us to make our own gift of self complete.
Sometimes we think that maybe we have given enough and that we deserve a break or that in justice it is someone else's turn to give as much as we do. It is not like that. The Body of Christ, the Church, works when everyone realizes that we are called to give everything without counting the cost all the way up until we are asked to even give our last breath away. If we do that we will become like the Apostles in today's Gospel. In the moments after receiving Christ's Body and Blood for the fist time they were filled with joy and they went out with joy singing.
In Christ,
Fr. St. Martin
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION NEWS
Our 1st Communion pictures have arrived and they are beautiful! You can pick them up during regular business hours, at the rectory.
Our religious education program has ended this past Sunday with Fr. Connelly’s visit to the classrooms and a wonderful feast provided by our Religious Education Coordinator, Grace Alexander. We thank Grace and all our faithful teachers for their handing on the gospel of Christ to our students.
We are now looking for new teachers for both our Tuesday and Sunday program. I am praying for the Holy Spirit to inspire anyone who has received the gifts of faith, hope and love to offer these gifts for the sake of our students this coming CCD year! Please contact the religious education office now, so that we can help you plan for this upcoming year in leisure. I look forward to hearing from you by phone: 617-969-4031; or by email: religious.education@sacredheart.ws !
We are also in need of TAT and KCS instructors for the upcoming year. These individuals are responsible for teaching the catechists how to implement the personal safety/abuse prevention education programs in the classrooms. If you are interested in learning more about this important and necessary part of our CCD program and would like to become a “trainer to train the trainers” please contact the religious education office by phone or email.
CCD registration forms will be sent out this week to families. Please return them before you forget about them for the summer! Early registration helps us plan for how many CCD teachers we will need for the upcoming year.
Michelle Solomon, Director of R.E.
CALENDAR NOTES
EXTENDED COFFEE HOUR:
Sunday, June 14 – 10 AM to 1 PM – Parish Center
BOY SCOUTS:
Monday, June 15 – 7:30 PM – Parish Center
LITURGY COMMITTEE MEETING:
Tuesday, June 16 – 7:30 PM - Convent
PRAYER GROUP:
Wednesday, June 17 – 7:30 PM – Convent (Chapel)
COFFEE HOUR:
Friday, June 19 – Following 9 AM Mass – Parish Center
LITURGY, ADORATION AND THE ROSARY:
Saturday, June 20 – 9 AM to 12:30 PM – Lower Church
EXTENDED COFFEE HOUR:
Sunday, June 21 – 10 AM to 1 PM – Parish Center