Sacred Heart Parish
MASS INTENTIONS FOR THE WEEK
Monday, March 23
12:05 PM Paul F. Enos
Saturday, March 28
4:00 PM - Edward John FitzPatrick, Sr., Alice Margaret R.FitzPatrick, Thelma Elaine S. FitzPatrick, Richard Earl FitzPatrick
Sunday, March 29
9:00 AM Parishioners of Sacred Heart
11:45 AM Linda Capodilupo
CELEBRANTS FOR NEXT WEEKEND’S MASSES
Saturday, March 28
4:00 PM Fr. Imbelli
Sunday, March 29
9:00 AM Fr. Connelly
10:30 AM Fr. St. Martin
11:45 AM Fr. Connelly
CONFESSIONS
Saturday, March 28 – 2:00 to 3:30 PM – Fr. Connelly
READINGS FOR THE FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT
First Reading: Jeremiah 31:31-34
Second Reading: Hebrews 5:7-9
Gospel Reading: John 12:20-33
2009 CATHOLIC APPEAL
During this season of Lent, God calls us to renew our faith, deepen our relationship with Christ, and share our many gifts with others. Christ has set the example as the perfect Steward: “For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” The Catholic Appeal is one way all of us can support the mission of Christ’s Church in the 144 cities and towns of our Archdiocese. Please be thankful, intentional, and prayerful as you make a pledge to this year’s Appeal. You can pick up information packets with pledge forms in the back of the Church. For more information, please call 617-779-3700 or visit www.BostonCatholicAppeal.com. Every gift matters. Thank you!
GUILD’S FAMILY NIGHT A HUGE SUCCESS
Most people love a good party, and the Guild’s Family Night was no exception. We had a record turn out last Saturday! We are blessed with talented young people who not only provided wonderful entertainment but also encouraged us all to dance along with them afterwards. Some lucky individuals went home with great gifts won at the raffle. Many thanks to all who came and to those who worked so hard to make this such an enjoyable evening.
LENTEN RECONCILIATION
Great times and opportunities for all family members to receive the sacrament before Easter. Lenten Penance Services will be held today, Sunday, March 22 at 3 PM, and Monday, April 6 at 7:30 PM at Our Lady Help of Christians Church, 573 Washington St., Newton. Individual reconciliation with several confessors available.
LENTEN ALMSGIVING
Please do not neglect those in need this year as you make your personal sacrifices for Lent. Our donation baskets are not as full as we had hoped they would be by this time. Bring your donations of underwear and socks for those at St. Francis House and for residents at the Walden School for the deaf. Sizes are listed in previous Bulletins and on line at www.sacredheart.ws.
SOUP AND STATIONS
Sacred Heart hosts the Soup and Stations this Friday evening, March 27, at Corpus Christi Church, 4 Ash Street, Auburndale – Soup at 6 PM, Stations at 7 PM. If you are able to make soup or bring a dessert, please call Bernadette or Peter Castellanos at 617-969-4299.
EASTER FLOWERS
It is time to think about our beautiful Easter flowers. If you would like to donate monies in memory of a loved one, please feel free to do so. The names of the deceased will be placed in the bulletin at Easter time and we will remember them in our prayers at all the Masses. Checks may be made payable to Sacred Heart Parish and mailed to the rectory.
WOMEN’S DISCUSSION GROUP
The Women’s Discussion Group continues with their discussion of Saints for Sinners by Archbishop Alban Goodier as they meet next Sunday, March 29, at 10:30 AM in the convent. New members are always welcome!
2009 CONFERENCE ON HEALTHCARE DECISIONS
The Massachusetts Citizens for Life invites you to attend its 2009 statewide conference on healthcare decision making and threats to rationing, to be held on March 28 from 8:30 AM – 4 PM with Mass at 4:30 PM at Boston College Law School in Newton. Attendees will learn practical ways to ensure that they and their loved ones will receive good medical care. For more information contact MFL at 617-242-4199; register online at www.masscitizensforlife.org.
OFFERTORY INCOME
Weekend of March 14/15 $5,357
THE PRAYER OF ST. EPHREM THE SYRIAN
O Lord and Master of my life!
Take from me the spirit of sloth, faint-heartedness, lust of power, and idle talk.
But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to your servant.
Yes, O Lord and King!
Grant me to see my own errors and not to judge my brother;
For you are blessed to ages of ages. Amen.
This beautiful prayer presents all the negative and positive elements of repentance and is a “check list” for our Lenten effort. Its aim is to free us from some fundamental spiritual diseases which control our life and make it impossible for us even to turn our lives in God’s direction.
SLOTH is the basic problem. It is a disease that renders us lazy and which convinces us that no change is possible. It is the root of all sin because “it poisons the spiritual energy at its source”.
FAINT-HEARTEDNESS is the result of sloth. It is a despondency that makes it impossible for man to see anything good or positive. It reduces everything to negativism and pessimism.
LUST OF POWER: The previous vices of sloth and faint-heartedness cause our lives to be motivated with a lust of power. When life is seen as of no value but meaningless and empty we are forced “to seek compensation in a radically wrong attitude towards other persons”. If my life is not directed to God and his will, then it becomes selfish and looks for self-satisfaction, self-gratification. “If God is not the Lord and Master of my life, then I become my own Lord and master—the absolute center of my own world”. I then live to fulfill my needs, my desires and my ideas. This lust of power is seen as “a fundamental depravity in my relationship to other beings, a search for their subordination to me... It may certainly result in indifference, contempt, lack of interest, consideration and respect.
IDLE TALK: Words have a certain power all their own. Words can uplift and save but also kill. When the word is removed “from its divine origin and purpose, the word becomes idle. It becomes the very agent of sin.”
The above four are the obstacles to repentance and need to be removed. However, only God can remove them. The remaining parts of the prayer consider the positive aims of repentance.
CHASTITY: This does not refer to sexual purity. The Greek word sofrosini may be translated whole-mindedness. It means to possess the gift of wholeness as opposed to the brokenness which the above vices cause. Christ alone can restore wholeness in us by “restoring in us the true scale of values leading us back to God”.
HUMILITY: The first fruit of this wholeness is humility. Humility alone “is capable of truth, of seeing and accepting things as they are and therefore of seeing God’s majesty and goodness and love in everything”.
PATIENCE: This virtue is the fruit of the other two. The “fallen” man is impatient and ready to judge and condemn others. This leads him to have a broken, incomplete and distorted knowledge of everything. “Being indifferent to everyone except himself, he wants life to be successful right here and now.” The closer we come to God the more patient we become and the “more we reflect that infinite respect for all things which is the proper quality of God”.
LOVE: This divine gift is the crown of all the virtues. Love is the sum total of all our quests. Who truly loves, as God wants us to love, will be given in full measure this ultimate gift of all virtues.
The prayer summarizes all of the above and offers the concluding petition: “to see my own errors and not to judge my brother”. We are called to be very careful of pride. Often times even virtues can be turned into pride. The Fathers constantly warn us of the grave dangers of pride and of the subtle forms of false piety. But when we see “our own errors” and “do not judge our brothers” then pride will be destroyed in us.
Robert Hutner, a Parishioner
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION NEWS
A parent/child 1st Communion workshop is scheduled for Sunday, May 3rd after the 9 am Mass. Please keep this date open and stay tuned for more details.
We encourage all our CCD families to strive to grow closer to Christ during this Lenten season by attending Mass, praying together, meditating on the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary and the Stations of the Cross. All our students have been given a Lenten Rice Bowl to fill with their own allowance as their gift to the poor. Please put the rice bowl on your dining room table and feed the little child whose picture is on the box, every time you feed yourselves. You will be joining yourself to the poor as Christ does.
Don’t forget the poor of St. Francis House and the Walden School for deaf students by donating the clothing they lack and drop it off in the baskets in the upper and lower church. Please pray for the grace to persevere in prayer and Lenten sacrifices so that our hearts will have enough love to share what we have, with those who have nothing! Only then will those baskets for the poor be filled!
Michelle Solomon, Director of Religious Education
SIGNINGS
News, especially of interest to our deaf parishioners
Good People,
Way back before Christ was sent to Earth in the form of a man, around 500 years before Christ, God's plan was already being revealed. The events that happened back then to the Israelites show that God wanted to save us with mercy.
He did not save us by forcing us to be good. It says that God kept sending us prophets to help us to live the right way but we ignored them again and again. God knew we would not listen. Later when the great King from Babylon conquered us we realized that our only hope was God and he was ready to save us. He did. He knew it from the beginning. His plan was to save us by showing us his mercy from the beginning.
We see in Christ's words in the Gospel this theme of Mercy. We want to be happy but sin makes us sad. We want to get away from sin and search for happiness. God's plan is not to take away the sin but rather the opposite. The sin becomes the very thing through which we find God. Why? God is merciful.
We can never find God if we will not see our sin. Even Mary saw our sin. She saw it when she looked up at her son on the Cross. She saw all the world's sin and its effects. She saw this in his hands and his feet, his wounded side, his head crowned with cruel thorns. That ugliness and pain is from our sin.
But it is through admitting and even discovering our sin that we see at the same time the mercy of God. It is such a wonderful gift to know about God's mercy. Then we don't need to hide anymore. We aren't stuck trying to lie and trick people into thinking we are good. It is God's plan from the beginning. We all will experience sin and through that experience we will experience God's mercy. Looking at the cross means looking at our sins. Looking at our sins reveals God's love. We would think it would be the opposite. Some are so afraid of this admitting sin they refuse to look and choose hell instead.
God’s mercy is his love revealed in the midst of our sin. We hope to see this mercy more as we travel toward the cross this Lent.
In Christ,
Fr. St. Martin
GUILD OF ST. FRANCIS “BAKE AND BOOK SALE”
SAVE THE DATE! The Guild of St. Francis will have a “Bake and Book Sale” on Sunday, April 5, from 10 AM to 12:30 PM in the Parish Center. Donations of baked goods are welcome and can be dropped off before the 9 AM Mass at the kitchen door entrance to the Parish Center. For additional information, please call Gloria Thompson at 617-964-2054.
RECEPTION AFTER THE EASTER VIGIL
Plans are well underway for Holy Week, the high point of our liturgical year. One tradition we have continued here at Sacred Heart Parish is the reception after the Easter Vigil Liturgy. Inaugurated many years ago, it grew out of the expressed desire of the laity and clergy of the parish to gather together after having celebrated the great Triduum of Holy Week: Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil. Experiencing a deep spirit of joy as they left the church after the Easter Vigil in which they had participated as a united community, people wanted to linger a while and share the Easter joy. The tradition was thus established to go to the MacKenzie Center for refreshments after the Liturgy ended, and to express the joy that had been experienced.
The tradition of the Reception has continued for 30 years. This year we are in need of some assistance in order for it to continue. Much of the groundwork has already been done. If you would be willing to lend a hand in implementing the plan, please contact Mary Murphy, 617-332-8587, mmmurphy17@comcast.net.
EASTER EGG HUNT
On Easter Sunday morning after the 9:00 AM Mass, there will be an Easter Egg Hunt on the rectory grounds. Children ages 1 to 10 are invited to participate. If you would like to help out by filling or “hiding” eggs, please call Lisa Nahabedian at 617-244-7756. Also note – Coffee Hour will not be held after the 9 AM Mass on Easter Sunday.
CALENDAR NOTES
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION:
Sunday, March 22 – 9:00 AM (ASL) – Lower Church
Sunday, March 22 – 10:30 AM – Lower Church
EXTENDED COFFEE HOUR:
Sunday, March 22 – 10 AM to 1 PM – Parish Center
LENTEN PENANCE SERVICE:
Sunday, March 22 – 3 PM – Our Lady Help of Christians
SOCIAL JUSTICE FORUM:
Sunday, March 22 – 7:30 PM – Lower Church
BOY SCOUTS:
Monday, March 23 – 7:30 PM – Parish Center
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION – GRADES 1-5:
Tuesday, March 24 – 4 to 5:15 PM – Lower church
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION – GRADES 6-10:
Tuesday, March 24 – 7 to 8:30 PM – Lower Church
KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS:
Wednesday, March 25 – 7:30 PM – Convent Dining Room
LITURGY, ADORATION AND THE ROSARY:
Saturday, March 28 – 9 AM to 12:30 PM – Lower Church
EXTENDED COFFEE HOUR:
Sunday, March 29 – 10 AM to 1 PM – Parish Center
WOMEN’S DISCUSSION GROUP:
Sunday, March 29 – 10:30 AM – Convent (DR)