Sacred Heart Parish
MASS INTENTIONS FOR THE WEEK
Saturday, November 21
4:00 PM Parishioners of Sacred Heart
Sunday, November 22
9:00 AM Frank W. DeSimone
10:30 AM Intentions of Dorothy Possell, Lucy Iacino, and Rose Michalek
11:45 AM Edward Boisseau, Henry and Isabelle Boisseau
Tuesday, November 24
7:00 AM Intentions of Mary Ritt Power
Saturday, November 28
4:00 PM Joseph Scichilone
Sunday, November 29
9:00 AM Parishioners of Sacred Heart
10:30 AM Intentions of Jerrye McKee Ray, Mr. T. Tan, and Rita Mollica
11:45 AM Mary Rita Ross and Edward Ross, Walter McLaughlin and Laurent Caron
CELEBRANTS FOR NEXT WEEKEND’S MASSES
Saturday, November 28
4:00 PM Fr. Connelly
Sunday, November 29
9:00 AM Fr. Connelly
10:30 AM Fr. Carey
11:45 AM Fr. Connelly
CONFESSIONS
Saturday, November 28 – 2:00 to 3:30 PM – Fr. Connelly
READINGS FOR THE FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT
First Reading: Jeremiah 33:14-16
Second Reading: 1 Thessalonians 3:12 – 4:2
Gospel Reading: Luke 21:25-28, 34-36
THANKSGIVING DAY
Thursday of this week, November 26, is Thanksgiving Day. Why not give thanks to the One who is all bountiful, giving and loving? Before celebrating at your family table, come celebrate this feast day at the Eucharistic banquet – join us at the 9 AM Mass in the Lower Church on Thanksgiving Day.
SPEAKER SERIES AT MONTROSE SCHOOL
Montrose School, 29 North Street, Medfield, is offering a Life Portraits Speaker series which is open to the public. On Monday, November 23 from 2-3PM and from 6:30-9PM, Martin Doblmeir will speak on The Power of Forgiveness.
OFFERTORY INCOME
Weekend of November 14/15 $5,778
Campaign for Human Development $1,275
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION NEWS
Our CCD Advent plan to “Stay Awake” and “Be Ready” begins after we announce a plan to help those families hardest hit during these jobless times. During Advent our CCD program will begin collecting food bags for our neighbors in Dorchester and they will be given to the Missionaries of Charity to distribute to those in greatest need. Please look out for the flyers your children will be bringing home and flyers left at all exits of the church. Stay tuned for more information next week.
Your Confirmation I and II students should have received a packet last week to explain the service expectations for Confirmation preparation. Confirmation II students should have received a calendar to show parents the agenda for the upcoming semester. Please ask them for this packet. Our regular Confirmation II curriculum will be replaced with a speaker series beginning in January 2010, to cover topics primary to Confirmation Preparation. We will announce the topics, speakers and the dates to the parents of our Confirmation students as well as our Parish Community. We invite all parents and parishioners to attend these Confirmation classes on Tuesday evenings as well, to learn along with our students about the beautiful teachings of our Catholic faith. Details will be posted in the bulletin in advance.
All Confirmation II students should make up any classes missed this term. Make-ups will be held prior to the next CCD class at 6:30-7 pm in the lower church. Please contact the Religious Education Office to report that your son/daughter will be attending the make-up session.
Michelle Solomon, Director of RE
2009 CHRISTMAS GIFT DRIVE
Once again we will be conducting our annual Christmas Gift Drive. As we have in the past several years, we are working with St. Ambrose Family Inn, which provides shelter and support to homeless families and Julie’s Family Learning, an educational program serving low income young women and their children. We are also supporting the needs of the New England Home for the Deaf and the Walden School at the Learning Center for the Deaf. Cards listing the specific needs will be available at the Masses beginning this weekend, November 21/22.
Gifts should not be wrapped and should be dropped off with their cards at the Parish Advent celebration on Sunday December 13th. If you can help with check-in or transfer of gifts to the Convent chapel on the day of the event, Sunday December 13, please contact me.
Beverly Spencer 617-965-6365; bevfrog@aol.com
ICON OF THE RESURRECTION
Sacred Heart Parish has received a delightful gift which augments our modestly growing collection of icons. Recently, Bob and Janet DeSimone took a remarkable, esoteric, multi-country trip in the course of which they came to meet a Religious Brother – Teofane Maria – who is a skilled iconist. As a result they purchased this gift to the parish and are dedicating it to the memory of Bob’s brother, Frank W. DeSimone, who was born on November 19, 1924 and was killed in action during the Second World War in 1944. He served as a Medic/Ambulance Driver and died shortly after his twentieth birthday.
On Sunday, November 22, Father Imbelli will bless the icon at the 9 o’clock Mass and will offer a few comments. The icon is representative, especially of Eastern traditions with regard to depicting the resurrection of the Lord. It shows the risen Christ rising from the tomb but stooping down to grasp the hand first of Adam and then of Eve as he pulls them upward with him to share in his resurrection. (This is a favorite theme in many Eastern Resurrection icons.) A quick look at the icon reminds us of the cross in the form of the nails and the like which are depicted at the bottom of the icon. The figure of Christ is accompanied by various figures from the Old Testament and the New. Future remarks in the bulletin will tell us more about the icon and the artist and the religious community of which he is a member. Meanwhile, we can rejoice in this wonderful gift. Icons, of course, have as their purpose assisting us in prayer. They provide us with a visual way of opening the door for us that leads into the mystery of Christ and the mystery of our Three-Personed God. Happily our collection of icons is growing in number.
Father Connelly
USCCB MESSAGE TO DIOCESES
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Pro-Life Secretariat has put out an urgent call to action for diocese and parishes across the nation regarding the health care reform debate now taking place in Washington.
“In an October 28 memorandum, diocesan and parish leaders were asked by the USCCB to distribute a nationwide bulletin insert on health care reform. Thank you for your great cooperation in that effort. On November 7, the U.S. House of Representatives passed major health care reform which reaffirmed longstanding and widely supported policy that no federal funds will be used to pay for elective abortions (the Stupak Amendment). Your efforts made a difference.
It is now critical that the Senate adopt the House-approved Stupak Amendment language that restricts federal funding for elective abortions and for plans which include elective abortions. This language, approved by the House by a large majority, ensures that Americans are not forced to pay for the destruction of unborn children as a part of needed health care reform. The Senate needs to address other essential moral priorities such as protecting conscience rights, making health care more affordable and accessible for those without coverage, and ensuring that immigrants do not lose or will not be denied needed health care coverage.”
USCCB Pro-Life Secretariat
ADVENT LITURGY
We begin next week a new liturgical year. By following Christ in prayer we can celebrate the Lord’s life, death and resurrection made present in the sacramental liturgy. In this way we can grow in the holiness of life to which the Lord calls each one of us. In previous bulletins, this column spoke about Christ in his mysteries. How do we use the word mystery in this context? A mystery, in this context, is an event of history, such as the words and deeds and life and death of Jesus, which embodies God’s plan of salvation. We could also call it an event of history that points to reality that transcends history, that is, goes beyond history to the very holy one who is God. It’s interesting to note that the mysteries of Christ – his life and passion and death and resurrection – are made present for us in the liturgy by the power of the Holy Spirit, so that these mysteries become our mysteries also. They become our mysteries for a three-fold reason. First of all, the Lord lived these mysteries for you and for me. What he accomplished in his history had a two-fold purpose – to promote the glory of his heavenly Father and to bring about the salvation of us, his brothers and sisters. Furthermore, the mysteries of Jesus belong to us in that the Lord shows himself to us as the great Exemplar. He shows us how doing the Father’s will was the food that sustained him and will also sustain us as well. Furthermore, these mysteries are our mysteries because he has made us one with him in his Body, which is the Church. Originally the Lord lived these mysteries in his human body. Now he lives them with us in his mystical and sacramental Body, which is the Church.
The beginning of the liturgical year is a good opportunity to deepen our understanding of liturgy. The Catechism of the Catholic Church asks the question – Why the liturgy? This is the response: “In the Symbol of the faith, the Church confesses the mystery of the Holy Trinity and of the plan of God’s ‘good pleasure’ for all creation: the Father accomplishes the ‘mystery of his will’ by giving his beloved Son and his Holy Spirit for the salvation of the world and for the glory of his name.
Such is the mystery of Christ, revealed and fulfilled in history according to the wisely ordered plan that St. Paul calls the ‘plan of the mystery’ and the patristic tradition will call the ‘economy of the Word incarnate’ or the economy of salvation’.”
Father Connelly
SIGNINGS
Pope John Paul II approved the Catechism of the Catholic Church in which is written the following lines:
(Paragraph number 677) "The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection. The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God's victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven. God's triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world."
The fact that this interpretation has been taught in such a strong way is powerful to me. In America the Catholic Church has seen great growth over the last 100 years. It could have been thought that maybe this was the fulfillment of Christ’s promise to Peter coming true. It may have seemed for a while that the Church was going to increase until there was a beautiful Church and a booming parish on every corner.
This is not to be expected. Christ is a King but not of the world. The Church is the beginning of His Kingdom here on earth but this earth will pass away. The Church's success in the war against Satan will be victorious but it will not look like victory to those who do not see the sign of the Christ Crucified as a sign of victory.
We are not afraid. In fact we expect that victory will come for us the way it came for Jesus and His Apostles. From all external ways of measuring, it will look like failure and not success.
Christ is coming. He is the King who comes in splendor and we His Church are prepared to meet him. Not with the trappings of worldly success but with our hearts loving in the midst of the brokenness of this temporary world.
In Christ,
Fr. St. Martin
A HUGE THANK-YOU FROM MOTHER CAROLINE ACADEMY STUDENTS
Please check out the gigantic thank-you from the students at Mother Caroline Academy. It is displayed on the wall on the right side of the foyer to the Upper Church. They were very appreciative of your donations of school supplies!
Margaret LeBlanc and Jane McGuire
ROSARY ONLINE AT CATHOLIC.NET
Daily video of the full Rosary prayer with the corresponding mysteries of the day. Go to www.Catholic.net and click on Rosary on the right side of the blue menu.
ADVENT SEASON
A new Church year begins on November 28/29, the FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT. Advent is a period of devout and joyful expectation as we prepare for Christmas which celebrates Christ’s first coming, and we await Christ’s second coming at the end of time. We enter Cycle C in our Scripture readings featuring the Gospel of Luke. For Luke, the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus fulfill the longing of generations.
Here at Sacred Heart Parish, we offer our Advent Giving Program as an opportunity to respond to the needs of our neighbors – near and far.
Gift card selections for St. Ambrose Family Inn in Boston, Julie’s Family Learning Program, Dorchester, New England Home for the Deaf in Danvers, Walden School at the Learning Center for the Deaf in Framingham
Giving Tree located in the gathering space accepts donations to help support youth activities for deaf and hearing in the parish
Food Collection for the Missionaries of Charity in Dorchester for distribution to needy individuals and families. This is coordinated through the religious education program.
We encourage all parishioners to support at least one of these outreach opportunities.
SOCIAL JUSTICE FORUM NOVEMBER 22
The 18th Social Justice Forum on Sunday, November 22 at 7:30 PM will feature Professor Andrew Bacevich speaking on “The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. Andrew Bacevich is professor of history and international relations at BU, a graduate of the US Military Academy with a PhD in American diplomatic history from Princeton. Admission is free. Refreshments following the presentation.
CALENDAR NOTES
GUILD OF ST FRANCIS “HOLLY HARVEST FAIR:
Sunday, November 22 – 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM – Parish Center
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION – GRADES 1-5:
Sunday, November 22 – 10:30 to 11:45 AM – Lower Church
SOCIAL JUSTICE FORUM:
Sunday, November 22 – 7:30 PM – Lower Church
BOY SCOUTS:
Monday, November 23 – 7:30 PM – Parish Center
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION – Tuesday, November 24
GRADES 1-5: – 4:00 to 5:15 PM – Lower Church
GRADES 6-10: – 7:00 to 8:30 PM – Lower Church
THANKSGIVING DAY MASS:
Thursday, November 26 – 9:00 AM – Lower Church
COFFEE HOUR:
Friday, November 27 – Follows 9 AM Mass – Parish Center
LITURGY, ADORATION AND THE ROSARY:
Saturday, Nov. 28 – 9 AM to 12:30 PM – Lower Church
EXTENDED COFFEE HOUR:
Sunday, November 29 – 10 AM to 1 PM – Parish Center