Sacred Heart Parish
MASS INTENTIONS FOR THE WEEK
Saturday, September 4
4:00 PM Frank and Peter Pomponio
Sunday, September 5
9:00 AM Parishioners of Sacred Heart
Friday, September 10
9:00 AM Lillian McNulty
Saturday, September 11
4:00 PM Robert Carey
Sunday, September 12
9:00 AM Parishioners of Sacred Heart
CELEBRANTS FOR NEXT WEEKEND’S MASSES
Saturday, September 11
4:00 PM Fr. Collins
Sunday, September 12
9:00 AM Fr. Imbelli
10:30 AM Fr. St. Martin
11:45 AM Fr. Akinwale and Fr. Connelly
CONFESSIONS
Saturday, September 11 – 2:00 to 3:30 PM – Fr. Connelly
READINGS FOR THE TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
First Reading: Exodus 32:7-11, 13-14
Second Reading: 1 Timothy 1:12-17
Gospel Reading: Luke 15:1-32
LABOR DAY MASS SCHEDULE
Monday, September 6, is Labor Day. Mass will be celebrated in the lower church at 9 AM. Start a new academic year off on the right foot by putting practice of your faith at the top of your to-do list. Join us for morning Mass as often as possible starting now!
ARISE SEASON 5: WE ARE THE GOOD NEWS
IS OPEN TO EVERYONE!
Only 90 minutes a week for 6 weeks can change your life! Even if you have never participated before, you are welcome. Faith sharing groups will begin the week of October 3rd. You may sign up for a group on the weekends of September 11/12 and 18/19. Check the following schedule, mark your calendar, and spread the word!
Sunday 10:15 to 11:45 AM
Monday 7:30 to 9:00 PM English
7:30 to 9:00 PM Spanish
Tuesday 12:30 to 2:00 PM; 7:00 to 8:30 PM
Wednesday 7:30 to 9:00 PM
Thursday 10:00 to 11:30 AM 1:30 to 3:00 PM
SAVE THE DATE –
GUILD OF ST. FRANCIS TEA
Fr. Connelly and The Guild of St. Francis invite all the ladies in the parish to the Guild’s annual tea on Sunday, September 19 at 3:00 PM in the rectory.
APARTMENT AVAILABLE
Single, mature person wanted to rent a one bedroom apartment with a large living room and kitchenette in Dedham – all utilities included. It is centrally located near shops, public transportation and Route 128. Pets okay. Rent negotiable. If interested, please call Dori at 781-405-0448.
SAINT FRANCIS HOUSE
Thank you for your generosity during the month of August. The items needed for September are dried pasta and spaghetti sauce. You may place your donations in the grocery cart or containers at the Church entrances any time during the month.
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION NEWS
Are you aware of the depth of God’s love for you? Perhaps the joy of knowing His love will lead you to share it with others? We are looking for CCD teachers and classroom aides for Sunday and Tuesday (afternoon and evening) programs. Come grow in your faith! No teaching experience is necessary. Contact the religious education office at 617-969-4031 or email: religious.education@sacredheart.ws
CCD registration forms have been mailed out during the summer. Early registration helps plan for how many CCD teachers we will need for the upcoming year. If you have not received a registration form and would like to, please look in the back of the church and side entrances in upper and lower church for forms or stop in at the Rectory for a packet. Children entering grade 1 this fall must complete 1 year in order to be prepared to receive First Eucharist in grade 2. A completion of Grades 1 and 2 are necessary to receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist at the end of grade 2.
A meeting will be held on Sunday, September 12 from 10:15 - 11:30 am, for all parents of CCD students who would like to learn more about the personal safety and abuse prevention curriculum for children grades 1- 8. This program is provided during class in the first 4-6 weeks of our Religious Education program.
Michelle Solomon, Director of R.E
OFFERTORY INCOME
Weekend of – August 28/29 $ 4,046
THE WOMAN AT THE WELL
Last week our Bulletin carried a homily by St. Augustine of Hippo in North Africa. (Last Saturday, August 28 was the Feast of St. Augustine.) This led me to the thought that we might put into the Bulletin another homily by St. Augustine. There are loads of homilies that came from Augustine, many of them reflecting scenes in the Gospel of John. The one that is going to be contained in this Bulletin is the scene in Chapter 4 of John’s Gospel which details the conversation between Jesus and the woman at the well in Samaria.
Coincidentally, after reading the homily of Augustine on Chapter 4 of John’s Gospel, I turned to glance at a recent issue of the London Tablet which I enjoy reading. It is a publication which sees itself as an International Catholic Weekly. It was founded in 1849 and still seems to be thriving. In that issue a Benedictine abbot was writing a little reflection with regard to the papal visit that will be made some time in the middle of October. The abbot entitled his article – “I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink”. I will quote the first two paragraphs of that article before including Augustine’s homily.
“Human beings can live for weeks without solid food, but only days without liquids. Thirst is not quite parallel to hunger. There is something primal and prior about it. Jesus, dying on the Cross, did not say, “I am hungry”, but “I am thirsty”.
The word “thirst” evokes our deepest desires. Is this why Jesus, in John’s Gospel, promises the Samaritan woman a living water welling up from within (John 4) before he offers the crowds the bread of life (John 6)? And why, in the Church too, Christ baptizes before he feeds?”
There are so many people in our world living under subhuman standards. This involves nourishing food and drink and housing and medicine – all the things we take for granted. But in our world today it is not just a question of thirsting for clean water to drink. Do we not reflect a thirst for meaning – meaning for example for the questions of life and death, meaning in regard to the basic and deep questions that the human often asks in different, strange ways – Who are we? Where do we come from? What is wrong with us? What remedy can be sought for what is wrong with us and what remedy is available? What about death and life after death?
Even beyond the thirst for meaning can we not also cite a thirst for God? It strikes me that when we seek to answer the above questions the real issue is the mystery of God. The reason this is common to every human being, although denied by some, is expressed in a familiar saying that also comes form St. Augustine: “God has made us for himself and we will not rest until we rest in him.”
A Samaritan Woman came to draw water
“A woman came. She is a symbol of the Church not yet made righteous but about to be made righteous. Righteousness follows from the conversation. She came in ignorance, she found Christ, and he enters into conversation with her. Let us see what it is about, let us see why a Samaritan woman came to draw water. The Samaritans did not form part of the Jewish people: they were foreigners. The fact that she came from a foreign people is part of the symbolic meaning, for she is a symbol of the Church. The Church was to come from the Gentiles, of a different race from the Jews.
We must then recognize ourselves in her words and in her person, and with her give our own thanks to God. She was a symbol, not the reality; she foreshadowed the reality, and the reality came to be. She found faith in Christ, who was using her as a symbol to teach us what was to come. She came then to draw water. She had simply come to draw water, in the normal way of man or woman.
Jesus says to her: Give me water to drink. For his disciples had gone to the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman therefore says to him: How is it that you, though a Jew, ask me for water to drink, though I am a Samaritan woman? For Jews have nothing to do with Samaritans.
The Samaritans were foreigners; Jews never used their utensils. The woman was carrying a pail for drawing water. She was astonished that a Jew should ask her for a drink of water, a thing that Jews would not do. But the one who was asking for a drink of water was thirsting for her faith.
Listen now and learn who it is that asks for a drink. Jesus answered her and said: If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink,” perhaps you might have asked him and he would have given you living water.
He asks for a drink, and he promises a drink. He is in need, as one hoping to receive, yet he is rich, as one about to satisfy the thirst of others. He says: If you knew the gift of God. The gift of God is the Holy Spirit. But he is still using veiled language as he speaks to the woman and gradually enters into her heart. Or is he already teaching her? What could be more gentle and kind than the encouragement he gives? If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink,” perhaps you might ask and he would give you living water.
What is this water that he will give if not the water spoken of in scripture: With you is the fountain of life?
How can those feel thirst who will drink deeply from the abundance in your house?
He was promising the Holy Spirit in satisfying abundance. She did not yet understand. In her failure to grasp his meaning, what was her reply? The woman says to him: Master, give me this drink, so that I may feel no thirst or come here to draw water. Her need forced her to this labor, her weakness shrank from it. If only she could hear these words: Come to me, all who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Jesus was saying this to her, so that her labors might be at an end; but she was not yet able to understand.”
Fr. Connelly
TIME TO PURCHASE SCHOOL SUPPLIES!!
Our parish-wide project to provide Mother Caroline Academy students and teachers with school supplies will run from September 4 through 19. For three weekends, baskets will be placed at church entrances for collection of “new” items. Since the school is totally privately funded, they depend on donations from individuals, churches, and organizations. So, as you purchase school items or refill your own home and/or business office supplies, please consider buying and donating the following supplies for 64 middle school students and 9 volunteer teachers:
AAA batteries for graphing calculators (4 per calculator)
white board markers (black and other colors) & erasers
index cards tri-fold poster boards
Xerox paper scotch tape
3 ring notebook paper glue sticks
highlighters post-its
colored pencils markers
graph paper
You can drop off donations in the collection baskets near church entrances the weekends of September 4/5, 11/12, and 18/19. Any contribution you could make to MCAEC would be profoundly appreciated! Your support makes it possible for much-needed educational opportunities to a disadvantaged community, ultimately helping many families to break free from the cycle of poverty. Thanks in advance for your generosity!!!!
Margaret LeBlanc Jane McGuire
BULLETIN ADVERTISING
Liturgical Publications, Inc., our publisher, will have a sales representative available within the next few weeks for those interested in placing a new ad. This is your opportunity to secure a space for the new publication year. To place your ad, please contact Mark Brennan at 800-888-4574 ext. 3418 or mbrennan@4lpi.com. We would like to thank our present advertisers for renewing their ad. Keep in mind; our advertising sponsors make this publication possible.
SIGNINGS
Sometimes we live on borrowed money. Some of us are poor and have to rely on the goodness of others. Some of us are dependent on others and will never be able to pay back what we owe to those on whom we depend. In other words some of us are blessed and wise.
Some people have a lot of money and think themselves to be very independent. Such people are not wise and not blessed. Why?
Really we are all totally dependent. Before God there is nothing that we have and are that does not come from Him except, of course, the messes we make of the good He freely gives us which, in turn, make us only more dependent on Him and on His mercy.
Some of us who are poor do not need any help realizing that we are dependent. Poverty helps us accept the truth of our situation. It helps us really pray with Jesus to the Father: Your will be done, Your kingdom come. When we know that we are poor we are naturally more excited about the truth that there is the Good God who is rich.
Jesus tells us in the Gospel that we must be wise if we want to follow Him on the way to the Kingdom. We must be willing to renounce all our possessions! This sounds harsh and it is. It is exactly as harsh as death. Death is a theme we constantly return to in the Gospel and in life. We either come to understand it or try to avoid, deny, or ignore it. This is pure foolishness and leads only to misery, i.e. hell. Trying to avoid death leads to everlasting death.
Jesus again brings up the subject, telling us that if we want to follow Him we must come to the wisdom that the giving up of everything in this world (death) is actually the very doorway into what it is we really want, love (God Himself). Becoming wise by acknowledging that death is the way of utter worship, is the way of Christ. This Christological way is the only way.
God helps us to see that suffering and death are really His blessings preparing us for that which is so good, it can’t begin to be imagined. We are wise and free as we understand and live out the Gospel message. Nothing can harm us when Christ is leading us on the way to the Kingdom, that way of death is revealed as a door not an obstacle to that Kingdom.
We travel joyfully now with the wisdom from the Holy Spirit together with the Son of God on our way back to the Heavenly Father.
In Christ,
Fr. St. Martin
PS – World Youth Day Basketball Fundraiser next Sunday, September 12 at noon in the Parish Center.