Sacred Heart Parish
MASS INTENTIONS FOR THE WEEK
Sunday, April 3
9:00 AM Parishioners of Sacred Heart
Friday, April 8
9:00 AM Virginia Inman
Saturday, April 9
4:00 PM Lewis Manfredi
Sunday, April 10
9:00 AM Joseph Warren
10:30 AM Denise S. Labrie
11:45 AM Parishioners of Sacred Heart
CELEBRANTS FOR NEXT WEEKEND’S MASSES
Saturday, April 9
4:00 PM Fr. Connelly
Sunday, April 10
9:00 AM Fr. Fr. Connelly
10:30 AM Fr. St. Martin
11:45 AM Fr. Imbelli
CONFESSIONS
Wednesday, April 6 – 6:30 to 8:00 PM – Fr. Connelly
Saturday, April 9 – 2:30 to 3:00 PM – Fr. Connelly
Sunday, April 10 – 3 PM – at Our Lady Help of Christians
READINGS FOR THE FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT
First Reading: Ezekiel 37:12-14
Second Reading: Romans: 8:8-11
Gospel Reading: John 11:1-45
LENTEN ALMSGIVING
Please remember the less fortunate this Lent and donate new white socks and underwear for St Francis House. Needed sizes are posted on the collection receptacles at the church entrances. Also please remember the regular food donation for the month of April – cold cereals. Rice Bowls are still available at the church entrances.
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.
LENTEN PENANCE SERVICE
A Penance Service for the Newton parishes will be held on Sunday, April 10, at 3 PM at Our Lady Help of Christians Church, 573 Washington St. Several Confessors will be available for individual reconciliation. If you are in need of transportation, call the rectory at 617-969-2248.
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION NEWS
Our Lenten focus continues to be on prayer, sacrifice and almsgiving. We try to encourage our students to persevere in their little sacrifices of love, whether by letting others go first in line or skipping a second helping of food. These gifts can remind us to keep on filling our Rice Bowls for the poor that are likely to be sent to our suffering brothers and sisters in Japan. The Rice Bowls will be collected on Sunday, April 10 & Tuesday, April 12 to be presented at Holy Thursday Mass during Holy Week.
There will be no Sunday or Tuesday CCD on Apr. 17 and 19 due to Spring Vacation. There will be no Sunday CCD on Apr. 24th for the celebration of Easter Sunday.
The Confirmation Class welcomes back Jason Giombetti, Youth Minister at St. Patrick’s Parish in Natick, who will give a presentation on Creation vs. Evolution and the Tough Issues We Face as Catholics. Everyone is invited to attend the speaker series to grow and develop in their knowledge of our beautiful Catholic faith. Only through a process of life long learning, can we begin to know the beauty and depth of the truth that is in Jesus Christ. Please join us Tuesday, April 5th from 7 – 8:30 PM in the lower church. The updated speaker schedule is on tables at all entrances/exits of the church.
On Friday, April 8th, Sacred Heart Parish is providing and serving the soup for Soup and Stations at Corpus Christi Parish in Auburndale from 6 – 7:30 PM. This is a great opportunity for Confirmation Candidates and their families to be part of the larger church community in Newton and to take advantage of a service opportunity. Please contact Roseann Furbush at Roseann.Furbush@sacredheart.ws if you are interested.
Michelle Solomon Director Religious Education
Roseann Furbush Confirmation Coordinator
PRO-LIFE LENTEN RETREAT
The Pro-Life Office of the Archdiocese of Boston and Women Affirming Life will be hosting a Lenten Retreat on Saturday, April 16, 2011 from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM.
A Reflection entitled “Come Away With Me For Awhile” will be offered by Blessed John XXIII Seminarian, Edward Rama. Ed will invite us to “come away for a while” with the Lord to be open to God’s healing presence, spiritually renewed, and strengthened in our call to holiness as we prepare for Holy Week.
This event will be held at the Daughters of St. Paul Convent, 50 Saint Pauls Avenue, Jamaica Plain. Cost is $20 / students: $10 (lunch is included in ticket price). Please call 508- 651-1900 or e-mail ProLifeOffice@rcab.org for more information.
”OF GODS AND MEN”
From Google I have obtained some pages from John L. Allen, Jr.’s blog under the title “Remembering the Monks of Tibhirine”
In May 1996, seven Cistercian monks from the Monastery of Tibhirine in Algeria were found dead, after having been kidnapped two months earlier. They were caught up in a bloody conflict between the Algerian government and the Armed Islamic Group, an extremist movement reflecting widespread discontent with a regime regarded as corrupt and illegitmate. The Cistercians saw the storm clouds gathering but opted to remain and face death, in solidarity with the people they had served and loved for so long.
A 2010 French film, Des hommes et des dieux, “Of Men and Gods,” tells the story of the Tibhirine monks. It won the Grand Prix award at the Cannes Film Festival (from a jury led by American director Tim Burton) and has become a huge critical and commercial success in France. It’s also been named by France as its candidate in the “Best Foreign Language Film” category in the Academy Awards.
If you have not seen this film, I strongly urge you to see it – in Lent or outside of Lent. It is a remarkable film. (Last week, you may remember, the title of my column – The Paschal Mystery in Marriage”. We could entitle this column – “The Paschal Mystery in Tibhirine”.) The Prior of the Cistercian Monks was named Dom Christian de Chergé. The killing of the monks took place in 1996. Dom Christian’s letter was opened on Pentecost Sunday, May 26, 1996. His last testament reads as follows:
A GOODBYE....
If it should happen one day - and it could be today - that I become a victim of the terrorism which now seems ready to engulf all the foreigners living in Algeria, I would like my community, my Church and my family to remember that my life was GIVEN to God and to this country. I ask them to accept the fact that the One Master of all life was not a stranger to this brutal departure. I would ask them to pray for me: for how could I be found worthy of such an offering? I ask them to associate this death with so many other equally violent ones which are forgotten through indifference or anonymity. My life has no more value than any other. Nor any less value.
In any case, it has not the innocence of childhood. I have lived long enough to know that I am an accomplice in the evil which seems to prevail so terribly in the world, even in the evil which might blindly strike me down. I should like, when the time comes, to have a moment of spiritual clarity which would allow me to beg forgiveness of God and of my fellow human beings, and at the same time forgive with all my heart the one who would strike me down. I could not desire such a death. It seems to me important to state this. I do not see, in fact, how I could rejoice if the people I love were indiscriminately accused of my murder. It would be too high a price to pay for what will perhaps be called, the "grace of martyrdom" to owe it to an Algerian, whoever he might be, especially if he says he is acting in fidelity to what he believes to be Islam.
I am aware of the scorn which can be heaped on the Algerians indiscriminately. I am also aware of the caricatures of Islam which a certain Islamism fosters. It is too easy to soothe one's conscience by identifying this religious way with the fundamentalist ideology of its extremists. For me, Algeria and Islam are something different: it is a body and a soul. I have proclaimed this often enough, I think, in the light of what I have received from it. I so often find there that true strand of the Gospel which I learned at my mother's knee, my very first Church, precisely in Algeria, and already inspired with respect for Muslim believers.
Obviously, my death will appear to confirm those who hastily judged me naïve or idealistic: "Let him tell us now what he thinks of his ideals!" But these persons should know that finally my most avid curiosity will be set free. This is what I shall be able to do, God willing: immerse my gaze in that of the Father to contemplate with him His children of Islam just as He sees them, all shining with the glory of Christ, the fruit of His Passion, filled with the Gift of the Spirit whose secret joy will always be to establish communion and restore the likeness, playing with the differences.
For this life lost, totally mine and totally theirs, I thank God, who seems to have willed it entirely for the sake of that JOY in everything and in spite of everything.
In this THANK YOU, which is said for everything in my life from now on, I certainly include you, friends of yesterday and today, and you, my friends of this place, along with my mother and father, my sisters and brothers and their families, You are the hundredfold granted as was promised! And also you, my last-minute friend, who will not have known what you were doing:
Yes, I want this THANK YOU and this GOODBYE to be a "GOD-BLESS" for you, too, because in God's face I see yours. May we meet again as happy thieves in Paradise, if it please God, the Father of us both.
AMEN ! INCHALLAH !
Algiers, 1st December 1993
Tibhirine, 1st January 1994
Christian +
Father Connelly
SIGNINGS
There are two things to point out in today's Gospel. First: The blind man was noted as being "born blind." Second: Jesus uses dirt to heal.
The first point shows us that the blind man is not personally guilty of doing anything that could have caused his being blind either directly or indirectly. He didn't become blind because of a sin such as speeding in a chariot for a love of speed, endangering his life and others, and then become blind from an accident. In such a case his blindness could be his own fault.
This man is not blind because of any sin on his part. He was born with eyes that could not see. We are inclined then to find fault with others for the blindness. Some say it must be a fault of the parents. Some say it must be a fault of our original parents. But even then we are left to wonder, why does it happen to some children and not others? How does God's justice work? It seems random sometimes. That is not justice. It is not fair. Why does God permit it? If God is good and powerful there must be some reason that He permits some innocent children to suffer. Why did God permit this innocent child to suffer? How is that justice?
Some of the people in the Gospel, not knowing the answer, want to make excuses for God, as if they want to defend God. It is as if they want to protect Him. Why? Maybe they didn't really think God was good and they thought that He was just like a strong man whom you had better defend. Maybe then God would not smite you. It is that ‘God is a bully but we want to be on His good side because we don't want Him to pick on us’ approach.
Jesus tells us a few things. He does so with dirt. One thing is that it is easy for God to make things new. God made everything from nothing in the first place. If we come up against suffering as we all do, it seems like it will go on forever, but for God, taking that away is as easy as making us was. It costs God nothing. He fixes with dirt.
The mystery of suffering is fully revealed on the Cross. As we mature we come to know that this human experience is universal and that it can even be in reality, when innocent, a blessing. God is good. We don't understand; how could we? But we believe.
In Christ,
Fr. St. Martin
SOUP AND STATIONS
On Friday, April 8, Sacred Heart Parish will again host the Soup and Stations at Corpus Christi Church. Soup is served at 6 PM, in the lower level; Stations of the Cross begin at 7 PM in the upper Church at 45 Ash Street, Auburndale. If you would like to contribute a pot of soup or a simple dessert, please call Bernie or Peter Castellanos at 617-969-4299.
JOAN AND CAROL’S RETIREMENT PARTY
On behalf of the parish, you are invited to attend a retirement party for Joan and Carol on Sunday, April 17th, from 2 to 5 PM at the MacKenzie Center. Food donations are welcome. Please see the sign up sheets at the church entrances to indicate your food donations. If you need a ride contact Kathie Long at longlongjj@verizon.net or call 617-969-1425.
27TH SOCIAL JUSTICE FORUM
The 27th Social Justice Forum will take place on Sunday, April 10 at 7:30 PM in the lower church. Laurie Martinelli, Executive Director, National Alliance on Mental Illness of Mass., will present: Mental Illness – Myths and Facts. Free Admission, open to the public, refreshments to follow. If you need transportation, call Jini Fairley at 617-964-3966.
OUR CATHOLIC FAITH IN SCRIPTURE, SONG AND PRAYER
Come and hear Donna Cori Gibson’s powerful voice, her range, her emotion, and the awe-inspiring way in which she compels us to pray with her songs. The concert will be held at Corpus Christi Church, 45 Ash Street, Auburndale, on Wednesday, April 6th at 7 PM. Free-will offering.
OFFERTORY INCOME
Weekend of March 26/27 $ 5,137.65
CALENDAR NOTES
EXTENDED COFFEE HOUR:
Sunday, April 3– 10 AM to 1 PM – Parish Center
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION – GRADES 1-5:
Sunday, April 3 – 10:30 to 11:45 AM – Lower Church
BOY SCOUTS:
Monday, April 4– 7:30 PM – Parish Center
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION – Tuesday, April 5
Grades 1-5 – 4:00 to 5:15 PM – Lower Church
Grades 6-10 – 7:00 to 8:30 PM – Lower Church
SACRED HEART SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY:
Tuesday, April 5 – 7:30 PM – Convent Library
GUILD OF SAINT FRANCIS BOARD MEETING:
Tuesday, April 5 – 7 PM – Convent (Guild Room)
CONFESSIONS:
Wednesday, April 6 – 6:30 – 8:00 PM – Lower Church
COFFEE HOUR:
Friday, April 8 – Following 9 AM Mass – Parish Center
SOUP AND STATIONS AT CORPUS CHRISTI:
Friday, April 8 – 6 PM soup, 7 PM Stations
LITURGY, ADORATION AND THE ROSARY:
Saturday, April 9 – 9 AM to 12:30 PM – Lower Church
NEWTON PENANCE SERVICE
Sunday, April 10 – 3:00 PM – Our Lady Help of Christians
SOCIAL JUSTICE FORUM:
Sunday, April 10 – 7:30 PM – Lower Church