Sacred Heart Parish
MASS INTENTIONS FOR THE WEEK
Saturday, August 27
4:00 PM Michael & Nellie Ryder
Sunday, August 28
9:00 AM Parishioners of Sacred Heart
Thursday, September 1
7:00 AM Arthur Lucier, Jr.
Friday, September 2
9:00 AM Ana DeMoreno
Saturday, September 3
4:00 PM Edward Slavin
Sunday, September 4
9:00 AM Parishioners of Sacred Heart
CELEBRANTS FOR NEXT WEEKEND’S MASSES
Saturday, September 3
4:00 PM Fr. Connelly
Sunday, September 4
9:00 AM Fr. Imbelli
10:30 AM Fr. Carey
11:45 AM Fr. Connelly
CONFESSIONS
Saturday, September 3 – 2:00 to 3:30 PM – Fr. Connelly
READINGS FOR THE TWENTY-THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
First Reading: Ezekiel 33:7-9
Second Reading : Romans 13:8-10
Gospel Reading: Matthew 18:15-20
COFFEE HOUR
Coffee Hour after the 9 AM Mass will begin anew on Sunday, Sept. 11. In order for it to continue beyond that date, volunteers will have to come forward to sign up to host. The sign-up board will be available on the 11th and has open slots through November.
In addition, there is a significant and immediate need – a new coordinator to provide a smooth operation. This can be one person or several, working together. The task is quite simple: contact, by email, each host during the week before their turn to remind them. The coordinator does not need to attend Coffee Hour. The hosts are reimbursed for their purchase of the perishable supplies; the non-perishable supplies are provided by the parish. If you can commit to being coordinator, or are interested in getting more information about the position, please email parish@sacredheart.ws and Kathy Winters at winters41@mac.com. You will be blessed!
OFFERTORY INCOME
Weekend of August 20/21 $4,256
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION NEWS
Welcome home and rejoice that we all have an opportunity to begin a new year full of promise and expectations! When you’re looking to schedule your resources and time, think of making a place for God in your everyday life! That means prayer, Mass, the Sacraments and CCD! Here are the important events coming up:
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If you have not already registered your child for CCD please go on line and download the registration forms and return them to the rectory as soon as possible. All new students must include a copy of their Baptismal Certificate with the registration.
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CCD classes begin on Sunday, Sept. 25 and Tuesday, Sept 27. We ask that at least one parent accompany their student on the first day for an opening address and important information for the coming year. Plan to stay for about 40 minutes.
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Anyone new to our parish, who is not familiar with our Child Safety program for grades 1-8, should attend an important meeting on this subject on Sunday, Sept 11, 2011 at 10:15-11:15 AM, after Mass, in the conference room at the parish center. The conference room is located on the upper level adjacent to the stage. The Child Safety program Talking about Touching (gr. 1-3) and Keeping Children Safe (gr. 4-8) is given in 2 class periods within the first 6 weeks of class. This program teaches children skills that will help them keep safe in dangerous or abusive situations and to ask for help when needed to deal with bullying.
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Lastly but most importantly, our classrooms are filling up with eager students but many classes have no one to share the story of God’s all loving plan to get us to heaven! How can we go forward without many of you hearing God’s call and you responding with a “yes” as Mary did when she was called to bring the Savior into the world? We pray, through the intercession of our Blessed Mother, for you to respond to God’s great love with your loving service to the students in return.
Please call or email if you are willing and able to become a catechist on Sunday (10:30AM), Tuesday afternoons (4:00PM) or Tuesday evenings (7-8:30PM). NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY!
Michelle Solomon, Director of Religious Education
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 18 at 3:00 PM in the rectory.
OFF TO COLLEGE
The July 31st bulletin ran the pastor’s column under the title “When Do Parents Cease Parenting?” (I presume most of the parishioners save their bulletins. I remember a religious sister at the convent telling me that each week she takes 15 to 20 copies of the Bulletin. I was delighted to hear that until she explained to me that she found the bulletin very good to place under her many plant pots which she kept on the veranda of the convent.) I suggested in the column on the 31st of July that parents have to keep parenting especially when their young folks go off to college. That elicited from Paul McNulty, a faithful parishioner and excellent father to a large family, the following remarks: “Regarding your Sunday bulletin query about when parents should cease “advising” their children, the answer is never! You cannot do so even if you want to do so. When I was first married I naively believed that when my kids reached 21 and/or graduated from college that my worries and responsibilities were over. I quickly learned how wrong I was. I seem to recall that when a priest is ordained he is admonished: ‘Remember you are a priest forever’. I have long believed that a similar Melchizedekian admonition should be added to the wedding vows; namely: ‘Remember you are a parent forever’ ”.
Some parents in our parish are looking forward joyfully, hopefully, and with not a little bit of dread, to the event of one of their children moving off to college perhaps beyond the Mississippi River. It’s a new experience and one that offers many good things but also some warnings. Of course the young people going off to college are joyful and hopeful, and, if you scratch the surface, are also filled with some dread. Will I do well in my studies? What will my roommate be like in my freshman year? How will I handle a more cosmopolitan group of fellow students whereas up to this time I’ve only known Newtonites? I appreciate all of these issues and can remember a few of them even though I did not board at college but attended college at a nearby Catholic Institution.
What is my concern? As the student undergoes orientation at the college of his or her choice – and this will be a wonderful and exciting experience – could it also be a disorientation with regard to their Catholic faith? The statistics in this regard are not overly hopeful. They tell us that over 60% and maybe more of young collegians do not persevere in the faith convictions (or were they convictions?) of their earlier years. Our Religious Education Director is very much concerned about this issue and helped me dramatically to understand the problem. If someone is going to Harvard College, for example, he or she will notice immediately in all the buildings on campus that the Harvard motto is “Veritas”. This motto was drawn up centuries ago, and I do not know how applicable it is at the present time as a governing factor at Harvard College. If your child has been admitted to Yale University, the motto there is “Lux et Veritas”, that is, “light and truth”. Mrs. Solomon gave me a volume entitled Dis-Orientation: The Thirteen Isms That Will Send You to Intellectual “La-La Land”. The concerns of the various authors of this anthology focus on helping parents and students learn how to go to college without losing their faith. Perhaps a view of the table of contents will be helpful. The first three essays are labeled Freshman Errors: sentimentalism, relativism and hedonism. Under the rubric of Sophomore Follies, Peter Kreeft of Boston College writes on progressivism; Robert Spencer writes on multiculturalism; and Jimmy Akin writes on Anti-Catholicism.
The issue in this book, I gather, can be expressed this way: Our young people are leaving home to go to college; will they also leave the faith? As the authors say: “Many of our young people will fall prey to one or more of the dominant ideologies ingrained in their college education – ideologies that can lead them away from the Church and ultimately their faith in God. Students who are not taught how to think critically or who lack the tools needed to sift through the logic of these positions are easily swayed by the smooth sophistry of the intellectual elite.”
Going to college is both wonderful and challenging. Faith in God, faith in the Lord Jesus, Son of Mary but also Son of God, faith in the Holy Spirit at work in the teachings and sacraments of the Church, these issues can be subject to challenge in various classes of history, philosophy and sociology. Our students need to be grounded in faith and be ready to speak up for the faith, kindly, gently, and thoughtfully, when one has the impression that their Catholic faith is being made fun of or challenged.
Father Connelly
P.S. Close association on college campuses with the Newman Clubs, and with the Catholic Centers, can be most helpful, especially in the early years of college experience.
INTENTIONS OF THE HOLY FATHER FOR THE MONTH OF SEPTEMBER
General Intention: That all teachers may know how to communicate the love of truth and instill authentic moral and spiritual values.
Mission Intention: That the Christian communities of Asia may proclaim the Gospel with fervor, witnessing to its beauty with the joy of faith.
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 at any time during the month.
SIGNINGS
It was a great Pilgrimage to WYD! We suffered greatly! Wow! Thank you for your support. You might think it sounds as though I am not serious in my words but I am.
When we were on the way to events there was heat, there were jams of people stuck in lines that became so hot and tight you thought you would be crushed and pass out. You saw people passing out. You couldn't always find food and water and you and your group would start to run out of what you had. The group would get separated in the crowd on public transport. The phones would stop working. Two people in our group got so sick they needed to be taken to the hospital. All of this was difficult enough but in our group we had even more blessings. In our group we had the honor and privilege of being able to take turns leading a person who was blind, a person who had mild cerebral palsy and needed a hand, a person who had autism, a person who had a heart condition, and most of the group was deaf. So how was it that we were blessed?
Well, everyone helped each other. Everyone sacrificed for each other. Everyone looked out for each other. We were patient with each other. We had a plan. We tried to listen to each other. We were no strangers to troubles and difficulties with the background we all had so we knew how to do all these things. We were blessed.
On the day of the perfective end of the whole trip, Sunday Mass with the Pope and the Youth from all five continents of about two million strong, we entered the great field of hot tarmac and dirt to what was essentially a giant concentration camp. Just to get there was exhausting for the most fit and healthy. Our group was more blessed. Some of our members were quite fit and healthy and they were carrying the bags of others or giving an arm, or leading if there were sight problems. One person even needed to be carried but that was something we could do. We got stuck in a big human traffic jam and were seeing people passed out and being taken away on stretchers. It was so hot. There were groups that were splitting up because some of the adult leaders were in revolt with other adult leaders and groups were splitting up. Some people just didn't go at all. And there we were against the odds staying together and moving on. How? Well we know how to keep on. The group had members expert in facing adversity. We found a resting spot in the middle of the mayhem. We were crying out to God in our distress. A sister convinced security to let us through a barrier into an area, still in the blazing sun, but with a little more elbow room. There was no plan. We waited. The sister was up to something so we waited. Two wheel chairs appeared with two people to push. We charged back into the crowd and found a route a little less crowded but sandy. The wheels kept sinking. The young volunteer ladies pushing were going to need to go to triage. We had to take over pushing. We had to push the chairs fast to get through the sand traps. It was hot. We finally got to the area for the Deaf and met the others we were separated from. It was in the blazing sun on the super heated tarmac. We thought some of our number were suffering from heat stroke and one member was shaking and weak. We were all O.K. in an hour. We were happy again and together and at peace with each other. We knew about forgiveness and healing. A crazy guy came by and wanted to heal us. We were patient with him as he tried to heal the deaf youth. He didn't get it as Peter didn't get it. Healing is not salvation. Salvation is suffering and death. We knew that and so we could endure anything and did better than many groups who where supposedly "healthy" and not in need of a "cure".
We prayed with our Holy Father who told us, as he said, "Absolute truth" and to "give our freedom wings" as our banner illustrated. The youth make us all feel young again and we thank God for our weaknesses which, as the first Pope came to understand, are the bearers of our strengths.
In Christ,
Fr. St. Martin
CELEBRATION OF THE PRIESTHOOD DINNER
The dinner in Celebration of the Priesthood will take place on September 22 at 5:30 PM at the Seaport Hotel, World Trade Center in Boston. Individual tickets can be purchased for $500 and a table for $5,000. The dinner is an opportunity to honor the many beloved priests who serve or have served in our parishes, schools and communities throughout the Archdiocese. For more information, please visit www.CelebrationOfThePriesthood.org. or contact Claudia Cuscianna at events@rcab.org or 617-779-3733
WORLDWIDE MARRIAGE ENCOUNTER
“Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God.” Don’t let the world’s way tear your marriage apart. The next Worldwide Marriage Encounter Weekends in New England are September 16-18 and October 21-23. For more information call Ralph & Jane Becker at 1-800-710-WWME or visit our webpage at www.wwme.org
CALENDAR NOTES
COFFEE HOUR:
Sunday, Aug. 28 – After 10:30 AM ASL Mass – Parish Ctr.
COFFEE HOUR:
Friday, Sept. 2 – Following 9 AM Mass – Parish Center
LITURGY, ADORATION AND THE ROSARY:
Saturday, Sept. 3 – 9 AM to 12:30 PM – Lower Church
COFFEE HOUR:
Sunday, Sept. 4 – After 10:30 AM ASL Mass – Parish Ctr.
LABOR DAY MASS SCHEDULE;
Monday, September 5– 9:00 AM – Lower Church