Sacred Heart Parish
MASS INTENTIONS FOR THE WEEK
Saturday, August 6
4:00 PM Peter and Raymond Scichilone and Bob Mooney
Sunday, August 7
9:00 AM Parishioners of Sacred Heart
11:45 AM Louis Annunziata Tonelli
Tuesday, August 9
7:00 AM E. Riley Greene
Wednesday, August 10
7:00 AM Dominic D’Innocenzo
Saturday, August 13
4:00 PM Peter and Frank Pomponio
Sunday, August 14
9:00 AM Parishioners of Sacred Heart
CONFESSIONS
Saturday, August 13 – 2:00 – 3:30 PM – Fr. Connelly
READINGS FOR THE TWENTIETH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
First Reading: Isaiah 56:1, 6-7
Second Reading: Romans 11:13-15, 29-32
Gospel Reading: Matthew 15:21-28
PARKING BAN
Because of repairs being made to the dormers of the church, the small parking lot adjacent to the church will not be usable for the entire month of August. Those requiring the use of the handicap entrance will need to be dropped off from the street as there will be no parking allowed in the lot. Drivers may continue on to the Crescent Avenue lot and use the handicap spots that are available there.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
Many thanks to all who donated goods or made financial contributions to the Bridge Over Troubled Waters redecorating project. All the basic furniture and linens are in place, and we have a bit of money left that will be used for “finishing touches” to make this a cozy room for the teenage mother and her daughter who will live there. We can continue to support them and all the residents of the house with our prayers.
OFFERTORY INCOME
Weekend of July 30/31 $3,362.25
For the Church in Africa $548
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION NEWS
I hope that you find the deep and abiding presence of God in the beauty of the mountains, lakes and oceans of your summer retreats and are renewed in body, mind, and spirit.
See you in the fall and if you are so called, I look forward to your loving response to God’s blessing by offering to teach CCD in the coming year. Your response will not go unrewarded.
“Anyone who catches a glimpse of God, experiences joy!” Benedict XVI
Michelle Solomon, Director of Religious Education
THE CATHOLIC FAITH COMES HOME
TO YOUR COMPUTER!
Originally designed to encourage fallen away Catholics to come back to the Church, the Catholics Come Home website (www.catholicscomehome.org) is also for those of us who are already home but want to learn and understand more of our Catholic faith. Can you explain to others what the Church really teaches about homosexuality, divorce or annulments? Do you know why Catholics believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist? These topics and hundreds more are part of a virtual encyclopedia of Church teachings that any computer novice can use. There is an easy link to find answers to common questions, listen to talks, find books, CD’s and support groups, and parenting resources for whatever your needs or interests are. Now you can find answers to how to learn and grow in the Catholic faith without ever leaving your living room! Check it out today and God bless you on rediscovering the riches of our Catholic faith!
Listen to and support Catholic TV and Radio. They are both wonderful resources for growing in your knowledge of the Catholic faith! www.CatholicTV.com; Comcast channel 268 in New England; Verizon: channel 296 in New England. Catholic Radio: Station of the Cross, WQOM 1060 AM.
SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL SOCIETY
The members of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul are pleased to announce the continuation of their charitable work in assisting the needy in the parish. Although this apostolate has been active in the parish for many years, we wish to call attention to our services by posting a phone number in the parish bulletin: 617-969-2259. The receptacle for donations of clothing will remain in the church parking lot. We are presently considering placing boxes for cash donations somewhere in the church.
We will be posting additional information in future bulletins.
Paul McGuire Francis Daly Al Calvo
Jane McGuire Maura Iverson
THE HUMAN VIRTUES
This past week we’ve had some interesting Feast days. Last Monday we celebrated the feast day of St. Alphonsus, founder of the Redemptorist Fathers. On Tuesday we celebrated the feast day of St. Peter Julian Eymard, perhaps not a familiar name to many of us. He had great devotion to the risen Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist and he founded two religious orders, the Blessed Sacrament Fathers and Sister Servants of the Sacrament of the Eucharist. On Thursday we celebrated the feast of John Marie Vianney, priest and pastor. On Saturday we celebrated the feast of the Lord’s Transfiguration. Twenty columns even wouldn’t do justice to the Lord’s Transfiguration, so wide spread and important in the East, lesser appreciated in the West.
Let’s talk about St. Alphonsus. Among his many claims to ecclesial fame is that he was an excellent moral theologian. Theology, as you may know, is like ice cream cones which come in different flavors: there is doctrinal theology, moral theology, ascetical and mystical theology, and other divisions like historical theology, patristic theology and biblical theology. Alphonsus was a moral theologian. Some today like to refer to their discipline as theological ethics.
In this column, I will ask but one question – What is it that moral theologians say to us? (The writer of this column is not a moral theologian but more the doctrinal kind, concerned about what people think about the faith and how they talk about the faith whereas the moralist is more concerned with the person’s actions.) First of all, moral theologians would remind us that we are not neutral to truth and error and to goodness and badness. When we come from the creative hand of God we know what is true and seek what is good. This is a sort of law that God has written into the human heart. We call this the natural law. This law tells us, for example, that good is to be done and not evil, and that we ought to treat others as we expect others to treat us. God has given us a deeper understanding of the natural law through the Ten Commandments given to Moses for ancient Israel. With the coming of the Lord Jesus we have a new law, a new command, a more demanding law in what is called the law of Christ. The law of Christ presumes that followers of Jesus are expert in those virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance, which are binding on all peoples and certainly must be practiced by the followers of Christ. Those moral virtues are often called the human virtues whereas the virtues of faith hope and love, sometimes called the theological virtues, are the virtues that make us Christian.
Space doesn’t allow much more but the above can be helpful especially in our day where we’re concerned worldwide with all sorts of institutions – the banking institution, the shenanigans that go on on Wall Street, the lower courts, even the Church and the clergy. There is a loss of trust in many institutions and we want to know how to get it back. Too often the solution being offered is based only on structural change but this will not do as a recent article in the Tablet from London said – the only thing that will help us get back our trust is through a rehabilitation of the virtues that make us human – prudence, justice, courage or fortitude and temperance.
Father Connelly
UPDATE ON PARISH CAPITAL PROJECTS
Our Business Manager and Facilities Manager have definitely not been on vacation! Several major projects are underway. Our Lady’s Grotto, formerly behind the school, has been dismantled and is being reconstructed behind the convent. The Montessori School, which will now expand its play area behind the school, is paying about 85% of the construction costs. The Parish is responsible for the remainder and for landscaping costs. The PFC will be presenting fundraising options for this in the fall.
The painting project for the exterior of the rectory is moving along, although there was a slight delay to exterminate carpenter ants that the painters discovered while they were doing the prep work.
The work on the church dormers is getting started. Unfortunately, this has necessitated closing the small parking lot for the month of August to accommodate the heavy equipment, as was announced at the Masses last weekend. Once that work is done, the parking lot will be surfaced and relined. Your patience with all this will be greatly appreciated.
PRAYING THE LITURGY
“The Eucharistic Prayer or Canon of the Mass is the central prayer of the entire celebration. The Church tells us that liturgy (and the Mass is the highpoint and heart of liturgy) is the action of Christ the priest and His Body, the Church. In the celebration of Mass, during the Eucharistic Prayer, not only does Christ become present, body and blood, soul and divinity, under the forms of bread and wine, but Christ’s saving action, His passion, death and resurrection are once again enacted and offered to the Father by Christ Himself in the person of the priest, and by all present. This action of Christ which brought about our redemption from sin and eternal death, offered once for all on Calvary, becomes present again for us, here and now, in this time and place, so that we can join in Christ’s perfect offering and can ourselves participate in His perfect worship.
And what is most important, we do not offer Christ alone; we are called to offer ourselves, our lives, our individual efforts to grow more like Christ and our efforts as a community of believers to spread God’s Word and to serve God’s people, to the Father in union with Christ through the hands of the priest. Although our offering is in itself imperfect, when joined with the offering of Christ it becomes perfect praise and thanksgiving to the Father.
SIGNINGS
I remember when I was in the seminary I noticed that I (and others) had a particular facial expression when listening to a teacher. It was not a smile. It was an expression of squinty eyes and a screwed up face. The head was always a little turned and there might be an impatient fiddling with the pen or a rubbing of the face. I tried to look right at the teacher with eyes wide open and with a happy expression once. It was good. The teacher seemed to like it. It must be awful to look at sour faces all the time. I think we have all been trained to think that straining and doubt are what smart people do, so we try to look smart by looking like we are trying to squeeze our brains or resist some doctrine by squeezing out some good doubts. This is quite funny. Doubt is not smart. It is dim.
The CCC tells us of doubt:
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“The first commandment requires us to nourish and protect our faith with prudence and vigilance, and to reject everything that is opposed to it. There are various ways of sinning against faith: Voluntary doubt about the faith disregards or refuses to hold as true what God has revealed and the Church proposes for belief. Involuntary doubt refers to hesitation in believing, difficulty in overcoming objections connected with the faith, or also anxiety aroused by its obscurity. If deliberately cultivated doubt can lead to spiritual blindness.”
Some people think that doubt is an expression of human intelligence or freedom. It is neither. Jesus in the Gospel does not compliment Peter on his doubt. Jesus is pleading with Peter and us to not live out of our brokenness but to know that “He is.” He shows us His power, He calms the waves. He is the man more powerful than the water or the wind. He gives us the power to know this. He gives us faith. He did so at our Baptism.
We are intelligent and free when we live out of this faith. We are dehumanized and dim-witted when we scrunch up our nose at Church teachings as we have all been trained to do by a snobbish culture. It is a wonderful thing to be trusting. Any good parent is happy to see a trusting response from his/her children. Bad people can take advantage of trust but the cure for that is not to eradicate from our children the ability to trust but to deal with the people who take advantage.
We love to trust Christ and His Church like healthy, smart, good children who love to trust Ma and Pa. One reason why we smart people tend to trust is because most of the time there is no reason not to.
In Christ,
Fr. St. Martin
HABITAT FOR HUMANITY BOSTON NEEDS VOLUNTEERS
Venders at the ORGILL 2011 Boston hardware tradeshow have agreed to donate their sample merchandise to Habitat at the close of the event. Volunteers 18 years or older are needed at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, 415 Summer St., Boston at the end of the show on Saturday, August 20 and Sunday, August 21. To sign up for a shift, email volunteers@habitatboston.org., use ORGILL in the subject line and say which day(s) you want to volunteer. Habitat will confirm your participation and provide more details.
MEETING CHRIST IN PRAYER
The Office of Worship and Spiritual Life has developed an eight week guided prayer experience based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. This program called Meeting Christ in Prayer leads participants through a prayerful consideration of the person of Jesus Christ and our incorporation into his life and mission. It calls for a commitment of 8 weeks of daily prayer, 8 weekly meetings and Faith sharing. The program will take place at the Pastoral Center, 66 Brooks Drive, Braintree on Wednesday Evenings, September 14 through November 2, from 7:00 to 8:15 PM. For further information and to register, call: Sister Anne D’Arcy 617-779-3640 or email: sdarcy@rcab.org.
VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL AT CORPUS CHRISTI-ST. BERNARD PARISH
Son World Vacation Bible School will be held at Corpus Christi-St. Bernard Parish in Corpus Christi church hall August 22 – 26, from 9 to 2 daily with a field trip to Canobie Lake Park on the 26th. Children Ages 5-10 are invited to attend. Teens and Adults are invited to help out. Sign-up sheets are available at Sacred Heart church entrances.
FALL SEMESTER GERONTOLOGY CLASSES
UMass Boston is accepting applications for the Manning Certificate Program in Gerontology for fall 2011. On-campus and online classes begin Sept. 5. For more information, call Mary St. Jean at 617-287-7330; email mary.stjean@umb.edu.
CALENDAR NOTES
COFFEE HOUR:
Sunday, August 7 – After 10:30 AM ASL Mass – Parish Ctr.
KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS:
Wednesday, August 10 – 7:30 PM – Convent Dining Room
COFFEE HOUR:
Friday, August 12 – Following 9 AM Mass – Parish Center
LITURGY, ADORATION AND THE ROSARY:
Saturday, August 13 – 9 AM to 12:30 PM – Lower Church
COFFEE HOUR:
Sunday, August 14 – After 10:30AM ASL Mass – Parish Ctr.