Sacred Heart Parish
MASS INTENTIONS
Saturday, December 3
4:00pm, Gilda Siciliano
Sunday, December 4
9:00am, Parishioners of Sacred Heart
12 Noon, Pasquale Nuzzi
Monday, December 5
12:05pm, Irene Sontag
Friday, December 9
9:00am, Albaro Betancur
Saturday, December 10
9:00am, Maria DiMaeteo
4:00pm, Parishioners of Sacred Heart
Sunday, December 11
9:00am, Ann Reynolds
11:00am, Albert Michael Folkard and Charles Napoli
12 Noon, Antonio Nicolazzo
CELEBRANTS FOR NEXT WEEKEND
Saturday, December 10, 4:00pm, Fr. Connelly
Sunday, December 11, 9:00am, Fr. Imbelli; 11:00am, Fr. St. Martin; 12 Noon, Fr. Connelly
READINGS FOR THE THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT
First Reading: Isaiah 61:1-2a, 10-11
Second Reading: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
Gospel Reading: John 1:6-8, 19-28
FEAST OF THE IMMACULATE
CONCEPTION Thursday, December 8, is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary– a holyday of obligation. Masses will be celebrated at 7am with ASL interpretation, 12:05pm with ASL interpretation, and 7:30pm in the Lower Church.
OFFERTORY INCOME
Target Weekly Offertory $5,500
Weekend of November 26/27 $4,406
PASTORAL LETTER ON THE SUNDAY MASS requests that we reach out to those who have been away from the Church. Read the Cardinal’s letter: www.BostonCatholic.org/SundayMassLetter .
CALENDAR NOTES
Daughters of St. Paul Book Sale:
After all Masses, December 3 and 4
Extended Coffee Hour:
Sunday, December 4, 10am to 1pm, Parish Center
Women’s Discussion Group:
Sunday, December 4, 10:30am, Convent
Religious Education Grades 1-5:
Sunday, December 4, 10:30am to 11:45am, Lower Church
Social Justice Forum:
Sunday, December 4, 7:30pm, Lower Church
Boy Scouts:
Monday, December 5, 7:30pm, Parish Center
Religious Education:
Tuesday, December 6, Grades 1-5, 4:00 to 5:15pm, Lower Church and Grades 6-10, 7:00 to 8:30pm, Lower Church
Prayer Group:
Wednesday, December 7, 7:30pm, Convent Chapel
Holyday Mass Schedule:
Thursday, December 8, 7:00am, 12:05pm, 7:30pm, Lower Church
Coffee Hour:
Friday, December 9, Following 9am Mass, Parish Center
Liturgy, Adoration and The Rosary:
Saturday, December 10, 9am to 12:30pm, Lower Church
Advent Party:
Sunday, December 11, 10am to 1pm, Parish Center
Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Monday, December 12, 12:05pm
ST. FRANCIS HOUSE
Thank you for your contributions during the month of November. Requested items for December are instant coffee and tea bags. You may leave donations at any time during the month in the bins provided at the church entrances.
CHRISTMAS FLOWERS
It has been our happy custom here at the Parish to accept donations for Christmas flowers in memory of deceased relatives and friends. Please include the names of those you would like listed in the bulletin. All of the people will be remembered during the Masses on Christmas Day and through Epiphany on Sunday, January 8th. Checks can be made payable to Sacred Heart Parish and forwarded to the rectory, preferably no later than December 16.
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
This Advent we begin to share with the children what makes this season such a holy time of year. The Church sets aside 4 weeks to contemplate the greatest thing that ever happened to us in history: God loved us so much that he sent His very own Son into the world to become a human being, just like us in everything but sin. Christ was not a vision or a figment of our imagination…Jesus became man without ceasing to be God…God is with us! As we wait for these 4 weeks, let us keep watch for His coming. Make an Advent wreath and pray more together, reading scripture, make a visit to the tabernacle, go to confession, surprise someone with a kind act, cut back on treats, set up a manger scene and follow the Holy Family to the stable with Jesus in the manger on Christmas morning. May your Advent be holy.
Sunday Religious Ed. Classes will be shortened next week so that the students can take part in our Advent Celebration in the MacKenzie Center.
Our CCD classes will be collecting food bags to give to the Missionaries of Charity in Dorchester until Tuesday, Dec 13th. Please consider sharing your wealth with those who are suffering this season. There are many more families in need this year than ever before due to the jobless rate!
Please DOUBLE BAG and fill the food bags with the following items and drop them off in the lower church before Tuesday Dec. 13th!:
1 bottle of vegetable oil 1 bag of rice
1 jar of Spaghetti sauce 1 box of pasta
1 jar of peanut butter 1 jar of jelly
1 can each of: peas/carrots/corn
1 can of cranberry sauce 1 can of gravy
1 box of cereal
There are copies of this list in the back of the church
Happy Advent!
Michelle Solomon, Director of RE
DECEMBER BOOK SALE
Sisters of the Daughters of St. Paul in Jamaica Plain will have an Advent/Christmas book table after all the weekend Masses this weekend. Come by and say hello, browse, and buy!
2011 CHRISTMAS GIFT DRIVE
Remember to purchase the gifts that have been listed on the cards you picked up. These gifts should not be wrapped and should be dropped off with their cards at the parish Advent celebration on Sunday December 11th from 10am to 1pm.
If you can help with check-in or transfer of gifts to the Convent chapel on the day of the event, Sunday Dec. 11, please contact me.
Beverly Spencer, 617-965-6365, bevfrog@aol.com.
GIVING TREE
The Giving tree located in the gathering space in our upstairs church is in memory of Roy Monroe, a valued member of the Deaf community throughout Massachusetts and a cherished member of the Deaf Catholic Community in the Archdiocese of Boston. He did much to help senior citizens as well as deaf youth. This year the proceeds of the tree will be divided among the deaf and hearing youth groups of Sacred Heart Parish. Any donation is welcome. Put the name of someone you would like to honor, living or deceased, on the paper ornaments and hang them on the tree and put your donation in the box. May the tree be decorated beautifully to welcome Christ on Christmas Day.
PARISH ADVENT PARTY -- BAKERS NEEDED!
The Parish Advent Party will take place in Sunday, December 11th, from 10:00am to 1:00pm. As in past years, we are relying on the generous hospitality of our parishioners to make this special event a success. Please consider contributing a food item. If baking isn’t your forte, we would be happy if you would simply purchase a savory, a sweet, or a beverage for the event. Sign-up sheets are located at the entrances to the church. Have questions? Contact Olimpia Estela Caceres-Brown at olimpiaestela@gmail.com or 617-222-0791. Thank you!
SACRED HAPPENINGS
Congratulations to Andrew Hutner, who has earned the rank of Eagle Scout, the Boy Scouts of America's highest award. Andrew, a member of Troop 205 sponsored by Sacred Heart Parish, was one of three Scouts who were awarded their Eagle badges at a Troop205/Troop 242 Court of Honor last Monday.
THE MYSTERY OF THE SUPERNATURAL
I remember reading a while back a review of a book which was entitled “The Education of an American Catholic”. This volume details the account of how one American Catholic lost the faith first given him in holy baptism. The author wrote—“It is the loss of any belief in the supernatural which is the central problem for the post-Vatican II Church”. He tells us that his own rejection of the supernatural came from the study of philosophy in the modern period—especially from the skepticism of the language-philosophies. It was this author’s perception that the average Catholic of today gives not a thought to the supernatural. To this end he quotes a theologian—“How many Catholic Christians still have deep in their hearts the Christian fear of death and the last judgment? How many are capable of feeling desperately worried when some Catholic relative or dear friend dies without benefit of the sacraments?”
The question of the supernatural (not the word but the reality indicated by the word)
is an extremely important theological question. Throw out the supernatural and God is dead. Throw out the supernatural and the Lord Jesus and his promises are without worth. Throw out the supernatural and the Holy Spirit and his gifts go the way of all man-made ghosts. Throw out the supernatural and Nietzsche’s battle a century ago can be declared victorious.
Part of the “problem of the supernatural” is found in the very word itself. Unfortunately, Hollywood, television, popular literature and some of the silly customs surrounding Halloween think of the supernatural as whatever is beyond the senses or cannot be accounted for rationally and so people think of ghosts, strange events, frightening happenings. A good way to grasp the meaning of the word supernatural is to think of the different pairings one finds in theological literature. For example, there is grace and there is nature, there is the law of the gospel and natural law, there is the dimension of the sacred and the dimension of the secular, there is the order of redemption and the order of creation, there is the realm of revelation and the realm of reason, there is the mystery of the Church and the reality of the world. The secular humanist would say that nature and the natural law and creation and reason and the world and the secular are very real while grace and the law of the Gospel and the order of redemption and the realm of revelation and the realm of the sacral and the realm of the Church are not for real. Obviously the Christian humanist accepts all aspects of these pairings, hence the Christian humanist accepts the realm of the supernatural. It is important for each one of us to ask ourselves—“Is God for real? Are we really in communication with God through revelation? Is the Holy Spirit for real? Can we affirm the reality of Divine grace?” If we respond affirmatively to the questions then we are caught up in the mystery of the supernatural. To live in the realm of the real is the mark of a balanced, intelligent person. Failure to distinguish between what is real and what is unreal is characteristic of psychological problems. The unbeliever sees the Church as a sociological institution. The believer accepts this but sees the Church as the House of God, the Body of Christ, the Temple of the Spirit. The unbeliever sees Jesus as a first century preacher, son of Mary. The believer agrees with that but identifies Jesus as much more than that—he is the Son of God who became Son of Mary for our salvation. The unbeliever would say we learn by using our reason. The believer would say—we learn also through divine revelation, that is, through the teachings God gives us in and through the church. More on this subject later. Meanwhile, I’ll ask interested readers to ask themselves the following question—When I hear the word supernatural, what thoughts come to mind?
Father Connelly
SIGNINGS
The Gospel of Mathew starts out with the roaring in the wilderness of John the Baptist. A man some theologians say may indeed have been confirmed in grace, John was roaring from the time he was first stirring, or quickening, in the womb. The idea here is that from the very beginning of his life, even in the smallest origins of his life, he was proclaiming the one who is to come. He is the culmination of all the Old Testament prophets. His call to repent was so that his hearers would be ready for the Messiah, not in some remote five hundred years from now kind of way, as in the case of Isaiah, but in the sense of something more like saying, ‘Get ready, repent, the Messiah is coming down the street, he is my cousin.” That is who begins the Gospel of Mathew and who starts us looking to Christ this Advent. Get ready. The Messiah is coming and he is coming on the clouds in glory and He is our brother.
Also, get ready for NCOD The National Catholic Office for the Deaf is coming to Boston in Jan. and this will bring pastoral workers for the Deaf from hither and yon. There will be a visit to the host Diocese parish set up for Deaf Ministry which is us. Cardinal Seán will be celebrating. All the details are on ncod.org. Check it out. Some have asked how they might help and there are ways businesses and sponsors can help if you would like to do so. There has been so much the Bishop has done well through this parish for the good of the whole diocese and it is a joy to see. We hope that the NCOD conference is a great celebration benefiting from this good work God has given to us all.
SDWP (Senior Deaf Wellness Program) on Dec 6th is described by Betty Whittaker with the words, “Our next program will begin at 9:30am. Nursing students from Massachusetts General Hospital will join us to better understand the needs of deaf people and the deaf culture. We will be making a Christmas craft with the cards brought by members last month. We also plan to do some light walking to "keep fit" ... Lunch will be provided by Sandwich Works restaurant.” We look forward to seeing you there.
Fr. St. Martin
HOLIDAY COFFEE HOUR
Please note that there will be NO Coffee Hours held at the Parish Center on either December 25 or January 1.
SOCIAL JUSTICE FORUM—DECEMBER 4
Please join us in the Lower Church on Sunday, December 4, at 7:30 PM for our 30th Social Justice Forum. Jodi Rosenbaum, founder and executive director of More than Words will present “Empowering Youth Through Social Enterprise.”
ADULT ENRICHMENT
At St. John the Evangelist Church, Wellesley, on December 5 at 7:30pm, Father Bryan Hehir will lecture on “The Physician Assisted Suicide Debate in Massachusetts”.
On December 12 at 7:30pm, Father Bryan Hehir will present “Religious Freedom and Catholic Institutions: Pastoral, Social and Health Care” also at St. John’s, Wellesley.
For more information on either event consult the website: stjohnwellesley.org or call St. John’s Faith Formation Commission at 617-969-0950.
HOLLY HARVEST FAIR
Thanks to all who came and supported our Holly Harvest Fair November 12 and 13 making it another great success. We are especially grateful to those who donated, worked at the fair, helped with our workshops, the confirmation candidates who helped at the children’s activity table and particularly the set-up and clean up crew! We will need more help with clean-up next year please!
Our silent auction donors were extremely generous creating much excitement and fun and we are particularly grateful to them.
Special thanks to Lita Altea and Jane Wing and her kitchen crew; David Nahabedian and Winnie Murphy. We hope that everyone enjoyed the fair and we wish you all a Merry Christmas.
Barbara Hatem, Cindy Raymond, Lisa Nahabedian
COVER ART NOTES
This week we have our great image of Mary pregnant with the Child Jesus, herself the advent of the dawn from on high rising out of her. The feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe will be celebrated at 12:05pm Mass on Monday, December 12. She is the patroness of the Americas and this image in which she appears has tremendous historical and contemporary effect on the faith of all who live in the New World.
Fr. St. Martin