Sacred Heart Parish
MASS INTENTIONS FOR THE WEEK
Saturday, June 4
4:00 PM John Pomponio
Sunday, June 5
9:00 AM Living and Deceased Members of the Guild of St. Francis
11:45 AM Parishioners of Sacred Heart
Monday, June 6
12:05 PM Patrick Fabrizio
Saturday, June 11
4:00 PM The Arthur English Family
CELEBRANTS FOR NEXT WEEKEND’S MASSES
Saturday, June 11
4:00 PM Fr. St. Martin
Sunday, June 12
9:00 AM Fr. Hehir
10:30 AM Fr. St. Martin
11:45 AM Fr. St. Martin
CONFESSIONS
Saturday, June 11 – 2:00 to 3:30 PM – Fr. St. Martin
READINGS FOR PENTECOST SUNDAY
First Reading: Acts of the Apostles 2:1-11
Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13
Gospel Reading: John 20:19-23
COLLECTION FOR TORNADO VICTIMS
If you missed last weekend’s special collection for the victims of the recent tornadoes and would still like to contribute to this relief effort, you may send a check to the rectory, noting on the memo line “Tornado Relief”. Thank you for your generosity.
SPECIAL COLLECTION FOR SEMINARIANS
Next week’s special collection supports the formation and training of seminarians in the Archdiocese of Boston for service, we pray, as future priests. We are blessed that many are responding to the call to serve as priests. Please be generous to support these seminarians on their journey toward their ordination to the priesthood. For more information, please visit www.VocationsBoston.org.
ST. FRANCIS HOUSE
Thank you for your donations during the month of May. The request for June is for vegetable oil. As usual, you may bring donations to the church at any time during the month and place them in the receptacles at the entrances.
OFFERTORY INCOME
Weekend of May 28/29 $ 3,939
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION NEWS
Anyone interested in signing your child up for CCD early may go on the Sacred Heart Website: www.sacredheart.ws, click on Religious Education and download the registration forms. Completed forms should be sent to Sacred Heart, 1321 Centre St., Newton MA 02459. You may also pick up a form from the entrance/exits of the church. Please complete one registration form for each child and include the registration fee and a copy of your child’s baptismal certificate, if you have not already done so. Your early registration allows for better planning for catechists!
As always, we will be looking for catechists for our upcoming 2011-12 CCD year. Anyone interested in offering their time and faith for our students, is asked to please contact the Religious Ed office: 617-969-4031 or email: religious.education@sacredheart.ws. Is Our Lord calling you?
Have a Blessed Summer!
Michelle Solomon Director of Religious Education
Have you noticed how beautiful the landscape looks at Sacred Heart? We are grateful to several Confirmation Candidates from 9th and 10th grades who helped David Nahabedian on Saturday May 21st spread mulch around the church, rectory and the MacKenzie Center. Thank you for all your hard work in keeping our parish looking pristine.
Roseann Furbush Confirmation Coordinator
ATTENTION GARDENERS
We all enjoy the lovely plants and flowers in full bloom around our property. Barbara Hatem is our wonderful gardener and keeps the flowers watered and nourished. However, Barbara is asking for some needed help with the watering. If you have the time to help her with this task, will you please call her at 617-969-2567?
LIFT – CATHOLIC WORSHIP FOR A NEW GENERATION
Join us for Lift – an exciting monthly worship event which includes vibrant praise and worship music, dynamic, challenging speakers and Eucharistic Adoration. Lift is for all ages. Be with us on Tuesday, June 7th as we welcome Bob Lesnefsky aka “Righteous B” as our guest speaker. The evening runs from 7-9pm at Fontbonne Academy, 930 Brook Road, Milton, MA. Directions and a downloadable flyer along with more information about Lift, can be found at www.liftedhigher.com. Come join in worship with hundreds of Catholics from around the Boston area!
LOSS OF A SENSE OF THE SUPERNATURAL
The Church cannot control changes that take place in the popular understanding of key words that have for centuries been cherished by the Church’s philosophers and theologians. For example – take the word “propaganda”. This word has had a long history in the Church. It has for a long time denominated the name of one of the important dicasteries in the Vatican Curia – Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. The word “to propagandize” comes from the Latin and it means to disseminate, to spread abroad, and it was used, as we might use it, to evangelize, that is, to spread as widely as possible the good news of the Gospel and the teachings of the faith. Now think of what “propaganda” means in our society today.
The word that I have in mind at this time is the word “supernatural”. It has a long and most helpful history in Catholic theology. Obviously, our faith does not terminate with words but with realities so, as we will see later, we could dispense with the word and find other ways of expressing the reality signified. If we use the word “supernatural”, above nature, beyond the natural, there must be something we call “nature” or “the natural”. The nature is a principle of activity. What “a thing” is determines what it can do. Let me give an example. Suppose on a muggy and buggy afternoon, you walk down to Newton Centre, and you see a policeman and his horse, both looking wilted and both on duty, and all of a sudden the horse says to you – “Pretty hot today”. Would this not surprise you? The policeman is a rational and irrational being and endowed with reason; his horse is not – the policeman and the horse share vegetative life and sensitive life but not intellectual life. We would call the horse “infans” which means a “non-speaker”. Therefore, if the horse did have freedom and could speak, then we would say that there is something supernatural going on, something beyond the nature of a horse.
What got me going on this? I picked up the summer book section, what is called the Friday Journal, which is part of the Wall Street Journal. In a big headline, I read – “The Season of the Supernatural”. The article author writes as follows: “Something strange is happening to mainstream fiction. Summer novels featuring robots, witches, zombies and ghosts are blurring the line between literary fiction and genres such as science fiction.” The article proceeds to look into more deeply one particular publication ready for summer reading which he describes “as a supernatural page-turner”. Thus, the honored word “supernatural” has now become literary genre for ghosts and witches and all sorts of preternatural and imaginative creations.
Actually, from the viewpoint of our faith, the supernatural is at the heart of our faith, of the paschal mystery that we celebrate at Easter time, the coming among us of our Lord and Savior, who is the conqueror of sin and death and who restores to us the life God has planned for us – namely, a sharing in God’s own life, in Trinitarian life, what we call life in the Spirit, life in the Holy Spirit, what goes beyond our natural life to give us a share in God’s life which is pure gift over and above our natural lives. (By nature we are truth-seekers, and we are lovers of what is good. So we can get some idea of the mystery of God by pursuing what is truth and goodness because God is Truth and Goodness.) Now that Christ has come among us, we are raised beyond our nature so as to share in the knowledge God has of God, and to share through divine charity in the love God has for himself and for his divine Son and for us, his adopted sons and daughters. From the above we can conclude that no more than the horse can speak like a human being can we by nature share in God’s life and come to know and to do things properly and truly as God’s sons and daughters. The Mass texts all during the weeks of Easter are overwhelmingly illustrative. Let’s take the Mass celebrated on Saturday of the Fifth Week of Easter. The Entrance Antiphon tells us – “In Baptism we have died with Christ, and we have risen to new life in him, because we believe in the power of God who raised him from the dead.” Listen to the words of the Opening Prayer – “Loving Father, through our rebirth in baptism, you give us your life and you promise us immortality. By your unceasing care, guide our steps toward the life of glory.” The Prayer Over the Gifts reads as follows: “Lord, accept these gifts from your family. May we hold fast to the life you have given us and come to the eternal gifts you have promised.” Perhaps we can look more deeply into this little word “supernatural” next week.
Fr. Connelly
WORKING-RETREAT FOR YOUNG ADULTS:
JULY 16TH-23RD, 2011
Come experience a Service Retreat in Eastern Kentucky, one of the poorest regions of our country. Prior trips have helped renovate thrift stores, repair housing, unload tractor trailers full of donated supplies, and convert an abandoned elementary school into a vibrant community center.
A typical day includes: Morning Mass, work, meals in common, community prayer, and simple living!
Volunteers must be 18 years or older, married or single. A donation of $300 covers all costs (including van rentals).
There will be an INFORMATION NIGHT on Thursday, June 16th, at 7:00 PM at the McPherson Conference Room in the church basement of Our Lady Help of Christians, 573 Washington Street, Newton, MA. For more information, please call Fr. Ed Riley at 617-746-5425.
SIGNINGS
The day has finally come. Bruce Bucci and the whole community have been preparing our young ones for their First Communion. We know that Christ has been at work among us drawing them to himself in First Holy Communion.
Christ traveled from Heaven to Earth and became a member of our human family, born of Mary, so that He could then, as our brother, return to the Father in Heaven in His new human body. From there He continues to feed us with that body in the Eucharist. We get a taste of Heaven.
The communion we receive gives us that unity with God and each other that God wants for us, His children. It is a worldwide experience of peace. People stop for a while and become full of peace. Our stubbornness is healed and we all say Amen together to God. We also forgive each other, and share peace with each other. What a miracle of love!
The Eucharist is the source and summit of our lives. It is Heaven on Earth. So many of you have come to believe this and live it by never missing Sunday Mass and showing up ready and looking your best. This has been a great witness to our children. Many of you travel a great distance as well to be together at the Lord's table and this increases the blessings you receive.
In the second reading there is a mention of the fact that sometimes people are not friendly. In fact, sometimes people are mean. Sometimes people misunderstand us. They can make fun of us for believing in Christ present – really, truly, and substantially present in the Eucharist. That is why we need to listen to Jesus in the bible before we receive. Jesus tells us in today’s second reading that some people will be against us. But because we learned about that, it means we will not be surprised when it happens. We are ready. Jesus tells us that if we are insulted for believing in Him we will be even more blessed!
So we are ready for anything. Nothing and no one can harm us when we have Jesus in the Eucharist and we are ready for that Eucharist. Our children are ready thanks be to God's love and mercy and His community of Deaf Catholics here at Sacred Heart in Newton.
We give God thanks for helping us to be part of giving the Eucharist to the next generation. May we be renewed in that same Eucharist and return to the Sacrament of Reconciliation (as these children have also done for the first time in preparation). May we carry through with joy to the fullness of Heaven.
In Christ,
Fr. St. Martin
YOUTH HARBOR CRUISES
Join with other young people in the Archdiocese of Boston for a summertime Harbor Cruise. The cruise for Middle School youth is scheduled for Monday, June 27th from 8-10 PM at a cost of $18/person. The High School Cruise will take place on Monday, July 25th from 8-11 PM at a cost of $20/person. For more information, contact Kathy, at kstebbins@rcab.org.
YOUNG ADULT RETREAT
Fr. Matt Williams will be the Spiritual Director of Life is Good in the Holy Spirit, a young adult retreat to be held at St. Thecla’s Retreat House in Billerica, MA on June 24th-26th.You may register online at www.ONE4Boston.org or, for more information, contact Danielle Olsen at 617-746-5750 or dolsen@rcab.org.
CATHOLIC FAMILY FESTIVAL WITH
CARDINAL SÉAN
You and your family are invited to the Catholic Family Festival with Cardinal Sean O'Malley on Saturday June 25th from 12 - 7 PM at Malden Catholic High School. This year's Family Festival is a Faith and Culture Event honoring Blessed John Paul II our Holy Father who traveled to nearly every country on earth and spoke courageously to the youth and families of our time. The Conference will feature Mass with Cardinal Sean, Eucharistic Adoration, a Marian procession, spiritual and fun activities for the whole family, an International food festival and a Cultural Gala honoring our late Holy Father. For more information please email Fr. Michael Harrington at Mharrington@rcab.org or call 617-746-5794. Register at www.CatholicCulturalDiversity.com.
CALENDAR NOTES
GUILD OF ST. FRANCIS COMMUNION BREAKFAST
Sunday, June 5 – Following 9 AM Mass – Parish Center
DEAF CATHOLIC COMMUNITY
FIRST COMMUNION RECEPTION:
Sunday, June 5 – Following 10:30 AM Mass – Convent
BOY SCOUTS:
Monday, June 6 – 7:30 PM – Parish Center
KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS:
Wednesday, June 8 – 7:30 PM – Convent Dining Room
PRAYER GROUP:
Wednesday, June 8 – 7:30 PM – Convent Chapel
COFFEE HOUR:
Friday, June 10 – Following 9 AM Mass – Parish Center
LITURGY, ADORATION AND THE ROSARY:
Saturday, June 11 – 9 AM to 12:30 PM – Lower Church
EXTENDED COFFEE HOUR:
Sunday, June 12 – 10 AM to 1 PM