Sacred Heart Parish
MASS INTENTIONS
Saturday, November 26
4:00pm, Joseph Scichilone
Sunday, November 27
9:00am, Donald Swan
12 Noon, Parishioners of Sacred Heart
Friday, December 2
9:00am, Ada Macauley
Saturday, December 3
4:00pm, Gilda Siciliano
Sunday, December 4
9:00am, Parishioners of Sacred Heart
12 Noon, Pasquale Nuzzi
CELEBRANTS FOR NEXT WEEKEND
Saturday, December 3
4:00pm, Fr. Imbelli
Sunday, December 4
9:00am, Fr. Connelly
11:00am, Fr. Carey
12 Noon, Fr. Connelly
OFFERTORY INCOME
Target Weekly Offertory $5,500
Weekend of November 19/20 $5,389
Collection for Human Development $ 895
PASTORAL LETTER ON THE SUNDAY MASS
Cardinal Sean requests that every Catholic reach out to those who have been away from the Church. Read the Cardinal’s letter at: www.BostonCatholic.org/SundayMassLetter .
CALENDAR NOTES
Extended Coffee Hour:
Sunday, November 27, 10am to 1pm, Parish Center
Boy Scouts:
Monday, November 28, 7:30pm, Parish Center
Religious Education:
Tuesday, November 29, Grades 1-5, 4:00 to 5:15pm, Lower Church and Grades 6-10, 7:00 to 8:30pm, Lower Church
Prayer Group:
Wednesday, November 30, 7:30pm, Convent Chapel
Coffee Hour:
Friday, December 2, Following 9am Mass, Parish Center
Liturgy, Adoration and The Rosary:
Saturday, December 3, 9am to 12:30pm, Lower Church
Daughters of St. Paul Book Sale:
After all Masses, December 3 and 4
Extended Coffee Hour:
Sunday, December 4, 10am to 1pm, Parish Center
Social Justice Forum:
Sunday, December 4, 7:30pm Lower Church
SACRED HAPPENINGS
This summer I was blessed with the opportunity to participate in World Youth Day in Spain. Joining so many Catholics my age to answer the Pope’s invitation was incredible. I had already learned in religion class about how the Church is “universal”, but being in the crowd of two million youth on the night of the vigil, I was able to experience this first hand. It was amazing to gather with people from opposite ends of the world, from countries I had never heard of, united by our common faith. Even when rain soaked our belongings and wind tumbled the tabernacles, the crowd did not lose energy. Two million people cheered “Beeeenedicto!” at the top of their lungs, and when the time came for adoration, the same two million became silent in prayer.
Natalie Hutner
Going to Madrid for World Youth Day was an amazing experience, and my sister and I are grateful for the generosity of the parishioners who came to our bake sales. My life really was changed by the trip and it was great to see the Pope in person. When the Pope was leaving Spain, my group got a spot right by the street and we got to see him in the "Pope-mobile" from very close up. While he waved to us, he looked tired, but very happy to see all the adoring youth. Someone handed him their baby and he kissed it. One of our leaders said that the Pope had looked at me when I jumped on top of a telephone box to get a better view. After the events of WYD , we toured Spain, visiting shrines and cathedrals. La Sagrada Familia was fantastic: It looked like a giant sand castle . I learned that Gaudi, the architect, invented a new type of arch when he built this basilica. The parabolic arch eliminated the need for the familiar "flying buttresses" you see in gothic architecture. I made some great friends and got to know Jesus Christ better.
Andrew Hutner
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
Many of us are so good at planning for the future for our children’s education, summer vacations and retirement so as not to be caught by surprise! The Church in all her wisdom sets aside the time of Advent to be just as attentive to Christ’s coming, at Christmas but also at the end of time. We don’t want to be caught by surprise! We need to be attending to our family’s spiritual life as we do in these other matters. Let’s try to incorporate into daily life: family prayer, a focus on all following the commandments to love God and each other, attend Mass and receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Light the Advent wreath and keep that light burning so we will be ready to recognize Christ in our everyday life, at Christmas and at His 2nd coming.
There are materials to use during Advent at the church entrances and in the lower church.
Please consider sharing your wealth with those who are suffering this season. There are many more families in need this year than ever before! Our CCD classes will be collecting food bags to give to the Missionaries of Charity in Dorchester until Tuesday, Dec 13th.
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
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.
COR UNUM In Lawrence, MA, many thousands of people suffer from hunger. COR UNUM serves breakfast and dinner seven days a week. On Thanksgiving Day, hundreds are served a traditional holiday dinner (both at the center and in their homes). If you would like to make a monetary donation, you can do so online at http://www.corunummealcenter.org or mail your contribution directly to Cor Unum Meal Center, 118 South Broadway, Lawrence, MA 01843. If you missed seeing the film, Scenes From a Parish, last year at a Social Justice Forum, you may borrow a copy from the rectory.
Margaret LeBlanc
OUR LADY’S GROTTO
The structural work is finished. Check out the new display of photos in the gathering space if you haven’t had a chance to walk over to the convent backyard. Fundraising is ongoing, however. So far, we have received $4,400.
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 on Dec. 3 & 4. The Sisters will bring a wide selection of Catholic books, Bibles, music and DVD's for all age levels. Come by and say hello, browse, and buy!
PREGNANCY HELP GIVES THANKS
to all the parishioners who generously contributed items to the Baby Shower for Pregnancy Help held in November. The items donated are greatly appreciated and will be used with joy.
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.
THE PHENOMENON OF UNBELIEF
There is no sense in being overly dramatic, but can we not say that there is a gigantic struggle going on all over our world between the forces of humanism and the forces of barbarism? (Definitions of humanism and barbarism could be helpful but they are not needed at this time. Most readers of this column will understand the meanings conveyed by these words.) The question is this—Which will prevail, humanism or barbarism? If humanism triumphs over barbarism, then the question becomes—What kind of humanism will prevail—secular humanism or Christian humanism? Are people going to say with Jean-Paul Sartre, with regard to us humans: “Man is only man when man is unbelieving man.”? Or are people going to say with theologian Karl Barth—“Man is only man when the God-man is his brother.”? After all, our Catholic faith is the experience of divinity through humanity. As John the Evangelist tells us—The eternal word became flesh and dwelt among us to share his divine life with all of us. The question between the two humanisms mentioned above is this—Which humanism is true humanism? Listen to the way Pope John Paul II begins his encyclical letter Faith and Reason: “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth, in a word, to know himself, so that by knowing and loving God, men and women also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.” If we reflect for a moment on what this quotation from Pope John Paul tells us, should we not ask—How can there be a true humanism without God? This teaching was expressed in an excellent way at the Second Vatican Council in paragraph 22 of the Constitution of the Church in the Modern World. We read—“The fact is that only in the mystery of the Incarnate Word is light shed on the mystery of man. Adam, the first man, prefigured the man to come, Christ the Lord. Christ, who is the new Adam, by revealing the mystery of the Father and his love also fully reveals man to man himself and makes his exalted vocation known to him. In other words, if it were possible to ask God the question—What does it mean to be truly integrally human?, God the Father would point to Jesus and say,—“Here is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him.”
At the present time secular humanism triumphs all over Europe. Last Sunday we celebrated the feast day of Christ the King. That feast day was instituted in 1925 in order to counteract individual and social apostasy from God brought about by the secular spirit which relegates Christ’s Gospel to the private sphere. The secular spirit means for all practical purposes that God is dead. It is the “disincarnation of the spiritual”. .In 1965 the Second Vatican Council spoke about the massive unbelief of our age when it reminded us that the “root reason for human dignity lies in man’s call to communion with God. From the very circumstance of his origin, man is already invited to converse with God. Still many of our contemporaries have never recognized this intimate and vital link with God or have explicitly rejected it.”
I remember reading a while back a review of a book—“The Education of An American Catholic”. This volume details the account of how one American Catholic lost his 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”. His own rejection of the supernatural came from the study of philosophy in the modern period—especially the skepticism of the language-philosophies. It was the 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?”
Father Connelly
SIGNINGS
Christ orders us at the beginning of these four weeks before Christmas to "watch the gate." We are his people and we need to be ready for His coming again in glory, which could happen at any time. We know when Christmas, the remembering of his first coming into the world though already in the World in Mary for many months, will come, but the second coming in glory we know not the hour nor the day. So we need to be ready. That is why we go to Mass every Sunday without skipping so that we will be ready. We renew that now these next four Sundays because we know that if we are not transformed in love we will never help others to get to Mass. If we are really uniting with Christ's love at the Mass as can only happen at the Mass we will be very attractive to the world and draw others back home to Christ. So let's roll up our sleeves and for at least one more time do a good job of getting ready for a good Christmas so as to be ready when the Lord comes back at the last judgment.
We remember that Mass is something that helps us be formally thankful together. This practice crystallizes at Mass and so I would like to do a little example of thank you on behalf of the whole community. We thank God for the people involved in the Child Abuse Prevention Training that recently took place, the Spaghetti Dinner, and Religious Education for the Deaf and CODA's. We thank all involved with the three recent Roman Missal Workshops, the collection for the grotto to honor Mary Brooks, the people who set up and clean up at the coffee hour, the Monday night ASL Adult Bible Study, those in the PPC, and the Deaf Advisory Board, the Staff at Sacred Heart and in the Deaf Apostolate, and the Crozier Council of the Knights of Columbus.
There are so many to thank but it all come through God's grace by way of our Cardinal and Pastor whose instrumentality are both effective and personal.
Many of you are doing things for each other like helping driving others and visiting the aged. God bless you all. Going to Mass and practicing thankfulness means that we are being people who are "watching the gate."
Fr. St. Martin
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 entitled “Empowering Youth Through Social Enterprise.” See flyer in foyer for more info.
ADULT ENRICHMENT
On Wednesday, November 30, Leo O’Donovan, SJ presents: Taking Flight: When Jesus was a Refugee, 7:30pm, Yawkey Athletic Center, Murray Room, Chestnut Hill Campus of BC. Register by email to humanrights@bc.edu.
On Thursday, December 1 at 6:30 pm, James Martin, SJ will be discussing his new book Between Heaven and Mirth: Joy, Humor, and Laughter in the Spiritual Life in the Robsham Theater, B.C. Lower Campus. For information email: church21@bc.edu or call 617-552-0470.
COVER ART NOTES
Those who work on our bulletin each week appreciate the good comments that have been received on “our new look”. Last week’s cover is a classic example of western Trinitarian spirituality – very much centered on the cross. The painter is Masaccio (Maso di San Giovani, 1401-1428) Notice how God the Father, with wide open arms supporting the cross of his Son, with the dove of the Holy Spirit hovering between their faces. The cover this week is Rublev’s icon of the Trinity. Painted in 1425 it is preserved today in the Trotyarov Gallery in Moscow. The author does not seek to portray the Trinity. Rather, he depicts the three angels who appeared to Abraham in Genesis 18:1-5. Early Christian writers saw in this Genesis event an early prefiguring of the Trinity. R. Cantalamessa writes: “The dogma of the unity and trinity of God is expressed by the fact that the three persons represented are distinct but closely resemble each other. They are contained within a circle that highlights their unity but their diverse motions and postures speak of their differences…the Father to the left has an indefinable color as a sign of his invisibility and inaccessibility. The Son in the center is wearing a dark tunic as a sign of his humanity. The Holy Spirit wears a green mantle as a sign of life, since he is the one who gives life.
Father Connelly