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March 12, 2010
Holy Comforter Parish eNewsletter |
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Introduction
It always seems appropriate that his feast day falls in the midst of Lent. Although there are many festivities associated with St. Patrick's Day that might hide the actual saint, the real St. Patrick is a model to us of answering the call to serve where God has called us to be and to labor faithfully in the vineyard despite the difficulties. Through our Lenten practices, we might find it easier to hear the Lord's voice and be more disposed to answer yes to His call. You can learn more about St. Patrick here. Read on ... This Week The Fourth Week in Lent
During the fourth week of Lent, the Church celebrates the feasts of St. Patrick (March 17), St. Cyril of Jerusalem (March 18), and St. Joseph, Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary (March 19). For more information about Lent at Holy Comforter, visit the Lent 2010 section of the parish Web site. Bulletin The following are highlights from this Sunday's bulletin. To read the entire parish bulletin for March 14, 2010, view the attached PDF file or click here. EUCHARISTIC MINISTERS NEEDED: As four Eucharistic ministers have left this ministry for various reasons, the need for new ministers at all Masses has become urgent. Please give prayerful thought to volunteering your church service in this way. Training will be provided. If you are interested, please contact Margaret McElroy at 973-6429 or at mdm1909@embarqmail.com. NEED FOR ALTAR SERVERS: There is a need for Altar Servers for the 5:00 p.m. Saturday Mass. Individuals should be willing to serve 1-2 times per month. Anyone from 9 to 90 should consider this important ministry. Training will be provided. Please call Jim Morrisard at 973-6570 if you are interested.
STATIONS OF THE CROSS: The Stations of the Cross will be held Fridays at 6:30 p.m. Your participation is needed. Each Friday two readers, a Cross bearer and two candle bearers are needed. Sign-up is on the credenza. No experience is needed and training will be provided. Call Jim Morrisard at 973-6570 for more information. Please note the Simple Soup Supper has been suspended due to lack of participation. CANTORS NEEDED: We are in need of additional singers to serve as cantors for the 5:00 p.m. Saturday mass and the 8:30 a.m. Sunday mass. Any interested persons should speak to Bill Polhill, Minister of Music or contact him at gwpolh3@yahoo.com.
CCS CONTINUES TO ACCEPT APPLICATIONS: Charlottesville Catholic School (CCS) continues to accept applications for admission for all grades at CCS, and CCS is in the process of considering all applicants in the applicant pool. If you are interested in learning more about all that CCS has to offer, please call our Admissions Coordinator, Ann Michel, at 964-0400. Appointments may be made for tours Monday through Friday.
ANNUAL DIOCESAN HAITI GATHERING: St. Thomas Aquinas is hosting the Diocesan Haiti Gathering on March 20th. Approximately 200 people are expected. Please take advantage of the opportunity to learn more about the work of our diocese in Haiti. The new bishop of Hinche (sister diocese to Richmond) will be a speaker. The committee welcomes your help with all aspects of organizing this all day event. We will be setting up on Friday afternoon at 2:00 p.m., and we will need help with preparing and serving breakfast and lunch on Saturday. If you can help in any way, please contact a Haiti Committee member. WATER PUMP-IRRIGATION PROJECT: On the recent trip to Saltadère, measurements were obtained to assist in planning this project. Information on the project and on how to donate is available at the Haiti Table on the lower level or at www.saltadere.org. BI-PARISH HAITI COMMITTEE: To learn more about the Bi-parish committee, please contact Laurie Duncan at Laurie.dncn@gmail.com.
Prayer Intentions The Holy Father's Intentions for March
Missionary: That the Churches in Africa may be signs and instruments of reconciliation and justice in every part of that continent. Liturgy Calendar
Devotion
Prayer is one of the three traditional tools for spiritual growth in Lent (and anytime), the others being almsgiving (charity) and fasting. Prayer is primary, however, for without communion with God, it is impossible to fast or serve joyfully and effectively. This excerpt from Tertullian's treatise On Prayer, written in the late second century, is used in the Roman Catholic Office of Readings for Thursday of the 3rd week in Lent. The accompanying biblical reading is Exodus 34:10-28. Prayer is the offering in spirit that has done away with the sacrifices of old. What good do I receive from the multiplicity of your sacrifices? asks God. I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams, and I do not want the fat of lambs and the blood of bulls and goats. Who has asked for these from your hands? What God has asked for we learn from the Gospel. The hour will come, he says, when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. God is a spirit, and so he looks for worshippers who are like himself. We are true worshippers and true priests. We pray in spirit, and so offer in spirit the sacrifice of prayer. Prayer is an offering that belongs to God and is acceptable to him: it is the offering he has asked for, the offering he planned as his own. We must dedicate this offering with our whole heart, we must fatten it on faith, tend it by truth, keep it unblemished through innocence and clean through chastity, and crown it with love. We must escort it to the altar of God in a procession of good works to the sound of psalms and hymns. Then it will gain for us all that we ask of God. Since God asks for prayer offered in spirit and in truth, how can he deny anything to this kind of prayer? How great is the evidence of its power, as we read and hear and believe. Of old, prayer was able to rescue from fire and beasts and hunger, even before it received its perfection from Christ. How much greater then is the power of Christian prayer. No longer does prayer bring an angel of comfort to the heart of a fiery furnace, or close up the mouths of lions, or transport to the hungry food from the fields. No longer does it remove all sense of pain by the grace it wins for others. But it gives the armor of patience to those who suffer, who feel pain, who are distressed. It strengthens the power of grace, so that faith may know what is gaining from the Lord, and understand what it is suffering for the name of God. In the past prayer was able to bring down punishment, rout armies, withhold the blessing of rain. Now, however, the prayer of the just turns aside the whole anger of God, keeps vigil for its enemies, pleads for persecutors. Is it any wonder that it can call down water from heaven when it could obtain fire from heaven as well? Prayer is the one thing that can conquer God. But Christ has willed that it should work no evil, and has given it all power over good. Its only art is to call back the souls of the dead from the very journey into death, to give strength to the weak, to heal the sick, to exorcise the possessed, to open prison cells, to free the innocent from their chains. Prayer cleanses from sin, drives away temptations, stamps out persecutions, comforts the fainthearted, gives new strength to the courageous, brings travelers safely home, calms the waves, confounds robbers, feeds the poor, overrules the rich, lifts up the fallen, supports those who are falling, sustains those who stand firm. All the angels pray. Every creature prays. Cattle and wild beasts pray and bend the knee. As they come from their barns and caves they look out to heaven and call out, lifting up their spirit in their own fashion. The birds too rise and lift themselves up to heaven: they open out their wings, instead of hands, in the form of a cross, and give voice to what seems to be a prayer. What more need be said on the duty of prayer? Even the Lord himself prayed. To him be honor and power for ever and ever. Amen. Courtesy of the Crossroads Initiative. At the parish, there is a Stations of the Cross at 6:30 p.m. on the Fridays during Lent from February 26th through March 26th. Lenten Fast and Abstinence Rules Each Catholic is asked to preserve Lent's penitential purpose and character, which begins Ash Wednesday. Therefore:
 Excerpt from the Catechism The Decalogue in the Church's Tradition and the Decalogue and the Natural Law The Ten Commandments are familiar, but through the Catechism, we can better grasp the tremendous importance of these ten words God first gave to His people through Moses. Tradition has embraced the Ten Commandments as a means for teaching the faith and showing us how to live the Gospel. 2069 The Decalogue forms a coherent whole. Each "word" refers to each of the others and to all of them; they reciprocally condition one another. the two tables shed light on one another; they form an organic unity. To transgress one commandment is to infringe all the others.30 One cannot honor another person without blessing God his Creator. One cannot adore God without loving all men, his creatures. the Decalogue brings man's religious and social life into unity. 2070 The Ten Commandments belong to God's revelation. At the same time they teach us the true humanity of man. They bring to light the essential duties, and therefore, indirectly, the fundamental rights inherent in the nature of the human person. the Decalogue contains a privileged expression of the natural law: From the beginning, God had implanted in the heart of man the precepts of the natural law. Then he was content to remind him of them. This was the Decalogue. 2071 The commandments of the Decalogue, although accessible to reason alone, have been revealed. To attain a complete and certain understanding of the requirements of the natural law, sinful humanity needed this revelation: A full explanation of the commandments of the Decalogue became necessary in the state of sin because the light of reason was obscured and the will had gone astray. We know God's commandments through the divine revelation proposed to us in the Church, and through the voice of moral conscience. Church History
The Church celebrates the feast of St. Joseph on March 19th. Despite the attention given to him today, saint Joseph is a relatively minor figure in the New Testament. We know a few facts about him from the canonical gospels. He was probably a relatively old man when Jesus was born, since he does not appear in the gospels during Jesus' ministry. The non-canonical Protevangelium, dated to around the 2nd century, attests to Joseph's advanced age. The Protevangelium also asserts that Joseph was a widower, and had grown-up children from his previous marriage. This story is used by many of the early Church Fathers to explain Scriptural references to Jesus' brothers, who would have been step-brothers, and not biologically related. Finally, we know from the Scriptures that Joseph was a carpenter by trade, and a descendant of the Old Testament King David. St. Joseph was betrothed to a virgin named Mary, and when she became pregnant without sexual intercourse with him, he intended to divorce her secretly. However, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, telling him that Mary was pregnant by the Holy Spirit, and that Joseph should take Mary as his wife. The angel also instructed Joseph to name the child Jesus. Joseph, being a humble man, obeyed the angel and took Mary as his wife. Various legends have grown-up about St. Joseph, and while non-canonical, and historically suspect, they are interesting. One legend suggests that the high-priest Zechariah told Mary that he was instructed in a revelation to bring together marriageable men and have each man leave his staff in the temple overnight. The husband chosen by God would be revealed through a sign. In the morning, Joseph the Carpenter's staff blossomed, while the other suitors' staffs did not. This was a sign that Mary was to marry Joseph. St. Joseph is a model of humility and holiness, and is a model for fathers everywhere. He cared for the Son of God, despite Jesus not being his own biological Son. His devotion to Mary, despite his suspicions of her infidelity, and his willingness to listen to the angel of God, demonstrate his humility. St. Joseph is a popular patron saint. He is the patron saint of the universal Church, a happy death, workers, carpenters, expecting mothers, families, and more. Devotion to St. Joseph developed slowly, more slowly than devotion to Mary. The devotion seems to have begun in the East, with the apocryphal History of Joseph the Carpenter (4th-7th century) playing a major role in fostering the devotion. The Copts likely kept his feast as early as the 4th century. In one of the oldest Coptic calendars we possess, St. Joseph was commemorated on July 20. In later Greek calendars, he is remembered on either December 25 or December 26. In the West, devotion to Joseph developed more slowly, with its earliest promoters being St. Bernardino of Siena and John Gerson. The theological foundations they set paved the way for the establishment of the Feast of St. Joseph. St. Teresa of Avila and St. Francis De Sales were also known for their strong devotion to St. Joseph. The feast of St. Joseph did not enter the Western calendar until AD 1479. In 1714 Pope Clement XI composed a special office for the feast, and in 1729 Pope Benedict XIII inserted his name into the litany of the saints. Pope Pius IX declared him patron of the universal Church in 1870. In 1955 the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker was promulgated by Pope Pius XII, observed on May 1. This feast was added to the calendar on May 1st to counter the Communist May Day celebration that day, by offering a Christian view of labor, and prime example in the husband of Mary. The Feast of St. Joseph the Worker is not a holy day of obligation. In 1962 his name was added to the list of saints in the Roman Canon (the First Eucharistic Prayer). Many traditions and customs have developed around St. Joseph and his feast day. March 19th has been a traditional day to show hospitality in the Italian culture. On this day, all who come to the door are invited to dinner. The family table is extended full-length, moved against the wall (like the Church altar), and a statue of St. Joseph surrounded by flowers and candles is made the centerpiece. After the guests have enjoyed the bounteous feast (blessed by a priest prior to the meal), the guests leave so other guests may enter. What is left is given to the poor. On a variation of this theme, a table is set up in the town square, and all families bring food. After Mass, everyone comes and shares a meal, which consists of a variety of foods, including bread baked in the shape of scepters and beards. Another popular custom associated with St. Joseph is burying St. Joseph statues upside-down in order to sell one's home more quickly. While there is nothing inherently wrong with burying a saint statue, this practice should not be used superstitiously, but simply viewed a process whereby one joins one's prayers with St. Joseph, asking God to sell a home more quickly. The statue is not magic. Many people, to thank St. Joseph for his intercessions, will display the buried statue in their new home. From ChurchYear.Net Link of the Week Rosary for the Bishop
The effort began at Christmas of 2005 in Madison Wisconsin as a Spiritual Bouquet for Bishop Robert Morlino. Lay Catholics from around the Diocese of Madison could sign up online to pray one rosary per month for the Bishop. We recommend you participate in this effort which seeks to do more than criticize the bishops. Click here to sign up to pray a Rosary for our Bishop Francis Xavier DiLorenzo. From Catholic Culture. |
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PHILOSOPHY CLUB: The Philosophy Club has moved to daylight hours! We now meet the second Sunday of the month at 12:30 p.m. (right after the 11:00 a.m. mass) in the Bernard Moore Room. All are welcome to join us at any time. At our next meeting, on March 14th, we will discuss St. Thomas Aquinas' 
BOOK CLUB NEWS: For the past year, nine members of Holy Comforter have been part of the book club. They met every other month for interesting and faith filled discussions. Are you interested in joining them? If you are please contact Therese Stong (296-9961, 
IMPACT: The Nehemiah Action assembly takes place on March 22nd at U-Hall. Although the program does not start until 7:00 p.m., it is a good idea to plan to arrive around 6:15 p.m. That way you will have plenty of time to park, sign in, and find Holy Comforter's spot in the seats. If Holy Comforter can turn out at least 100 people (children count as people), we will be making a good contribution to IMPACT's goal of 2,000 people.
PANTRY: This month's Reverse Collection might look a bit different from those of the past. Except for chunky soup and cash, all the other items on the list are new. Except for the soup and the cash, we don't need great quantities of these items, but they are nice to have on hand if someone asks for them. Thank you for all your generous support.
SALTADÈRE UPDATE: Please continue to pray for our brothers and sisters in Haiti. On our recent trip to Saltadère, we experienced the resilience of the people as they welcomed relatives from the capital into their homes and the school. Student pictures were taken including those students newly arrived from Port-au-Prince. Updates on relief efforts are being posted on the Saltadère website at 
THE STS. JOACHIM AND ANNE SOCIETY: This society has a monthly discussion on living out the Natural Family Planning Lifestyle. They meet the 3rd Wednesday of the month at 7:00 p.m. in the community room (downstairs) at St. Thomas Aquinas. Discussions are moderated by an NFP instructor. The first meeting will be March 17th, and all are invited. If you have any questions, please email Lauri at 
General: That the world economy may be managed according to the principles of justice and equity, taking account of the real needs of peoples, especially the poorest.
