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March 21, 2010
Holy Comforter Parish eNewsletter |
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This Week The Fifth Week in Lent
During the fourth week of Lent, the Church celebrates the feasts of St. Toribio de Mogrovejo (March 23), and the Annunciation (March 25). 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 21, 2010, view the attached PDF file or click here. CHRISTIAN FORMATION: There are no regular Christian Formation classes on Sunday, March 28th (Palm Sunday) and Sunday, April 4th (Easter Sunday). Classes will resume Sunday, April 11th. 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: Thank you to all who helped host the Diocesan Haiti Gathering on March 20. Committee members Terri Powers, Janet Stack, Kathy Smith, Paul Harnois, Laurie Duncan and many others worked on the planning of this successful event. Thank you to Patrice Schwermer and her colleagues from Richmond for their help. Approximately 200 people from across our Diocese attended. 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. Pro-Life Prayer Intention That children may witness to their peers about the sanctity of life. Liturgy Calendar
Devotion
St. Leo was pope during the middle of the fifth century, a troubled time when barbarian armies were ravaging the once mighty Roman empire. He is perhaps most famous for persuading Attila the Hun to abandon his plans to sack the city of Rome. Leo, one of the Early Church Fathers, was such an extraordinary teacher that he is one of the few Popes of history to have been dubbed "the Great." This selection from one of his Lenten Sermons (Sermo 6 de Quadragesima, 1-2: PL 54, 285-287) is used in the Roman Catholic Office of Readings for the Thursday after Ash Wednesday with the accompanying biblical reading taken from Exodus 1:1-22. Dear friends, at every moment the earth is full of the mercy of God, and nature itself is a lesson for all the faithful in the worship of God. The heavens, the sea and all that is in them bear witness to the goodness and omnipotence of their Creator, and the marvelous beauty of the elements as they obey him demands from the intelligent creation a fitting expression of its gratitude. But with the return of that season marked out in a special way by the mystery of our redemption, and of the days that lead up to the paschal feast, we are summoned more urgently to prepare ourselves by a purification of spirit. The special note of the paschal feast is this: the whole Church rejoices in the forgiveness of sins. It rejoices in the forgiveness not only of those who are then reborn in holy baptism but also of those who are already numbered among God’s adopted children. Initially, men are made new by the rebirth of baptism. Yet there still is required a daily renewal to repair the shortcomings of our mortal nature, and whatever degree of progress has been made there is no one who should not be more advanced. All must therefore strive to ensure that on the day of redemption no one may be found in the sins of his former life. Dear friends, what the Christian should be doing at all times should be done now with greater care and devotion, so that the Lenten fast enjoined by the apostles may be fulfilled, not simply by abstinence from food but above all by the renunciation of sin. There is no more profitable practice as a companion to holy and spiritual fasting than that of almsgiving. This embraces under the single name of mercy many excellent works of devotion, so that the good intentions of all the faithful may be of equal value, even where their means are not. The love that we owe both God and man is always free from any obstacle that would prevent us from having a good intention. The angels sang: Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on earth. The person who shows love and compassion to those in any kind of affliction is blessed, not only with the virtue of good will but also with the gift of peace. The works of mercy are innumerable. Their very variety brings this advantage to those who are true Christians, that in the matter of almsgiving not only the rich and affluent but also those of average means and the poor are able to play their part. Those who are unequal in their capacity to give can be equal in the love within their hearts. 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 Obligation of the Decalogue 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. 2072 Since they express man's fundamental duties towards God and towards his neighbor, the Ten Commandments reveal, in their primordial content, grave obligations. They are fundamentally immutable, and they oblige always and everywhere. No one can dispense from them. the Ten Commandments are engraved by God in the human heart. 2073 Obedience to the Commandments also implies obligations in matter which is, in itself, light. Thus abusive language is forbidden by the fifth commandment, but would be a grave offense only as a result of circumstances or the offender's intention. 2074 Jesus says: "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." The fruit referred to in this saying is the holiness of a life made fruitful by union with Christ. When we believe in Jesus Christ, partake of his mysteries, and keep his commandments, the Savior himself comes to love, in us, his Father and his brethren, our Father and our brethren. His person becomes, through the Spirit, the living and interior rule of our activity. "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." Church History
The Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary on March 25th. Introduction The story of the Annunciation, meaning the announcing, from the Latin annuntiare, is told in Luke's gospel. At the Annunciation, the angel Gabriel announces to Mary that she will conceive a Son, and his name will be Jesus. His greeting, "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you" has echoed down through the ages in many prayers, and is known as the "Hail Mary." Mary is initially confused as to how she will bear God's Son, seeing as she is a virgin. The angel then explains that the Holy Spirit will come upon on her. This is why when we recite the Nicene creed we say "by the power of the Holy Spirit, [Jesus] was born of the Virgin Mary and became man." The Apostles Creed likewise affirms that Jesus was "conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit." Thus, the Feast of the Annunciation is the beginning of Jesus' miraculous life, and it begins with the theotokos conceiving Jesus by the Holy Spirit's power. Mary's response to the angel, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word," (Latin: ecce ancilla Domini; fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum) is a statement of humble faith, and a model for how we are to respond when God calls us to do what seems impossible. This response is called Mary's fiat, from the Latin word meaning "let it be done." The Catechism addresses the significance of Mary's faith in relation to her role as Christ's mother: By pronouncing her "fiat" at the Annunciation and giving her consent to the Incarnation, Mary was already collaborating with the whole work her Son was to accomplish. She is mother wherever he is Savior and head of the Mystical Body (973). History The Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary dates back to at least the 6th century, and is mentioned between AD 530 and 533 in a sermon by Abraham of Ephesus. In the West, the first authentic reference is in the Gelasian Sacramentary in the 7th century. The tenth Synod of Toledo (AD 656), and Trullan Synod (AD 692) speak of the Annunciation feast as universally celebrated in the Catholic Church. In the Acts of the latter council, the feast is exempted from the Lenten fast. The oldest observance of the day is on March 25, although in Spain the feast was at times celebrated on December 19 to avoid any chance of the date falling during the Lenten season. March 25 is obviously 9 months before Christmas, the birth of Jesus. Scholars are not completely sure whether the date of the Annunciation influenced the date of Christmas, or vice-versa. Before the Church adopted fixed days of celebration, early Christians speculated on the dates of major events in Jesus' life. Second-century Latin Christians in Rome and North Africa tried to find the day in which Jesus died. By the time of Tertullian (d. AD 225) they had concluded that he died on Friday, March 25, AD 29 (incidentally, this is an impossibility, since March 25 in the year AD 29 was not a Friday). How does the day of Jesus' death relate to the day of his conception? It comes from the Jewish concept of the "integral age" of the great Jewish prophets. This is the notion that the prophets of Israel died on the same dates as their birth or conception. Therefore, if Jesus died on March 25, he was also conceived that day. The pseudo-(John)Chrysostomic work de solstitia et aequinoctia conceptionis et nativitatis nostri Iesu Christi et Iohannis Baptistae accepts the same calculation. St. Augustine mentions it as well. Other ancient Christians believed Jesus was conceived on March 25th for another reason: they believed (based on Jewish calculations of the period) that the creation of the world occurred that day. Thus, it was fitting that the one who makes us new creations was conceived on the day the world was created. For more information on this subject check out Choosing the Date of Christmas: Why December 25?, by the author of this web page, Calculating Christmas by William Tighe, and The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Of interest, the Feast of the Annunciation is one of the 4 "Quarter Days" in the Church. These are days which fall around the equinoxes or solstices, and mark the beginnings of the natural seasons: spring, summer, autumn, and winter. These Quarter Days were Christian feast days used in medieval times to mark "quarters" for legal purposes. The other days Quarter Days are the Nativity of St. John the Baptist (June 24), Michaelmas (September 29), and Christmas (December 25). From ChurchYear.Net Link of the Week Andrew's Responsorial Psalms
From Catholic Culture. |
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PHILOSOPHY CLUB: The Philosophy Club continues to meet the second Sunday of the month at 12:30 p.m. (right after the 11:00 a.m. mass) downstairs in the Bernard Moore Room. All are welcome to join us at our next meeting, April 11th, as we continue to discuss St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica, Question II and Question III, Articles 3 and 4, on the existence of God, which can be found online: 
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 
PANTRY: The generous donations that come to the pantry from the parish are very gratifying to the volunteers who work at outreach. Think how the people who actually receive the donations feel! Thank you for your continuous generosity.
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.
