November 30: The Feast of St. Andrew the Apostle

As a parish family, we celebrated our patron saint this morning with mass and a wonderful breakfast!

Sacred scripture doesn't tell us much about St. Andrew, but this is what we do know:
 In John's Gospel, we learn that Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist but became interested in learning more about Jesus when John pointed him out. He was a fisherman,  the brother of Simon, who was later called Peter, and it was Andrew who told Simon Peter about Jesus.

Andrew often seems to serve an important role as a bridge to make things happen: (again in John) leading Simon to Jesus, identifying the boy in the crowd with the loaves and fish that would then feed the multitudes, and interceding for curious Greeks who wanted an audience with Jesus in Jerusalem. After Jesus' death and resurrection, we have no clear proof where Andrew went to preach the Good News (Scottish legend claims he was there, thus "St. Andrew's Cross" on the national flag, and he is the patron saint of Scotland). He probably conducted most of his ministry in what is now Greece and Turkey. He was martyred on an "X" shaped cross, tied to the wood rather than nailed, so that his suffering would last longer. It is said that during the 2 days on the cross, he continued to preach the Gospel.

St. Andrew is the patron saint of fishermen, Scotland, Greece and Russia, as well as of our parish!

St. Andrew, the first apostle, pray for us!

First Sunday of Advent

While we do not have a catechetical session this Sunday, here are the readings for November 29, 2009, the First Sunday of Advent (cycle C).

Jeremiah 33: 14-16
Psalm 25: 4-5, 8-10, 14
1 Thessalonians 3: 12- 4:2
Luke 21: 25-28, 34-36

Thinking of a time when you've had to wait for something important (your wedding, birth of a child, start of a new job, medical results) ....

• What were your feelings at that time? 
• Did you seek or find support from others and/or your faith? 
• If you did, where did you find calm in the midst of the anticipation?
  

Thanksgiving

How can I repay the LORD for all the good done for me?

Psalm 116:12

Make your New Year's Resolutions yet?

This coming Sunday is the first Sunday of our new liturgical year... so:

Happy New Year!

We begin in the season of Advent. You'll notice a change in the color of vestments that the priest wears and the cloths on the ambo (lectern) and altar... we've gone from the green of Ordinary Time to purple. And theme of the readings will now be focusing on preparing for the coming of our Lord.


Here's an easy resolution to keep: I will learn more about Advent and Christmas in this new year. For help with that, please click here.

Please note: because it is Thanksgiving week, there will be no Inquiry session this Tuesday. Nor is there a catechetical session on Sunday, November 29.

Celebrating St. Andrew

Monday, November 30 is the feast day of St. Andrew,
the patron saint of our parish.

We will be celebrating with Mass at 9:00AM,
followed by breakfast in the Fellowship Hall.

If you are able to participate, please contact our parish stewardship office
to RSVP by Tuesday Nov 24.
(stewardship[at]saintandrew[dot]org or 362-0414 x27)

34th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Solemnity of Christ the King

The Scripture readings for this Sunday, November 22, 2009 are:
         Daniel 7: 13-14
          Psalm 93: 1-2,5
          Revelation 1: 5-8
          John 18: 33-37

The topic for this week's catechetical session is "Christ the King".

• What images would you use to describe the kingdom of God?
• How has Jesus Christ ruled your life in your journey of faith?
  

Please note that there will be no sessions on Sunday, November 29.
There will be no Inquiry session on Tuesday, November 24; the next Inquiry is on Tuesday, December 8.

Today in Scripture

Luke 19: 1-10
At that time Jesus came to Jericho and intended to pass through the town. Now a man there named Zacchaeus, who was a chief tax collector and also a wealthy man, was seeking to see who Jesus was;
but he could not see him because of the crowd, for he was short in stature.
So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus, who was about to pass that way.


When he reached the place, Jesus looked up and said, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.” And he came down quickly and received him with joy. When they saw this, they began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to stay at the house of a sinner.” But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over.”
And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house
because this man too is a descendant of Abraham.
For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.”

Children love the story of Zacchaeus: a grown man, sitting in a tree! They can identify with his struggle to see over a crowd, and are delighted that Jesus would pick him to spend time with. As adults, we often read this as an example of conversion, as evidenced by the closing words of Jesus in the passage. And as a conversion story, it is a good and powerful one: our encounter with Jesus evokes a self-assessment that hopefully leads to a change for the better in how we live our lives.

Consider, though that "Zacchaeus" in Hebrew means 'pure, innocent'. The man is rich, but not necessarily greedy or dishonest. He was disliked because he oversaw the collection of taxes for the Roman occupiers. And while most translations use the future tense for his charitable intentions, John Pilch in "The Cultural World of Jesus - Cycle C" asserts that the present tense is more accurate and is descriptive of a repeated practice... Zacchaeus has been generous all along.  And don't miss that word "if"  -- he's asserting innocence of cheating, but will take responsibility if he discovers that his employees have cheated - repaying 400%, when Jewish law only required a 120% restitution.

So, is the salvation of this story a matter of restoring an innocent man's reputation, of changing his heart and way of life, or of challenging us all not to judge by appearance?  Perhaps 'yes' to all!

St. Frances X. Cabrini

November 13 is the feast day of the first American citizen to be canonized. Born in Italy in 1850, Frances Cabrini was refused admission to the religious order that had educated her (because of frail health), so she went to work in an orphanage. By 1880, she was named the  prioress (head) of a new order, the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, and in her mind she was going to fulfill a childhood dream of being a missionary in China.

Again, things didn't go according to plan - she was asked to go west, not east - heading to New York City to care for the thousands of Italian immigrants who had no spiritual support. Arriving in NYC, their promised housing fell through, but Mother Cabrini was determined to stay.

By the time Frances died (in 1917), she had begun 67 badly needed schools, orphages and hospitals. These were located in the United States, Central and South America, Italy, France and England. In all [despite a fear of water], Frances crossed the ocean 30 times. After she died, her sisters fulfilled her dream and did missionary work in China. (Companion to the Calendar by Mary Ellen Hynes. LTP, 1993)

How does her story apply to us today? Consider this commentary from AmericanCatholic.org

The compassion and dedication of Mother Cabrini is still seen in hundreds of thousands of her fellow citizens, not yet canonized, who care for the sick in hospitals, nursing homes and state institutions. We complain of increased medical costs in an affluent society, but the daily news shows us millions who have little or no medical care, and who are calling for new Mother Cabrinis to become citizen-servants of their land.

She is the patron saint of immigrants.
St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, pray for us!

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Scripture readings for this Sunday, November 15, 2009 are:
         Daniel 12: 1-3
          Psalm 16: 5, 8-11
          Hebrews 10: 11-14, 18
          Mark 13: 24-32

The topic for this week's catechetical session is "Final Judgment".
This Sunday at the 9:30am mass, we will celebrate the Rite of Acceptance and Welcoming. Please join us in prayer for those who are making this next step on their faith journey.

• What are some of your feelings about the end times?
• Do you "do the right thing" more for the reward at the end of time, or because of your present relationship with God? Has this point of view shifted during your lifetime?
  

Purgatory

God's waiting room? A dentention center or demi-hell? For centuries, artists, theologians and the faithful have been trying to attach images to our transition from this life to eternal life with God. In searching for a way to describe the mystery of this process, some used the image of gold being purified in fire, which then led for many to the notion of the physical pain experienced in burning flames.

The Catholic Church does teach the reality of purgatory. Let's look at how the Catechism describes it:

"All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1030)

 Some points to keep in mind:

1. Purgatory is a transitional process, not a place.
2. The purpose of the process is to remove from us anything that still burdens us spiritually at the moment of death, so that we are ready to meet God face-to-face joyfully, without reservation or hesitation.
3. People 'in' purgatory are on their way to heaven. To put it another, highly un-theological way, they won't 'flunk a quiz' and go to hell.
   
4. The pain or suffering of purgatory lies not so much in physical torment as in the struggle of facing and letting go of those final sins and burdens, and the as-yet-unfulfilled longing to be united with God.
   
5. "Time" is a human invention; God lives outside of chronological time. 'Days' or 'years' in purgatory as we describe it may be as the blink of an eye at the moment of death, or may indeed be a longer period (no one's come back to tell us!).
6. We as Church have a long tradition of offering prayers and other means of spiritual support on behalf of those who have died, to assist them on their way. The custom of having Mass celebrated for the intention of the newly deceased, of saying other prayers and offering other sacrifices on their behalf speaks to our belief in the efficacy of prayer and in the reality of the communion of saints - our bonds with our brothers and sisters in faith are not broken in death.
7. (The system of indulgences, connected closely to the concept of purgatory, has, over time, been subject to misunderstanding and abuse... as Martin Luther clearly pointed out in his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517. But that's a subject for another post!)
   

Limbo!

The Limbo is a popular party dance.

"Limbo" as a theological concept is, for all practical purposes, in the past. Go on: try to find it listed in the index of  the Catechism of the Catholic Church. No help there, is it?

Well, going back to the time of St. Augustine, the development of the concept of "Original Sin" highlighted the necessity of baptism for eternal salvation. And yet, there were two major problems to be resolved: what of people of faith who had lived prior to Jesus Christ and thus had no opportunity to be baptized; and what of infants who died prior to baptism - would they all be condemned to Hell because they still carried original sin on their souls?

The concept of "limbo of the Fathers" is a Christian adaptation where the just resided after death until Christ descended after his own death to release them. Pelagius (a British monk whose teachings on grace and original sin were formally declared to be in error) offered the concept of a state of natural happiness somewhere between heaven and hell, which Augustine had to reject as a consequence of rejecting Pelagius' teaching on sin. So Augustine said that innocent, unbaptized children regrettably would be in hell, but only suffer the mildest of eternal punishments.

By the time we get to Peter Abelard and Thomas Aquinas in the Middle Ages, the proposed condition for these poor souls improves: they would not be in hell, but existing in a state of natural happiness, but deprived of the super-natural happiness of experiencing the 'beatific vision' (being in God's presence) ... neither here nor there... a state of 'limbo' (from the Latin Limbus, meaning the hem of a garment).

Modern theology affirms the importance of baptism for the remission of original sin and for making us members of the Body of Christ, while also affirming the power and ability of God to offer salvation to anyone God chooses to. The Catholic Church has never definitely taught the presence of "Limbo" as such, although for centuries it remained a popular belief among the faithful.  But no, we no longer assign unbaptized infants to limbo; we entrust them to the care and mercy and love of the God who gave them life in the first place.

The Limbo is a popular party dance.

Today in Scripture

1 Cor 3:9c-11, 16-17
Brothers and sisters:
You are God’s building.
According to the grace of God given to me,
like a wise master builder I laid a foundation,
and another is building upon it.
But each one must be careful how he builds upon it,
for no one can lay a foundation other than the one that is there,
namely, Jesus Christ.

Do you not know that you are the temple of God,
and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
If anyone destroys God’s temple,
God will destroy that person;
for the temple of God, which you are, is holy.

For the temple of God,
which you are,
is holy.

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Scripture readings for this Sunday, November 8, 2009 are:
         1 Kings 17: 10-16
          Psalm 146: 7-10
          Hebrews 9: 24-28
          Mark 12: 38-44

The topic for this week's catechetical and mystagogical sessions is "Stewardship".

• What are different motivations a person could have for giving (of their time, talents, or money) to others?
• Who has helped you when you were in need? Whom have you assisted?
• Think of a particular talent that you have been given by God; how do you feel when you make use of it?
  

Today in Scripture

Luke 14: 25-33
Great crowds were traveling with Jesus,
and he turned and addressed them,
“If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother,
wife and children, brothers and sisters,
and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me
cannot be my disciple.
Which of you wishing to construct a tower
does not first sit down and calculate the cost
to see if there is enough for its completion?
Otherwise, after laying the foundation
and finding himself unable to finish the work
the onlookers should laugh at him and say,
‘This one began to build but did not have the resources to finish.’
Or what king marching into battle would not first sit down
and decide whether with ten thousand troops
he can successfully oppose another king
advancing upon him with twenty thousand troops?
But if not, while he is still far away,
he will send a delegation to ask for peace terms.
In the same way, everyone of you who does not renounce
all his possessions cannot be my disciple.”

Such extreme words!!  Hate my family? Take up my cross?
Renounce all my possessions?
Well, that's one way to get a big crowd to disperse quickly!

Scripture scholars tell us that in this context "hate" doesn't mean holding a literal contempt for our loved ones, but the word Jesus used was an exaggerated way of saying, 'love God above everything and everyone else'. Don't let any person or any possession get between you and your relationship with God.

And Jesus seems to be trying to give these people a dose of reality. So many people following a renowned preacher, a miracle-worker .... like groupies to a rock star.  Think about what you're committing to, he tells them (and us) through these examples; if you are going to follow me, there's going to be some cost involved.

For Jesus and many of his early followers, that cost was their lives. For us today, the price may not be as extreme. Still, pockets of anti-Catholicism remain in workplaces and some communities that could jeopardize your livelihood or simply make conversations uncomfortable.  Now you notice that Jesus doesn't say, "go confront your oppressors," or "argue your Truth with them" - he simple says, 'know it won't always be easy, be sure you are ready for whatever comes, and keep God first in your life'. If we can have the humility to not have to prove ourselves or our beliefs to others, but stand firm and secure in living in the love of God, that's one way to carry our cross as his disciple.  What do you think?

Feast of All Souls - November 2

Following immediately after our celebration of All Saints, we commemorate the Feast of All Souls, holding in prayer all who have died. As the leaves fall and the days shorten, we as Church approach the end of our liturgical year, and our Scripture readings reflect this reality. Our focus turns toward our own mortality, judgment, and to the coming of the fullness of God's Kingdom.

You might make this prayer a part of your daily prayer throughout the month of November:

          Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord,

               and let perpetual light shine upon them.

          May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed,

               through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen

All Saints' Day

Today is the solemnity (high priority feast, in other words) of All Saints - the day on which we celebrate all those who live now with God.

The saints in heaven are celebrated for what we are all called to be: fully human, fully ourselves. If we believe we are made in God's image and likeness, each of us can be holy by being true to who we are in our essence. Saints come from every nation, exhibit a wide variety of personality traits and backgrounds, and share one thing in common: a love for God that permeates their (our) actions and thoughts.

These images are from the tapestries by John Nava in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles.

Brief reminders:  

• This evening (Sunday November 1) is the talk at St. Thomas More in Chapel Hill by the author of "My Cousin the Saint". 
• On Monday evening November 2, there will be a 7:00pm mass at St. Andrew's to celebrate the Feast of All Souls, remembering those who have died, and in a special way all who have died within this past year.