St. Mary's Catholic Church - Weekly-Bulletin

Fifth Sunday of the Year

Pat Perkins — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 05:01:30 GMT

Dear Friends in Christ,

1. The frozen weather last weekend put a large dent in our Mass attendance (we actually had to cancel Saturday afternoon Confessions and Mass for fear of drawing people out into dangerous conditions), and now is a good time to remind everyone of two salient points: + The obligation to attend Sunday Mass does not require you to drive in hazardous conditions, so if you truly cannot make it to church because of dangerous driving conditions, no sin is involved in missing Mass. God does not ask the impossible. + Whether or not you make it to Mass on a given weekend, our bills still have to be paid each week. We live from collection to collection, so if you were not able to make it to church last weekend, please make up your missing offertory donation so that we can go on paying our bills. At the end of each month there is nearly nothing left in our checking account, and so to sustain operations from month to month, we depend upon your regular support. One way to be sure that a week or month is never missed is to use electronic funds transfer, which can be set up and managed quickly and easily. But however you make your gifts, thank you for your commitment to St. Mary’s.

2. This Wednesday, 10 February, is the Feast of St. Scholastica, the twin sister of St. Benedict. These two saints were born in the Italian mountain town of Norcia around the year 480, and Scholastica died on 10 February 547. (For comparison, St. Patrick was born around 387 and died in 493, when Benedict and Scholastica were 13 years old.) We know very little for certain about the life of this holy woman, and the only reliable written source is a book by Pope St. Gregory the Great, called Dialogues. In that work, written in 593, Pope Gregory tells us that Scholastica was the superior of a community of nuns living under the Rule of St. Benedict about five miles from her brother’s famous monastery at Monte Cassino. St. Scholastica is the patroness of all women living under the Rule of St. Benedict.

3. Next week is the last Sunday before the beginning of Lent on Ash Wednesday, 17 February. The schedule for Ash Wednesday and a summary of the Church’s disciplines of fasting and abstinence from meat are in the bulletin, and these simple reminders of the coming 40 Days should spur us to find concrete ways before Lent begins to deepen our faith and resolve to follow the Lord Jesus ever more faithfully in the Way of the Cross. On Ash Wednesday the Church will remind us starkly of our mortality: “Remember, man, you are dust, and to dust you will return.” These words are an invitation to conversion and the obedience of faith, and that is confirmed by the prayer of blessing which precedes the imposition of ashes: “Lord, bless these ashes by which we show that we are dust. Pardon our sins, and keep us faithful to the discipline of Lent, for you do not want sinners to die but to live with the risen Christ, who reigns with you forever and ever. Amen.”

Father Newman

Fourth Sunday of the Year

Pat Perkins — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 05:01:03 GMT

Dear Friends in Christ,

Three items for your consideration:

1. Beginning tomorrow the Church in the United States observes Catholic Schools Week to draw attention to the sacred duty of all Catholic parents to give their children an authentic Catholic education and to highlight the importance of the Church’s schools in transmitting the Gospel to the next generation. We at St. Mary’s are most fortunate to have a truly outstanding parish school, now recognized as a national Blue Ribbon School, and our open house this afternoon is an opportunity for parents to meet our faculty and tour our facilities. Please see inside the bulletin for a letter from the Bishop of Charleston on the importance of Catholic schools and for a flyer about today’s open house. All parents with children who will be between K-4 and 8th Grade next school year are welcome to join us this afternoon at 3 pm.

2. On Tuesday of this week, February 2nd, the Church celebrates one of the most beautiful feasts of the liturgical year: the Presentation of the Lord Jesus in the Temple at Jerusalem. This feast, which began in Jerusalem as early as the 4th century, recalls the events described by St. Luke in Chapter 2, verses 22 to 40 of his Gospel. The best way to keep the feast of the Presentation is to attend holy Mass, but if you cannot attend Mass this Tuesday, at least read those verses of St. Luke’s Gospel and give thanks for the gift of our salvation in the words of holy Simeon: “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people, to be a light to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory of thy people Israel” (Luke 2:29-32).

3. Though it scarcely seems possible, Lent begins in less than three weeks, and so now is the time to give careful consideration to your own program of spiritual renewal. A time-honored custom for Catholics is to give up something for Lent, usually a favorite food or pastime, as a means of growing in self-discipline and joining more fully in Christ’s self-sacrificing love. But in addition to giving something up, another useful practice for enriching Lent is taking something on. Find a good book for spiritual reading (for which a trip to St. Anthony’s Bookstore in Greenville or the Catholic Shoppe in Spartanburg is useful), resolve to pray more deeply with the Liturgy of the Hours (for which our common celebration of Vespers at 4 pm on every Sunday of Lent is helpful), give alms to assist those in need (for which donations to the Greenville office of Catholic Charities is most appropriate), or study and pray with Sacred Scripture, either alone or with others (for which adult Sunday School at 9.30 am during Lent is designed). Give some time now to preparing for Lent, and your 40 Days of fasting, prayer, and works of charity will be greatly enriched.

Our Lady of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pray for us.

Father Newman

Third Sunday of the Year

Pat Perkins — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 05:01:41 GMT

Dear Friends in Christ,

Every Catholic knows that we do not have a sufficient number of priests to serve the Church in the United States (and, indeed, throughout the First World) and that we are asked on a regular basis to pray to the Lord for more laborers in the vineyard. There are doubtless many reasons for the decline in the number of men offering themselves for the priesthood in the last 40 years, but I believe that one of the most important of these reasons is this: In the years immediately after the Second Vatican Council, much of the Church was plunged into liturgical chaos, and during the years of experimentation, the primary purpose of every priest’s life (the celebration of Holy Mass) was so obscured by the chaos that many priests no longer saw a point to their way of life and left the priesthood, while many others who might have been called to the altar either could not hear or answer that call because the beauty of the Mass was all but lost in a never-ending storm of liturgical abuses.

God be praised, this period of chaos is coming to an end, and restoring the beauty and dignity of the sacred liturgy is one of the chief priorities of Pope Benedict XVI. The Holy Father is asking every priest in the Church to celebrate the sacred liturgy according to the mind of the Church (not according to his own personal tastes or creative whims) and to understand that the sacred liturgy is not the property of any one priest, parish, or diocese but the common patrimony of the entire Body of Christ. The pope’s summons to priests to reform their ars celebrandi (or art of celebrating the liturgy) is nothing other than calling us to be faithful to one of the promises of our ordination. Before the bishop imposes hands and calls down the Holy Spirit to make a man a priest, he asks the candidate “Are you resolved to celebrate the mysteries of Christ faithfully and religiously as the Church has handed them down to us for the glory of God and the sanctification of Christ’s people?” Only when the candidate has promised this fidelity to the celebration of the sacred liturgy according to the mind of the Church can he be ordained to the priesthood. Pope Benedict is simply reminding priests of this promise we have each made and calling us to be faithful to that promise.

An important part of the ongoing reform of the liturgical life of the Church is the contribution made by scholars from many disciplines (theology, music, art, architecture, etc), and this week St. Mary’s is hosting a conference by a group of such scholars called the Society for Catholic Liturgy. To learn more about this Society, please visit its website at www.liturgysociety.org. The various lectures of this coming conference are open only to members of the Society, but the several liturgies which will be celebrated in our church during the meeting are open to everyone. Please join us for Morning Prayer at 8.30 am on Friday and Saturday, for Mass at 11.15 on Friday and Saturday, for Vespers at 5.00 on Friday, and for a concert of sacred music concluding with Compline or Night Prayer at 8.00 pm Saturday.

Father Newman

Second Sunday of the Year

Pat Perkins — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 05:01:01 GMT

Dear Friends in Christ,

1. As you know, the Caribbean island nation of Haiti has been crippled by a devastating earthquake that reduced most of its capital city to ruins. Untold thousands are dead and many more thousands are gravely injured and near despair. To help respond to this tragedy, every Catholic parish in the United States has been asked to take up a special collection that will be given to Catholic Relief Services and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to help them provide direct assistance to the suffering people of Haiti. We are taking that collection today at each of our Masses, but without prior notice of this you may not be able to give what you’d like to offer. In that case, you can send a donation directly to our Bishop Robert. Make the check payable to the Diocese of Charleston (indicate Haiti Relief on the memo line and the envelope) and post it to 1662 Ingram Road; Charleston, SC 29407. All donations to this fund will go directly to relief for the suffering people of Haiti.

2. This week all of the priests of the Diocese of Charleston will be gathered in the See City for our annual Convocation of Priests. Our topic this year, in the Year for Priests, is encouraging vocations to the priesthood. Of your charity, please pray for us during these deliberations.

3. Because of the Convocation, the Wednesday afternoon Holy Hour with Confessions is cancelled, but the weekday Mass schedule remains the same.

4. On the weekend of 23 and 24 January, all of the permanent deacons of the Diocese of Charleston will be on their annual retreat with their wives just outside of Columbia. Please pray for these dedicated servants of the Gospel and for the gift of their spiritual renewal.

5. After a careful review of our capital needs for this new calendar year, I have identified our goal for capital gifts in 2010 as $950,000, and every household in the parish will soon receive a letter explaining the six projects that will be paid for by these funds. Please read that letter carefully, and then return your pledge card for capital donations in 2010. In most of the last eight years, our capital donations have been well over $1 million dollars, but we can take a bit of a breather this year because of the extraordinary progress we have made in transforming our campus.

6. From January 28th to 31st, St. Mary’s is hosting a conference of the Society for Catholic Liturgy, a professional association of scholars, musicians, architects, and pastors dedicated to the study of the sacred liturgy and the promotion of authentic liturgical renewal. All parishioners are invited to join us for the several liturgies that will take place during the conference: Morning Prayer at 8.30 am on that Friday and Saturday; Mass at 11.15 am on that Friday and Saturday; Vespers at 5.00 pm on that Friday, and Compline at 8.00 pm on that Saturday.

Father Newman

The Baptism of the Lord

Pat Perkins — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 05:01:44 GMT

Dear Friends in Christ,

The vast majority of Christians, including almost all Catholics, are baptized when they are infants, and this is most fitting. The sacraments are instruments of God’s grace, and even newborn babies need the grace of God. Moreover, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it, “The sheer gratuitousness of the grace of salvation is particularly manifest in infant Baptism,” and for this reason “The practice of infant Baptism is an immemorial tradition of the Church.” (CCC 1250, 1252). But along with the indisputable benefits of baptizing infants comes a special danger: those who are baptized before the beginning of memory will have no recollection or understanding of the most important day in their lives, and unless the fact and meaning of their Baptism is explained to them as they grow and receive the Gospel with saving faith, then they will not know that they have been born again of water and the Holy Spirit and have been made children of God, members of Christ and heirs of the Kingdom.

Today the Church celebrates the Baptism of the Lord Jesus by his kinsman and herald, John the Baptist. Jesus received the Baptism of John not for the forgiveness of sins (because He had none), but in order to transform a religious ritual washing of the Old Covenant into the first sacrament of the New Covenant. The Baptism of Jesus is also the acceptance of His mission as the Father’s suffering servant, and Jesus allows Himself to be numbered among sinners in order to free us from our slavery to sin. In the waters of the Jordan, the Son of Mary is anointed with the Holy Spirit and is thus revealed to be the eternal Son of God and in His sacred humanity to be the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One of God. Finally, by accepting Baptism from John, the Lord Jesus is also accepting and anticipating His own suffering and death. For this reason, each Christian is united to the death of the Lord Jesus through Baptism so that we can live the life of the new creation by grace through faith in Jesus the Christ.

All of this makes our Baptism the single most important event in our entire lives; it is the original sacrament of faith and the beginning of the life of grace. But unless we understand the meaning of this supernatural second birth, we risk misunderstanding the whole of the Christian life. For this reason, parents and godparents have the sacred duty to teach children who are baptized about the day of their Baptism and lead them to mature faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. As part of this mission to give the Gospel to all the baptized, I encourage every parishioner to find out when and where and by whom you were baptized. Resolve to keep the anniversary of your Baptism each year as a day of special celebration, and evaluate your relationship with the Lord Jesus in the light of the promises of your Baptism, which we are each asked to renew every year on Easter Sunday. And with St. Paul, I “urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit – just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call – one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (Ephesians 4:1-6)

Father Newman