St. Mary's Catholic Church - Weekly-Bulletin

Thirty-Second Sunday of the Year

Pat Perkins — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 05:01:26 GMT

Dear Friends in Christ,

We have examined the three sacraments of initiation and the two sacraments of healing; that leaves the two sacraments of service: Holy Orders and Holy Matrimony. Both of these sacraments confer a special grace directed not towards the salvation of the one who receives the sacrament, but to the salvation of those who are served by the one ordained or married. In Baptism and Confirmation, we are consecrated or set apart from the world by God and for God; in Holy Orders and Holy Matrimony we receive another consecration. Bishops, priests, and deacons are consecrated to feed the Church by the Word and grace of God, and spouses are consecrated for the duties and dignity of marital love and family life.

Holy Orders is the sacrament through which the messianic mission of Christ continues in His Church until the end of time. The three degrees of this one sacrament (episcopate, presbyterate, and diaconate) are a participation in the apostolic offices of teaching, sanctifying, and governing given by the Lord Jesus to the Twelve. In Roman law, the word “order” designated a group or civil body within society, and “ordination” means incorporation into an “order”. Sacred Scripture describes to us the three offices of ministry proper to the New Covenant, and each of these offices constitutes a single such “order” in the Church: the Order of Bishops, the Order of Priests (or Presbyters), and the Order of Deacons. A baptized man is ordained into one of these three Orders by a prayer of consecration and the laying on of hands by a true bishop in apostolic succession, and this liturgical action of Christ and the Church confers on the one ordained the sacred power to preach the Word of God and administer the other sacraments, according to the station of each Order.

Bishops and presbyters share by different degrees in the one ministerial priesthood of the New Covenant; by their consecration, bishops and priests are configured to the Lord Jesus in such a way that they can act in His Person in the sacred liturgy and stand in the Person of Christ, Head and Bridegroom of the Church. The ministerial priesthood has the task of representing Christ the Head of the Church before the whole assembly and also of acting in the name of the whole Church when offering to God the prayer of the Church. Deacons are ordained unto a ministry of service, but not to the priesthood. Deacons assist bishops and priests in the celebration of the sacred mysteries, in works of charity, in blessing marriages, in the proclamation of the Gospel, in administering baptism, and in presiding over funerals. Read pages 383-399 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for a fuller explanation of the Sacrament of Holy Orders.

Father Newman

Solemnity of All Saints

Pat Perkins — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 06:01:15 GMT

Dear Friends in Christ,

Even Christians who live the new life of God’s children still remain subject to suffering, illness, and death. Illness can be experienced either as an invitation to a deeper union with the suffering of Christ which leads to greater spiritual maturity or as a path to self-absorption and even to revolt against God. In illness, man experiences his powerlessness and limitations, and serious illness can make us glimpse death. The Lord Jesus had great compassion on the sick, and His many healings are a resplendent sign that the Kingdom of God is among us. Christ even identified Himself with everyone who is sick: “I was sick and you visited me” (Mt 25:36). But the Lord did not heal all the sick. His healings were signs of the coming of the Kingdom, and they announced a more radical healing: the victory over sin and death through His Passover. On the Cross, the Lord Jesus took away the “sin of the world,” of which illness is only a consequence. By his passion and death on the Cross, Christ has given a new meaning to all human suffering: it can henceforth configure us to Him and unite us with His redemptive suffering.

“Is any among you sick? Let him call for the presbyters (priests) of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the Name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven” (James 5:14-15). This New Testament passage describes one of the seven sacraments: the Anointing of the Sick. This sacred anointing of the sick was instituted by Christ our Lord as a true and proper sacrament of the New Testament. The Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick is given to all those (after the age of 7) who are seriously ill by anointing them with oil blessed by the Bishop, and it is not reserved only for those who are at the point of death. This sacred anointing can be repeated for each serious illness or for a relapse of the same illness.

The grace of this sacrament unites the sick disciple more closely to the suffering of Christ, strengthens the disciple to endure his own suffering with peace and courage, and forgives any sins that were not previously forgiven in the Sacrament of Penance. The Catechism describes the Anointing of the Sick in pages 375 to 382; please study those pages carefully to understand more fully when this sacrament should be requested and what the effects of such Anointing are.

Father Newman

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

Thirtieth Sunday of the Year

Pat Perkins — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 05:00:39 GMT

Dear Friends in Christ,

Through the three sacraments of initiation (Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist) man receives the new life of Christ, but we carry this life in earthen vessels and remain subject to suffering, illness, and death. Moreover, this new life as a child of God can be weakened and even lost by sin. For this reason, the Lord Jesus – the divine physician of our bodies and souls – has given us two sacraments of healing: Penance and the Anointing of the Sick.

On the Day of His Resurrection, the Lord Jesus breathed on the Apostles, giving them the gift of the Holy Spirit, and proclaimed: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:23). This gift of grace to the Apostles allows mortal, sinful men to act as God’s instruments in the forgiveness of all sins committed after Baptism, and this sacred power is exercised by bishops and priests in the Sacrament of Penance when they hear the confession of sins and pronounce absolution for the remission of sins by the precious Blood of Jesus Christ. The Sacrament of Penance is a sacred mystery of conversion from sin, confession of guilt, forgiveness of the wrong done, and reconciliation with God and His Church. All Catholics over the age of reason should come to the Sacrament of Penance at least once each year during Lent or Eastertide and as often as necessary when conscious of serious sin, and anyone conscious of grave sin should not receive Holy Communion before being reconciled to God by sacramental confession and absolution.

“The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:15). With this ringing call to conversion, the Lord Jesus began His public ministry. It is impossible to be a disciple of Jesus without repentance and conversion, without the constant effort to be conformed by God’s grace to the image of the crucified Lord. Baptism for the remission of sins is the foundation of this lifelong struggle against all forms of disordered self-love, but in ordinary circumstances, all grave sins committed after Baptism require the grace of the Sacrament of Penance for forgiveness. Confessions are heard every Saturday afternoon from 3:30 to 4:30 pm, each Wednesday from 5:00-6:00 pm, and anytime by appointment. The Catechism of the Catholic Church gives a thorough treatment to this topic in pages 357 to 374. Please study those pages carefully and resolve to seek the mercy of God through the best means He has given us for repentance, conversion, and reconciliation: the confession and absolution of sins in the Sacrament of Penance.

Father Newman

Twenty-Ninth Sunday of the Year

Pat Perkins — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 05:01:59 GMT

Dear Friends in Christ,

Baptism and Confirmation are the first two sacraments of Christian initiation, and they find their fulfillment and perfection in the source and summit of the Christian life: the Most Holy Eucharist. As the Second Vatican Council teaches, “At the Last Supper, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice of His Body and Blood. This He did in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the Cross throughout the ages until He should come again, and so to entrust to His beloved Spouse, the Church, a memorial of His death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a Paschal Banquet in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 47).

At the heart of the Holy Eucharist are the bread and wine that, by the words of Christ and the invocation of the Holy Spirit, truly and substantially become the Body and Blood of the risen and glorified Lord Jesus. In the Old Covenant bread and wine were offered in sacrifice among the first fruits of the earth as a sign of gratitude to God, but they also received a new meaning by the Exodus of Israel from slavery in Egypt. The unleavened bread of Passover recalls the haste of departure on pilgrimage to the promised land, and manna in the desert testifies that God always fulfills His promise to sustain His people. Moreover, blood is the sign of fidelity to God’s covenant with Israel and of sorrow for sins which violate God’s law. And finally, the cup of blessing at the end of the Jewish Passover meal transforms the simple human joy in wine into a sign of God’s saving action in history: the messianic expectation of the rebuilding of Jerusalem. All of these meanings were taken up and transformed by the Lord Jesus, the true Lamb of God, when He instituted the Holy Eucharist and commanded the Church to celebrate this sacrifice until He comes again in glory.

The Most Holy Eucharist is described in pages 334-355 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and I encourage every family to study these pages of the Catechism carefully in order to understand more deeply the inexhaustible riches of the sacred Mystery of Christ’s Body and Blood. In the other six sacraments, God gives us a gift of grace; in the Holy Mass He gives us the gift of Himself. That is why the Holy Eucharist is the Sacrament of sacraments, the Mystery of mysteries. The Lord Jesus urgently invites us to receive Him in this wondrous sacrament: “Truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:53). Even as we struggle to understand this Mystery of Faith, we rejoice in this most sublime and abiding sacrifice of praise.

Father Newman

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

Twenty-Eighth Sunday of the Year

Pat Perkins — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 05:01:47 GMT

Dear Friends in Christ,

Holy Baptism is the first sacrament of initiation, and Confirmation is the second. By Confirmation (or Chrismation as it is called in the Christian East), the baptized are more perfectly bound to the Lord Jesus and His Church, and they are enriched with a special strength of the Holy Spirit to be witnesses (or martyrs) of Christ and the truth of His Gospel.

On several occasions in His preaching, the Lord Jesus promised an outpouring of God the Holy Spirit on His disciples, and this promise was fulfilled first on the Day of Resurrection and then more strikingly at Pentecost. St. Peter declared this outpouring of the Holy Spirit to be the sign of the messianic age. From that time on and in fulfillment of Christ’s command, the apostles imparted to the newly baptized by the laying on of hands the gift of the Holy Spirit to complete the grace of Baptism. The imposition of hands, therefore, is the origin of the sacrament of Confirmation which perpetuates the grace of Pentecost in the Church. Very early in the Church’s life this apostolic laying on of hands was accompanied by an anointing with perfumed oil called sacred chrism, the better to signify the gift of the Holy Spirit Who anointed the Lord Jesus at His own baptism. This anointing highlights the name “Christian”, which derives from the sacred title of Messiah (or Christ from the Greek translation), meaning “the Anointed One”.

In the Eastern Churches (both Catholic and Orthodox), Confirmation or Chrismation is administered together with Baptism, even to infants. But in the Western Church, the two first sacraments of initiation became separated in the early Middle Ages, and to this day Confirmation is administered after the age of reason for those baptized as infants. For adult converts who have never been baptized, the unity of these two sacraments is now restored when they are given together at the Easter Vigil. All Catholic Christians should receive the Sacrament of Confirmation to complete their communion with Christ and be marked by the perfection of the baptismal priesthood of the faithful in order to proclaim more boldly and publicly that Jesus Christ is Lord. Any baptized adult Catholic who has not yet been confirmed should participate in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) and receive the Sacrament of Confirmation at Easter.

Father Newman