Pastoral Messages from Fr. Rick 11/13/22
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Please Give Us ALL your Money. Well, it seems like it, doesn’t it?
+October was/is Intermountain Catholic Month. Please pay for your $25 annual subscription fee this month. We are assessed $800 annually so if you don’t pay, the money will be taken from our checking account.
+Catholic Charities USA has asked for assistance in their emergency response to the Hurricane Ian-affected communities in Cuba, Dominican Republic and Southeast US beginning in Florida. THIS WEEKEND.
+The annual collection for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development will be taken up on November 19-20. A hand UP rather than a hand OUT. See insert.
+ Annual Navaho Holiday Outreach, December 3-4. We delayed our customary 5th Sunday Collection in October in order to direct these charity funds more specifically to this collection for some of our more needy and elderly Navaho neighbors in Utah and northern Arizona. As with last year, we are committed to donating at least $1000 from our charity outreach account so your donations will keep our charity account and local opportunities flexible as needs arise.
+Your generosity in the Church’s outreach is never taken for granted and is always well placed for the benefit of some of the most needy and desperate among us. When we donate, we are playing a very important and active role in our missionary efforts throughout the world. Thank you in advance
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Diocesan Eucharistic Revival – July 9. Save the Date: Diocesan Mass and Gathering. Mountain America Expo Center, Sandy, UT
Hospitality: Remember that we are a ‘Hospitality Parish’ with a major outreach to our many visitors. Please sign up to help host our Sunday morning Coffee and Muffin gathering. Sign up list is in the gathering space.
Join us for Liturgy of the Hours after the Tuesday Morning 8:00 AM Mass and after Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at 5:00 PM on Thursday. See our website for the ibreviary website or app. Also, hard copies of the Hours will be available. Being a Eucharistic people invites us into a deeper and more personal relationship with each other in the community and then sends us out to be this deep presence to the world. It’s the real presence of Christ. When we pray the Liturgy of the Hours we pray with and for the whole Church. At St. Christopher’s this action has a particularly relevant meaning as we welcome people from all over the country and the world. We then send them out and ultimately back where they came from. They are changed by being here and being together. We can even join the whole world in praying for them throughout the week. This is a real connection and world changing.
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Homily Reflection:
A Wisdom that your adversaries will be powerless to resist? (Lk. 21:17) What kind of Wisdom would that be? Irrefutable Wisdom? Possibly the witness of well-ordered living in our families and in our neighborhoods? Even in our nation?
This past week I watched a youtube of President John Kennedy’s 1963 speech to a massive assembly of West Berlin residents. “Iche ben ein Berliner.” The West Germans had been divided from their families and loved ones by a huge wall constructed by the Soviet Union. The wall was designed to keep the East Berliners on the east side so they couldn’t escape to democracy. In a world where the Communist and Democratic powers were in a severe competition to influence other nations, this distinction was very important. Kennedy kept emphasizing the need to visit Berlin if you want to see the difference and then added, that ‘no democracies had to build a wall to keep their citizens in.’ Despite the many problems in democratic countries, the better choice seems irrefutable. Without even reading the U.S. Constitution or the Bill of Rights, the proof seemed obvious. I think this is part of the ‘wisdom’ Jesus is talking about in today’s gospel. Part of the ‘order’ vs. ‘disorder’ St. Paul talks about.
Likewise, the thousands of people currently awaiting immigration permission at our U.S. borders have made a choice for an irrefutably better option. You don’t even need to have a debate or a master’s degree in government or history. It’s irrefutably better than where they are coming from. This ‘Wisdom’ is obvious to anyone able to see the difference between order and disorder.
How are we modeling ‘ordered living’ for coming generations, here and abroad? Who holds us accountable? How do we explain our priorities and values? How will our model hold up in the world that we are passing along to the great-grandchildren? How will they imitate us? Will they even try?