Bulletin: 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

SAINT CHRISTOPHER’S CATHOLIC CHURCH

39 West 200 South, Kanab UT 84741

Office: (435) 644-3414 [Please leave a message and we will respond as quickly as possible]

stccc@kanab.net

WEBSITE: kanabcatholicchurch.org

Sacramental Minister: Rev. Richard T. Sherman, Kanab, UT

SATURDAY VIGIL MASS  5:30 PM (Suspended Indefinitely)

SUNDAY MASS 9:00 AM

MASS DURING THE WEEK: MONDAY – SATURDAY 8:00 AM

CONFESSIONS BY APPOINTMENT

NOTE: If you have a sacramental emergency after parish office hours, please call 435-673-2604 for assistance.

Social Hour after Sunday Mass – Coffee, juice and bagels or muffins are served up along with some fabulous conversation.

Our next OPEN-DOOR SATURDAY is September 7, 2024 from 10:00 AM-Noon.  If you have friends or relatives that are interested in the Catholic faith, or are thinking of returning to the Church, please tell them about us and have them stop by. We would love to meet with them!  OPEN DOOR is scheduled every first and third Saturday of the month.

FINANCIAL REPORT:  August 11, 2024: Offertory: $958; Donations Mail: $40; R&I: $140. Thank you!

You can also donate on-line at kanabcatholicchurch.org

Diocesan Development Drive (DDD) for 2024. We are over … if everyone pays their full pledges!!  Our goal this year is once again $8800.  We have $1490 in unpaid pledges with $8275 paid in!!  Thirteen households have participated.  Thank you all who have already given so generosity.

PRAY FOR HEALING:  Linda Tarrent, Eva Montelongo, Deacon Sifo Manu, Rosemary Baron, Stan Tuczakov, Molly Bauer, Victims of Natural Disasters, Warfare Casualties. Our Wounded Veterans.  If you have specific prayer requests, please leave us a phone message or send us an email.  We will get your intentions on the list.  We also remember all the sick and infirm at our daily Masses.

Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament: Thursday from 4 to 5:00 PM.

Community Rosary:  After the Monday morning Mass

Religious Items:  While enjoying the fabulous conversation and refreshments during our social hour, take some time and browse our extensive selection of religious gifts including some amazing.  New items on the way!

Voting and Our Common Home: Reflections from the Catholic Tradition

Voting is an important way for Catholics to live their faith, which “always involves a deep desire to change the world, to transmit values, to leave this earth somehow better than we found it” (Evangelii Gaudium, no. 183).

This Season of Creation, to help Catholics navigate this civic duty, we’re hosting a webinar titled “Voting and Our Common Home: Reflections from the Catholic Tradition” on Sept. 4 at 1 P.M. ET!

Join Bishop Joseph Tyson of Yakima, Washington and Episcopal Moderator for Catholic Climate Covenant, and Dr. Daniel DiLeo, associate professor and director of the Justice and Peace Studies Program at Creighton University, to better understand and engage the fullness of Church teaching on faithful citizenship and help equip Catholics for conscientious, values-based voting discernment.

Watch at home or join us in the social hall for a group viewing.

REGISTER FOR SEPT. 4 WEBINAR (Just one click on St. Christopher’s website)

Safe Environment Training 

Did you know? The Diocese of Salt Lake City requires all those who are in contact (with or around) children and youth in our parishes and schools to complete safe environment training. This training teaches adults to recognize, and report suspected abuse, reviews our Codes of Conduct and the Safe Environment Program Manual.  Any questions you may have about our safe environment programs, you may contact the Safe Environment Office at: safeenv@dioslc.org / (801) 328.8641 Ext. 344

Homily Reflections:

The readings today carry three distinctive themes: Wisdom, Gratitude and Being Fed.  As we continue in the ‘Bread of Life Discourse’ from Chapter 6 of the Gospel of John we are yet again reminded of the great gift of the Eucharist which is the source and summit of our whole Tradition.  It is a gift, but yet it is a command from Jesus, “Take it, this is my body given up for your”.  The Third Commandment tells us to Keep Holy the Sabath.  We can of course refuse the gift, but we do so at our great peril.  In fact, we would be refusing the very key to the abundant Life that Jesus came to give us.  We would be refusing the very Life for which we were created in the very beginning.  We are heirs to the Kingdom of God.  Little princes and princesses are we.  Do you actually believe that?  Do your children and grandchildren know that and believe it?

Today’s Gospel tells us very clearly that, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you do not have life within you.”  Should we believe Jesus?  Does that even seem sensible?  Have you ever had a well-developed conversation with a loved one about this teaching?  It seems so important and it is apparently coming right from the mouth of Jesus, yet how do we even think about or talk about this great teaching? 

The Hebrew word for ‘eat’ that is used in this Gospel more accurately translates as ‘gnaw’ or maybe ‘munch.’  Jesus says to gnaw His flesh and the Jews found it extremely difficult to understand or accept.  Many ceased to follow Him when they were told that they must gnaw on His flesh.  It’s understandable that they would be terribly confused and even scandalized.  In our day we understand that eating Jesus’ flesh refers to the consecrated host of unleavened bread that is consecrated at Mass through a process called transubstantiation.  Much easier to munch on the host, but yet most Catholics ignore this commandment from Jesus. It just doesn’t make sense.  Or perhaps it just doesn’t ‘work’ for many.  To most people currently inhabiting planet Earth, this teaching seems foolish or weird.  Understandably perhaps.

Lady Wisdom in today’s first reading from Proverbs says to, “Forsake foolishness that you may live; advance in the way of understanding.”  She has created a spread of food and wine that prefigures the Eucharistic Banquet. Don’t be foolish.  Eat up.  Seems sensible, yet she is referring to the Wisdom of God that does not track in a purely logical way.

In Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians today he bids us to, “Watch carefully how you live, not as foolish persons but as wise.”  And again, in the same reading, “Do not continue in ignorance, but try to understand what is the will of the Lord.”

Jesus is teaching us to trust Him.  We are to become what we eat.  We need to grow in our understanding of the ways of Jesus.  Living in the mystery.  We must act according to the Commandments, but to also grow in wisdom and understanding of the incomprehensible.  We need the Body of Christ to become the Body of Christ.  To become what we eat.  A lived experience.

1. How has your understanding of the Eucharist changed over the decades of your life?  Say, in your 20’s, 30’s, 40’s…..?
2. How have you forsaken foolishness and advanced in the way of Wisdom and understanding?  Who helped you and accompanied you?
3. How have you shared God’s Wisdom?
4. Looking back over the decades, have you suffered more from your malevolence or your foolishness and ignorance?

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“Whoever does not trust the Lord in small matters is quite clearly an unbeliever in things of greater importance.”    St. Basil the Great