Bulletin: 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time 8/25/24

SAINT CHRISTOPHER 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 18, 2024: Offertory: $1561. 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:  Eva Montelongo, Virginia Rivera, Deacon Sifo Manu, Marre Presto-Giacomo, 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!

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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 Actually, Check with Fr. Rick

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It’s Finally Here!!  THE BIG ONE – September 8

The Annual Collection for the Retired Priests of the Diocese of Salt Lake City.  Pitch in and feel the JOY!  Two weeks from today.

Homily Reflections:

Today’s readings offer us a great view of human nature when under severe pressure and demands.  Difficult decisions must be made.  We follow our principles OR we rationalize, compromise and revert back to the more familiar norms of the culture we are living in or grew up in.

In the first reading from the Book of Joshua, the Israelites need to make the decision to follow the Lord or to get more tangled up in the gods of the Amorites.  Walk out in faith or defer to the ‘devil we know’ rather than something potentially worse.  In this decision Joshua challenges the people to recall all the Lord had done for them in their many battles and afflictions since leaving Egypt. Joshua then announces the decision of his house to follow the Lord. This was not an individual decision, but one which would follow his whole ‘household’, his descendants for generations.  After considering Joshua’s decision and recalling God’s help in the past, the others also decided to serve the Lord.

In the Gospel today the disciples are still reeling from Jesus’ command last week to eat His flesh and drink His blood if they wanted to have LIFE.  The demands of discipleship were too extreme and hard to accept, so many left and returned to their former ways of life.  Not much wiggle room.  Upon further consideration, Simon Peter realized there was no better option, “Master, to whom should we go?”  Peter’s leadership and their prior relationship with Jesus convinced the TWELVE that they too would ‘serve the Lord”.  Their decision would change the world in ways they could not even imagine.

We are challenged with a similar type of decision in the second reading today from Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians.  Paul’s declaration that ‘wives should submit to their husbands in all things as to the Lord’ simply doesn’t translate in our modern American culture.  The teaching is hard; who can accept it?!  And Paul goes on to say that husbands should love their wives as Christ love the Church.  And if that is not enough, he will later declare that the husband and wife are to submit to each other completely as to Christ.  There is a lot implied here.

I have read many rationalizations for this reading by priests who declare that this simply doesn’t apply today because it comes out of the patriarchal cultures of Rome and Jerusalem and almost everywhere else. The constant however is that we must submit to Christ throughout the teachings of the Church.  Submitting our will to Christ is step one. We must follow, serve and trust.  One of the major vocations designed to bring us closer to Christ is matrimony.  We should seek out spouses who have already submitted themselves to Christ.  Test them.  Support them.  Love them.

I’ve lived in the United States long enough to know that is not the cultural norm.  A serious discussion of religion might not even come up during the courting process.  The Eucharist and the command to eat the Lord’s flesh is likely not a criterion used for dating or marriage.  Most Catholics follow the secular norms without any great dilemma.  The consequences last for generations.  Studies and surveys indicate the strongest determinant of whether a woman will continue as an active Catholic, is whether the girl’s father was an active Catholic.  They will expect to be treated (more or less) as Christ loved the Church…or not.  Such a man might require a bit of a wait.

Eucharist and Matrimony require us to make a total gift of self. Ultimately to God.  This is rarely easy.

1. How have you prepared to submit everything to Christ and the Church?
2. How did your spouse or your best friends make their commitment to Christ?
3. Who prepared you for your life-long vocation and who supports you?
4. Who sets the cultural norms in American culture?

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“We must pray without tiring, for the salvation of mankind does not depend upon material success, but on Jesus alone.” St. Frances Xavier Cabrini