Bulletin: 22nd 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 ggoffice hours, please call 435-673-2604 for assistance.

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!  Next week.  Please be your usual generous selves.  Thank you in advance.

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 25, 2024: Offertory: $1476; Donations Mail: $40; R&I $25.  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, Sergio Olvera, 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!                                                        

Homily Reflection:  Dt 4:1-2, 6-8

Moses said to the people:
“Now, Israel, hear the statutes and decrees
which I am teaching you to observe,
that you may live, and may enter in and take possession of the land
which the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you.
In your observance of the commandments of the LORD, your God,
which I enjoin upon you,
you shall not add to what I command you nor subtract from it.
Observe them carefully, for thus will you give evidence
of your wisdom and intelligence to the nations,
who will hear of all these statutes and say,
‘This great nation is truly a wise and intelligent people.’
For what great nation is there that has gods so close to it as the LORD, our God, is to us
whenever we call upon him?  Or what great nation has statutes and decrees
that are as just as this whole law which I am setting before you today?”

Whenever God is speaking to Israel, He is by extension speaking to all His Holy People who follow in its wake.  God has called a Holy People, He has established them on the land and has continued to lead them throughout the centuries and millennia.  In that sense, Israel is US.  Israel in the Christian sense is the universal Church that God has established through Jesus Christ.  Jesus received all the power and authority of Heaven; He conferred it onto the Church and promised to be with us until the end of time.  He later sent the Holy Spirit to seal us with God’s Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Strength and Knowledge.  He sealed us with awe (Fear) to help us remember that God is God and we are not.  We are Israel.  We are helpless without God.  In the roughly 1900 years of Israel’s history depicted in the Bible from Abraham to Jesus, we can easily see that Israel thrives and prospers when they follow God’s laws and they devolve into all different degrees of chaos when they disobey God and make up their own laws.

SO, how are WE doing?  What do the world’s nations say about OUR nation where 70% still claim to be Christian when polled?  People from all over the world are still willing to risk everything to emigrate to the U.S.  Desperate people are always looking for something better.  But are we perceived as a ‘wise and intelligent people’ throughout the world and even within our own country?

Have we found the wisest and most intelligent people to lead us in government, education and economics?  Have we been genuinely attentive to the least competitive among us?  Does our economy provide work that is meaningful and dignified and adequately compensated?  Do we truly honor those who defend our country in military and diplomatic service?  Do we use our resources sustainably and respectfully as part of God’s intricate web of Creation?

Why are abortion and suicide the leading causes of death among our children and young adults?  Did God abandon us?  Did he really not confer on us all the power and authority of Heaven?  Are the gifts of the Holy Spirit a hoax?  When our elected leaders create new legislation, what fundamental principles are they based on and who is checking?  Who would know?   From where will come the deeper, wiser questions that are needed to develop a more intelligent dialogue in our deeply divided government?

For those of us who have had the privilege of living in post-WWII America with our unprecedented prosperity, opportunity, safety and leisure, what can we feel most proud of?  What is the greatest gift we are passing along to our grandchildren?

What do we feel most sad about?  In our personal lives and in the life of our nation?  How did we miss God’s presence in our shortcomings and failures?  This question should be a source of HOPE because we can realize that God was always with us, but maybe we were not paying attention.  How are we preparing our grandchildren to pay better attention to God?

From the U.S. Catholic Bishops on Labor and the Dignity of Work

Catholic teaching tells us that not only are workers due a “just wage” with which they can provide for their families’ needs; they also deserve opportunities for rest and dignity-affirming benefits such as quality health care and paid time off.  In addition, work should be something that enhances one’s human dignity (see Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, nos. 284, 287, 301, 302).

https://www.usccb.org/committees/domestic-justice-and-human-development/labor-day

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“All things are possible for him who believes, more to him who hopes, even more to him who loves.”                                  St. Lawrence of Brindist