Bulletin: 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time 9/24/23
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 October 7, 2023 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.
Bishop Robert Barron’s book, This is My Body: A Call to Eucharistic Revival. We will continue a parish discussion on Wednesday, Sept. 27th at 6:30 PM. If you would like a sneak peek at the discussion questions, ask Fr. Rick. All invited.
FINANCIAL REPORT September 17: Offertory: $ 1311; Retired Priests: $1108 (Total). THANK YOU!!
You can also donate on-line at kanabcatholicchurch.org
Diocesan Development Drive –. Our parish goal this year is $8,800 and we have now paid in $5383 with an additional $971 pledged: 72%. 14 out of a total 57 households have participated. We only have $2446 to go. If half of all remaining households contributed, each would only need to pay $112. About $5 per week for the rest of the year. Pay it all at once, now, and you won’t have to even think about it. Thank you!
PRAY FOR HEALING: Pam Grant, Doug Ingram, Alex Klina, Mary Stogsdill, Caroline Harvey, Jeff Giese, Victims of Natural Disasters. 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
Fall Parish Picnic
We are having a parish picnic next Sunday, October 1st at 1:00 PM in the parish hall. Menu will feature the traditional picnic entrees: burgers, hot dogs, chips, etc., and also a vegetarian option. Please pass the word. Our out-of-town Mass visitors are welcome to join us. It has been suggested that this could also be a good time for people to share some memories of our long-time parishioner, Paul Zutes, who recently passed away.
October is Pro-Life Month and leading up to then we will be exploring many of the social factors that have led us to this point where aborting children is ‘normalized’. The Office of Marriage, Family Life and the Respect Life Commission have many ways to help us change our deadly culture. See their website: https://www.dioslc.org/offices/marriage-and-family/marriage-and-family-resources.
Homily Reflections
“As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.” Is. 55:9
The generosity (or naiveite) of the vineyard owner in today’s gospel is hard to relate to in most of our lives. And yet God’s ways are HIGHER than our ways? What type of bad habits would that encourage if employees got paid just as much for an hour’s work as they get for a full day’s work?
There must be some special symbolism that goes with this gospel?
Of course, we are all called to work in the vineyard. The landowner is God who gets to decide what is grown in his vineyard and who is invited to work there. We recall that the word ‘liturgy’ in Latin means ‘work’. Liturgy is the work of the Church and the Mass is the central liturgy (work) of the Church. We are ALL invited to Mass. No matter where we are in our lives, we are invited to Mass. Receiving Holy Communion, however, is only appropriate and meaningful if we have been formally initiated into the Church and are in the state of grace. You can wait until the last hour of your life (not a good idea) and still enter the Church if properly disposed. In fact, the other laborers of the vineyard should always be looking for people to invite to the liturgy, the Mass. ‘Mass’ actually means mission. Everyone is invited to the Mass and then sent out to find even more laborers… who will then invite more laborers. ‘GO the mass is ended.’ The Mass is the Mission and the meaning of our lives.
One of the reasons that this symbolism of the vineyard is not so obvious to us is that we often don’t think of the Mass as a privilege and indeed the center of our lives. God the Father gathered a Holy People and Jesus established the Catholic Church so that we will all have meaningful work. To teach the nations. To build up the Kingdom of God. That’s the Mass. That’s the mission.
Full participation in the work of the Church requires us to repent and to remove the obstacles between us and God and between us and each other. As we learn to enter ever more deeply into the life of the Church, to ‘become one body, one spirit in Christ’ as it says in the Eucharistic prayers of the Mass, we begin to live life on a more elevated level. We gradually learn to take on the ‘higher thoughts and ways’ of God that Isaiah refers to in the first reading today. We will exemplify chastity (self-mastery, inner freedom, temperance) and stewardship. In a word, heavenly.
When we first hear of the absurd attitude of the landowner in today’s gospel, we are likely visualizing the late comers as someone other than ourselves. None of us would ever expect a full day’s pay for one hour work. HOWEVER, we might think that we are adequately participating in the ‘work’ of the Church by our one hour of attendance at Mass each week. Do we remember that most of the work of the Church happens during the next 177 hours of the week where we participate in jobs, recreation, school, family life and social service?
How do we best recognize and welcome new laborers to the vineyard?
How do we continue the liturgy after we are sent out at the end of Mass?
How has our labor changed in the past year, 5 years, 10 years, 40 years?
How have we shown the Father’s mercy to new or prospective laborers?
How have we been shown the Father’s mercy when we were looking for meaningful work or a more meaningful life?
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“The most deadly poison of our times is indifference. And this happens, although the praise of God should know no limits. Let us strive, therefore, to praise Him to the greatest extent of our powers.” St. Maximillian Kolbe