Bulletin: 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time 10/1/23
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. Canceled on October 1 due to parish picnic.
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, October 4th at 6:30 PM. We’ll be covering Chapter 3.
FINANCIAL REPORT September 24: Offertory: $1897; R&I: $25.
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, Mary Stogsdill, Caroline Harvey, 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 this 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, Paula Zutes, who recently passed away.
October is Pro-Life Month and during the month 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 Reflection and Exercise
As mentioned above, October is Respect Life Month and the theme we received from the Conference of US Bishops is to be in Radical Solidarity with women. The poster says, “To be courageously pro-woman, promoting a choice that truly protects, accompanies, and supports women and their children.”
Last weekend I had an impromptu conversation after Mass with a young man in his late twenties or early thirties and we were talking about a resurge of religious devotions among Catholic young adults and youth. When I was young, being a baby boomer, we were part of a trend that started not trusting established traditions and institutions, including religion. I recall a popular bumper sticker that said, “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” This was considered radical: to untangle from established ways of acting and doing things. There were some legitimate reasons to be wary of the way thing were being done in the 60’s and 70’s, but some of the new trends got a little extreme – a subject for a different 5-day discussion. Anyway, part of the drift of our conversation was that if you REALLY want to be radical today, young people have to reclaim tradition and reinvest in the renewal of institutions. In this regard, what might be one of the most radical stands one could make in our culture and even our Church? How about the now common practice of artificial contraception? Now THAT would be radical support of women! Providing material, emotional and genuine relational support is essential for mothers and children, but that does not seem so radical to me. Radical is rethinking what it means to be a human being created in the image and likeness of God.
What if we are actually created to function and relate on a much higher level, on a level of God consciousness? What if we really were sealed at Confirmation with God’s wisdom, God’s knowledge, God’s understanding, God’s capacity for counsel? What if we really were given the authority to bind and loose on earth as it is in heaven. What if we could actually redirect our erotic urges to an attraction of a higher level? What if our souls really yearn for union with God? What if at Mass we could really BECOME one body, one spirit in Christ? To me that would be really radical…also really traditional…going back 2000 years. Maybe NOT killing our children in the womb would be a better tradition. Maybe being radical in a good way would be to NOT encourage girls and young woman to put chemicals in their bodies so that they can make themselves more available to the untempered passions of men and boys. That idea would be radically outside mainstream opinions! What if we really need the sacraments to better interface and relate to a larger realm of life that we do not instantly see? What if we really need the Commandments including coming to weekly Mass?
But the “The LORD’s way is not fair!” to quote today’s first reading from Ezekiel 18.
And God says, “Hear now, house of Israel: Is it my way that is unfair, or rather, are not your ways unfair? Ezekiel is emphasizing the need to exercise personal responsibility because we are punished by our own unrepented sins, not anybody else’s. However, we often do suffer the consequences of the sins of previous generations. If some generations drain an aquifer or poison a river, someone else will have to clean it up or find another source of water. If previous generations fish out the oceans, or contaminate the farmland or permanently altar the plant genome, someone else will have to rethink the food system and maybe do with much less variety of healthy food. If we pollute the air or heat up the planet, someone else innocently born into a new generation will likely suffer the consequences.
If we pollute the airways with meaningless information, endless advertising for redundant consumer goods, or pornography, subsequent generations might deduce that this is just normal and not question it. Likewise, if we consider sexual relations just a form of recreation, stress management, manipulation or exploitation, subsequent generations could easily lack any sense of the sanctity of sexuality or life in general… I think that’s where the radical baby boomer ideas have gotten us. (See the grumpy below). No wonder so many young people are in despair, depressed or even suicidal.
Our ways are not fair for subsequent generations. In today’s second reading Paul is reminding the Philippians to not ‘regard equality with God as something to be grasped at’. We are not God. That’s the first Commandment. It’s time to get radically traditional.
Exercise for the week:
Read the whole section on chastity from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Read Catechism paragraphs 2562-2565 on Prayer and aspire to “Have in you the same attitude that is also in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 2:5
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“Cling to God and leave all the rest to Him. He will not let you perish. Your soul is very dear to Him. He wishes to save it.” St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
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“The Lord’s way is not fair!” Ezekiel 18:25