Bulletin: 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time 10/13/24

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 October 19, 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:  October 6, 2024: Offertory: $1226; R&I: $205.  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 $1240 in unpaid pledges with $8525 paid in!!  Thirteen households have participated.  Thank you all who have already given so generosity.

PRAY FOR HEALING:  Sergio Olvera, Angie Pak, Stan Tuczakov, Hannah Mays, Darlene Wentch, 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!

Hurricane Relief:  If you would like to help the emergency response for the hurricanes in the southeast you can participate in the efforts of Catholic Charities USA at https://www.catholiccharitiesusa.org.  Look for hurricane relief.

Intermountain CatholicOctober is Intermountain Catholic Subscription Renewal Month.  You will see an envelope in last week’s issue of the IC.  Please insert your $30 and place it in the collection basket during the regular collection.  Please note that the Diocese charges St. Christopher’s about $2000 per year for the paper, so your contribution helps to alleviate the cost to the parish. 

Homily Reflection:  28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

A little nonchalant.  A little buffer, just in case….?

Give away everything?  The man is sad and Jesus knows that even though the payoff will be a new life and better than he could ever imagine.  The man was so trapped in his small world view that giving up all his possessions was just too big of a leap….

Most of us might be fairly similar to this man.  Most of us are probably rich compared to most people in the history of the world.  We might even approach Jesus in a relatively nonchalant way.  We’re all good people, not perfect, but PRETTY DARN GOOD.  We’ve worked hard and probably have enjoyed the fruits of our labor.  Why not?  If it ain’t broke; don’t fix it.  It might never occur to us to even ask Jesus in the first place, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  We’re good.  But maybe we’re settling for too little.  Maybe we’re settling for less than the world needs.  May Jesus wants to give us something more.  Something that our children and grandchildren will need.

The writer of today’s first reading from the Book of Wisdom (sounds like Solomon) had occasion and inspiration to ask for something more.

 “I prayed, and prudence was given me; I pleaded, and the spirit of wisdom came to me.”  Wis. 7:7

Have we ever prayed for prudence?  What was the occasion and what was the Lord’s answer?  How might you have acted without the Lord’s prudence?  Likewise, have we ever pleaded for Wisdom and then received the spirit of wisdom?  Write that down and share it with someone.  What was the plea and what was the response?

Today’s Psalm 90 is also leading us into a deeper realm of experience and thought: “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart.     Ps. 90:12

Wisdom of heart.  This is not just a high intellect.  This is a different way of knowing.  This is a different dimension.  This is what Jesus is offering the rich man.  This is what Jesus is offering to us:  Wisdom of heart.

This is what our hearts really long for: Consider the rest of today’s psalm.

“Fill us with your love, O Lord, and we will sing for joy!
Fill us at daybreak with your kindness, that we may shout for joy and gladness all our days.
Make us glad, for the days when you afflicted us, for the years when we saw evil.”

Now this may require some healing and grieving, but we can then make room for the joy!!  Ps. 90

As implied earlier, this joy is not just for us…..


“Let your work be seen by your servants and your glory by their children; and may the gracious care of the LORD our God be ours; prosper the work of our hands for us!  Prosper the work of our hands!”  Ps. 90

If we really pleaded for God’s wisdom, as depicted in the first reading today from Wisdom, how would we prosper differently from the work of our hands?  Would we do different types of work?  Might we do the work in a more community minded manner?

“Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart.”  Ps.90

Do we even want wisdom of the heart?  Is that a common topic that would even come up in conversation among good Catholic Americans?  Do we talk like that?

How about today’s second reading from Hebrews?: (4:12-13)


“Indeed, the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.”

What?!  Is this relevant to anyone?!  Can one consider what is penetrating between soul and spirit, joints and marrow?!  Who talks like this?!  It reminds me of the paragraphs in the Catechism of the Catholic Church on prayer:  Paragraphs 2562-2563

Whoooo caaaaaares?  Maybe we should all care.  Consider the last couple lines from today’s selection from Hebrews:


“No creature is concealed from him, but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must render an account.”

Make no mistake about it, those of us who dare say, “We lift our hearts to the Lord” and “Amen” to the Body of Christ, will be required to render an account.

Prosper the work of our hands! Prosper the work of our hands with treasure from Heaven! “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart.”  Prosper the work of our hands!

For a larger font, please consider reading on our website:  kanabcatholicchurch.org  

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“Being a wife and mother was never an obstacle to my spiritual life.”  Bl. Concepción Cabrera de Armida