Bulletin: 2nd Sunday of Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday 4/7/24

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.

Parish Cleanup Day. Our Parish Spring Cleanup is scheduled for Saturday, April 20, from 8:30 to Noon.  It will be fun.  All parishioners are invited.  A sign-up list is available in the social hall with the specific tasks that need to be done.  Please print your name beside a task listed or identify an additional task that may need to be accomplished. Coffee & Doughnuts will be available before and during operations and a primo chili dog lunch will be served upon completion.

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 April 20, 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:  March 31, 2024: Offertory: $1519; Donations Mail: $225; Rice Bowl: $306; Easter: $450. THANK YOU!!

Development Drive (DDD) for 2024.  Our goal this year is once again $8800.   We already have $5410 pledged with $2889 paid in!! Thank you all in advance for your extraordinary generosity.

You can also donate on-line at kanabcatholicchurch.org

PRAY FOR HEALING:  Doug Ingram, Eva Montelongo, John Bering, 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.

Adam and Eve are from Eden: Thursday, 5:00 PM. Please read Chapters 3 & 4.

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 CLOSEOUT SPECIALS. 

Spiritual Reading – After buying 17 items from our gift store, slide on over to our spacious and well-organized library and pick out some spiritual reading for your Easter Season reflections.

Safe Environment Certification 

DID YOU KNOW? The Diocese of Salt Lake City requires all adults (<18) and youth minors (12 to 17) in contact (with or around) minors and vulnerable adults in our parishes and schools to complete trainings and background checks. Recertification of these trainings and background checks are every 3 years for adults, and every year for youth minors. This is just one of the efforts undertaken by our diocese to protect our children and vulnerable adults. For more information about child safety in the Diocese of Salt Lake City, visit https://www.dioslc.org/offices/office-of-safe-environment.

_____________________________________________________

The following is an excerpt from an article in First Things by Georg Weigel under the caption, “The Good News is that the Bad News is not all the News There Is.”  These are some of the very good things happening….

Link to entire article (An easy ‘click on our website bulletin):  https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2024/03/the-good-news-is-that-the-bad-news-isnt-all-the-news-there-is 

The Good News

Seminaries. In the main, U.S. seminaries today are in better shape than they’ve ever been.

Catholic Colleges and Universities. Some of these are, indeed, Catholic wastelands. Still others, however, are set firmly on the path of fostering intellectual rigor in an environment that supports ongoing and ever-deeper conversion to Christ.

To name but a few, in alphabetical order: Thomas Aquinas College, Belmont Abbey College, Benedictine College, the Catholic University of America, Christendom College, the University of Dallas, the Franciscan University of Steubenville, the University of Mary.

Catholic Campus Ministry. We are in a Golden Age of Catholic campus ministry…

The Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS), a direct outgrowth of World Youth Day 1993 in Denver, now sends 980 young missionaries, recent college graduates, to 202 campuses in six countries for peer-to-peer evangelization and catechesis.

A high percentage of 21st century vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life are nurtured by participation in on-campus FOCUS programs.

Adult Catechesis and Formation. Here, too, the Church in the United States is a global leader.

Just to name a few: the Word on Fire ministry, Ignatius Press, the FORMED program of the Augustine Institute, the Catholic Information Center, Legatus, and the Napa Institute.

The Reform of Consecrated Life. Vibrantly and joyfully orthodox American religious communities of women are growing:

the Nashville Dominicans; the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist; the Sisters of Mercy of Alma, Michigan; and the Sisters of Life are but four examples. 

Parishes and Schools. These have been the pastoral bedrock of U.S. Catholicism for over two centuries. They still are, and they have a vitality unmatched elsewhere. Moreover, our inner-city Catholic schools are likely the most effective anti-poverty program in the country.

Thus, a suggestion for a different kind of Lenten fast: Give up Catholic bad news-mongering.

The Holy Spirit is animating good things among us.

————————————————————————————————————-

Homily Reflection:

Jn. 20:25:  But (Thomas) said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” 

Thomas has a very profound insight which relates wounds and suffering to the authentic presence of Christ.  It relates very closely to MT. 25:45-46: “(Jesus) will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’  And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

If response to those most vulnerable and suffering is a definite criterion for getting to heaven, how important is the type of community described in today’s first reading from Acts of the Apostles (4:32-35)? 

As Christians, how do we actually gather and live in a way which avoids the extremes in relative levels of wealth?

How do we temper the human tendency for self-centeredness and hold each other accountable?                                         (Hint:  Rule of Benedict)

—————————————————————————

“Your accumulated offences do not surpass the multitude of God’s mercies; your wounds do not surpass the great Physician’s skill.”                          St. Cyril of Jerusalem