Bulletin: 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time 10/29/23

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.

All Saints Day is Wednesday, November 1 and is a Holy Day of Obligation.  Mass is at the regular time at 8:00 AM.

All Souls Day is Thursday, November 2.  If you would like your deceased loved ones especially remembered by name, please list them in the black binder in the gathering space.  Mass is at 8:00 AM.

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 November 4, 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.

FINANCIAL REPORT:  October 22, 2023: Offertory: $1562. Donations mail:  $140; R&I: $25; World Mission Sunday: $771.  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 $5883 with an additional $971 pledged: 78%. 15 out of a total 57 households have participated.  We only have $1946 to go. Thank you!

PRAY FOR HEALING: Msgr. Terry Moore, Doug Ingram, 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

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. Today’s lesson is about loving neighbor.  → → → →

Parking Lot Repairs – As mentioned in previous bulletins, St. Christopher’s is planning some repairs and improvements to our parking space around the church and rectory.  Because Fall and Winter are now so soon upon us, the project will have to be delayed until next spring or summer and with that will probably come some new cost estimates.  In any event, we will have a meeting on Thursday, November 9 at 6:30 PM in the social hall to discuss some different alternatives.

Intermountain Catholic Newspaper Renewal.

The renewal envelope should be in your most recent Intermountain Catholic issue.  The cost is still ONLY $30 for the whole year!  We should pay for our prescription for the diocesan paper for the same reason that we contribute to the Diocesan Development Drive (Bishop’s Fund):  We simply don’t have an identity outside of the Diocese and the larger global Church.  St. Christopher’s gets charged $1000 per year whether you pay or not, so your participation is very much appreciated.

Knight’s Roundtable Meeting Today:    Following Mass the Knights will be meeting in the library.  If there are any men in the congregation that are interested in the Knights Program, please come.  You are welcome.  The meeting usually lasts an hour.  District Deputy 8 Mike Townsend from Cedar City will be present.  My God will fully supply whatever you need, in accord with his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”    Phil. 4:19

Fifth Sunday Collection today.  We will be taking up the customary collection for our local Community Outreach Fund.  Generally, the majority of our local outreach has been focused on helping to keep the local foodbank stocked, especially with fresh meat. Please help out as you are able.

Catastrophe and Refugee Assistance – Catholic Relief Services https://www.crs.org/

CRS is actively involved in the most impoverished and war ridden places in the world, including the Holy Land.  To learn more about our Catholic efforts throughout the world and to donate, please click on the above link.

Homily Reflections:  Love your neighbor as yourself.  Mt. 22:39

This second of the most important Commandments comes after loving God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind.  Then it says the second is like it.  So apparently, we are supposed to love our neighbor like we love God: with all our hearts, all our souls and all our minds?  What if this is actually true?  What if a well-ordered life, a well-ordered society and a well-ordered world depends on these two Commandments?  Where do we actually start?  Who even talks about such things?

Take a moment now and reflect on the last three well-developed conversations you have had with your loved ones about loving God (let alone neighbor!) with all your heart, soul and mind.  How would you even assess such a thing? 

Mt. 25 ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’ And then, ‘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.’  So, we are looking at the corporal works of mercy:  feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, drink to the thirsty, visit the sick and imprisoned.  With special attention to the most desperate and weak.  Wow, all your heart, all your soul and all your mind.  What next, all our money?  All our creative energy?

These directives go hand in hand with the first reading today from Exodus 22 and the Lord’s exhortation, “You shall not molest or oppress an alien,
for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt.  You shall not wrong any widow or orphan. If ever you wrong them and they cry out to me,
I will surely hear their cry.  My wrath will flare up, and I will kill you with the sword; then your own wives will be widows, and your children orphans.”

We don’t have to look far to see the many aliens and undocumented in our own country, many of whom bring food from field to supermarket.  We could include single parents, especially single mothers to the ranks of widows and orphans.  And then of course all the growing throngs of refugees fleeing warfare and all other unlivable conditions throughout the world. If loving the desperate is one of the main criteria for loving God and that is what gets us to heaven, then we are living in very holy times. 

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“The faith of those who live their faith is a serene faith.  What you long for will be given you; what you love will be yours forever.”       St. Pope Leo the Great