Bulletin: 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time – 11/5/23

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.

Intermountain Catholic Newspaper Renewal.

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.

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 18, 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 29, 2023: Offertory: $1107.  Charity Account:  $898 (Includes $540 from Kanab Altered Attitudes).   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 $6707 with an additional $147 pledged: 78%. 15 out of a total 60 households have participated.  We only have $1946 to go. Thank you!

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

Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament: Thursday from 4 to 5:00 PM. 

Community Rosary:  After the Monday morning Mass

Patience!!  If you can just wait a few more weeks, someone ELSE will possibly pay the balance of our Diocesan Development Drive quota.  Only $1946 to go!  If you can’t stand the suspense, you can go to https://www.givecentral.org/appeals-form registration/acp63ad7f4c0c4f8/user/guest and donate on-line.  Select St. Christopher Parish and choose an amount.  And THANK YOU!!

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 the different alternatives which have been considered.

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Homily Reflection: ‘You have but one Father in heaven and one master, the Christ.’  Mt. 23:9-10

What if that’s true?  Isn’t that the problem and the solution?  The Muslims, the Jews and the Christians all claim to trace their roots to a common father in Abraham and his God in Heaven.  BUT there is only one master, the Christ.  Jesus changed everything.  If Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life, then what would be the implications of rejecting the Divinity of Jesus Christ as have the Muslims and the Jews?  What could ever be the hope for a lasting peace with such divergent views of reality?  What an irony to call Israel and Palestine the HOLY LAND.  It seems to be more doomed to chaos than most places.

I’ve spent some time this past week trying to re-educate myself a little more about the complicated history of modern Israel.  I found some comfort in today’s Psalm 131: “O LORD, my heart is not proud, nor are my eyes haughty; I busy not myself with great things, nor with things too sublime for me.”  The political, religious and ethnic complications of the Middle East are too great for my little mind.  In fact, it might be objectively hopeless to try to entertain a diplomatic solution with both sides’ rejection of the WAY and the TRUTH.

What seems almost as ironic is that the United States has such a firm commitment to the existence of Israel whose identity is so defined by the Jewish religion, yet we in the United States are becoming less religious, or at least less Christian.  Given our limited abilities to be a credible peacemaker, to what extend might we also have rejected Jeus as Master?

Amidst all the chaos and destruction in the world today, our peace and our comfort can only come from today’s Gospel: ‘You have but one Father in heaven and one master, the Christ.’  In a sense, that relieves us of the burden of ‘busying ourselves with things to great and sublime’ for our little human minds?

The Christian Scriptures not only depict our God as a lover and a savant to all, but is also acting with a maternal tenderness toward believers.  God’s ways also enable His disciples to act with the same tenderness as is depicted in today’s second reading from First Thessalonians (2:7) St. Paul declares, “We were gentle among you, as a nursing mother cares for her children.”

Ps.131:2 today states that God’s personal love has enabled the psalmist to declare, “I have stilled and quieted my soul like a weaned child.  Like a weaned child on its mother’s lap, so is my soul within me.”  Interesting, “like a ‘weaned’ child; one who no longer is fed from the breast, but still enjoys the immense comfort of one sitting on his mother’s lap.

In the Gospel today we are reminded how good leaders lead.  Leaders give of their very selves.  As a nursing mother gives of her very self, so should Christion leaders lead.  Again, what a contrast to leadership in the Holy Land…and most other lands for that matter.  How might the ‘Servant God’ be a model for our own deliberating and squabbling Congress as they continue to start sessions with a prayer but can’t actually hear each other?

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As we continue to proceed through our Diocesan and Parish planning process and consider new ways to form the next generations’ disciples and servant leaders, please again consider the following questions given to us by Bishop Solis.  (Please write them out).

1.What do you understand by “comprehensive faith formation” in your parish(es) and mission(s)?

2.What reasons can you affirm or add that make comprehensive faith formation important in the contemporary U.S. context and particularly in the Utah context?

3.What are keys to success in establishing and maintaining comprehensive faith formation in your parish/mission setting(s)? What next step can you take? What assistance do you need from the Diocese?

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“He did not say:  You will not be troubled – You will not be tempted – You will not be distressed.  But He said:  You will not be overcome.”                         St. Julian of Norwich