Bulletin: 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2/4/24

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. OH, BY THE WAY; WE COULD USE ONE MORE TEAM TO PROVIDE HOSPITIALITY ON SUNDAYS.  It’s very difficult, but you can do it!!

Our next OPEN-DOOR SATURDAY is February 17, 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:  January 28, 2024: Offertory: $961; R&I: $20. Church in Latin America: $813. Thank You!! 

You can also donate on-line at kanabcatholicchurch.org

PRAY FOR HEALING:  Doug Ingram, Don Hodgkins, 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

Kane County Active Living Center:  Check out the flyer in the gathering space for a variety of activities for active seniors.

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 CLOSEOUT SPECIALS. 

Spiritual Reading – After buying 37 items from our gift store, slide on over to our spacious and well-organized library and pick out some spiritual reading for your Lenten reflections.

Lent begins February 14 with Ash Wednesday There seems to be an especially dire need in the world these days to make more room for God in our lives.  Fasting is an essential part of emptying ourselves, so this might be a good time to consider our physical limitations before making a Lenten commitment.  Also, Holy Mother Church will provide many opportunities to help you give alms to some wonderful causes.  Kindly look forward to the PLEASE GIVE US ALL OF YOUR MONEY section of the bulleting during Lent.

Weekly prayer for Vocations – from Diocesan Office of Vocations

Almighty and everlasting God,

by whose Spirit the whole body of the Church is governed and sanctified:

hear our prayer which we offer for all your faithful people,

that in their vocation and ministry they may serve you in holiness and truth to the glory of your name;

through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,

who is alive and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever.

Vocation Vocabulary:

Vows: Formal commitments made to God to follow Jesus in his poverty, chastity, and obedience as members of religious communities.

The vow of poverty means that members hold all things in common. The community takes care of each other’s needs through the providence of God and our charity.

The vow of chastity means that the member gives up the goods of marriage and marital relations for the sake of God’s kingdom.

The vow of obedience allows the member of the community to imitate and share in Jesus ‘ obedience to His Father to accomplish His will. (Diocesan priests promise to live in celibate chastity, obedience to their bishop, and a simple life.)

From https://vocationministry.com/parish-3/phase-i/#phase-i-2-6

Homily Reflection Questions:

What has been the most devastating loss in your life?

How did the Lord lift you up out of your grief?  What was your response to the Lord and the world?

Homily Reflection:  An essential part of Job’s renewal to hopeful living was his ability to honestly grieve the true depth of his losses.  This does not seem to be a practice that comes so easily or naturally in our American culture.

Please consider a couple paragraphs from the author’s preface of a book I’m rereading.  It’s called The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief, by Francis Weller. pp. xviii and xix

Bringing grief and death out of the shadow is our spiritual responsibility, our sacred duty.  By so doing, we may be able to feel our desire for life once again and remember who we are, where we belong and what is sacred.

Grief is always, in some way, accompanying us.  There are times when the presence of sorrow is acute: a partner dies, a home turns to ash in a fire, a marriage dissolves and we find ourselves alone.  These seasons in our lives are intense and require a prolonged time to honor what the soul needs, to fully digest the grief.  To be human is to know loss in its many forms.  This should not be seen as a depressing truth.  Acknowledging this reality enables us to find our way into the grace that lies in sorrow.  We are most alive at the threshold between loss and revelation; every loss ultimately opens the way for a new encounter.

In turn, by restoring grief to our soul work, we are freed from our one-dimensional obsession with emotional progress.  This “psychological moralism” places enormous pressure on us to always be improving, feeling good, and rising above our problems.  Happiness has become the new mecca, and anything short of that often leaves us feeling that we have done something wrong or failed to live up to the acknowledged standard.  This forces sorrow, pain, fear, weakness, and vulnerability into the underworld, where they fester and mutate into contorted expressions of themselves, often coated in a mantle of shame.  People in my practice routinely apologize for their tears or for feeling sad.

Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament would be an especially good follow-up this week if you can swing it.  Give yourself 15 minutes or 30 or 45 to sit quietly and let the deeper experience of your life sink in.  Find a prayer friend and share a new secret you didn’t even know you were harboring.  Maybe bring a lingering sadness to the Eucharistic prayer we are about to enter. This is really essential to our interior lives and our spiritual armor.

As you may have already noticed, we don’t live in a very soul-friendly world.  “But only say the word and my soul will be healed’.

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“The fruits of the earth are not brought to perfection immediately, but by time, rain and care; similarly, the fruits of men ripen through ascetic practice, study, time, perseverance, self-control and patience.”                                                                                                                 St. Anthony the Great