Bulletin: 5th Sunday of Easter
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 May 4, 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: April 21, 2024: Offertory: $1752; R&I: $25.
Development Drive (DDD) for 2024. Our goal this year is once again $8800. We already have $5410 pledged with $4079 paid in!! Nine households have participated. PLEASE JUMP IN AND JOIN THE FUN!! Thank you all in advance for your generosity.
You can also donate on-line at kanabcatholicchurch.org
PRAY FOR HEALING: Doug Ingram, Eva Montelongo, Father Michael Sciumbato, Monsignor Rudy Daz, 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
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.
WELCOME ST. HENRY’S MENS GROUP FROM BUCKEYE, AZ !!
Adam and Eve are from Eden: Stand by for future dates
Annual Collection for Home Missions TODAY
Amazing Earthfest! Coming for the 18th year right here in Kanab, UT, May 8 to 12. Please check out the many events on their website and see a schedule in our gathering space. https://www.amazingearthfest.org/
Homily and Reflection for Fifth Sunday of Easter
Acts 9:26-31; Ps 22:26-32; 1 Jn 3:18-24; Jn 15:1-8
Paul is under close critique in today’s first reading from Acts of the Apostles: Is Saul real? How do we know? Listen closely. How is Jesus working through him? How long has he been at it? Can he connect with a variety of people? Afterall the Church would be sent to all nations. Could he speak credibly to a very wide diversity of people.
Saul, also called Paul, was uniquely situated for the place and time. He was a Roman citizen, born into and raised in the Roman empire. He was educated in the Greek schools in Corinth and of course he was a Jew, a well-educated Pharisee no less. He had an almost natural ability to assimilate the three worlds that were coming together in first century Palestine and beyond. There was a problem, however. He was pretty well known as one who had been persecuting Christians and was even part of the fracas that put Stephen to death.
God knows he can convert and heal people no matter how bad or confused they have been in their lives and can still use their gifts to continue the work of the Church. God made us, after all, and He knows us better than we know ourselves. We are never beyond redemption, but we are always called to do the work of the Church. God know that our unique circumstances, our personal history will relate very well with other people. Our faith journey will inspire other people who may think they are too sinful, too weak, too frightened, to confused, too alienated to be helpful to others.
The whole story of the Bible is God calling very unlikely, often unwilling people to do God’s work. We are all loved and we are all called to love and teach others. Usually, no matter where we are, we can always reach out to someone else who needs the type of support for which we might be uniquely qualified to give.
The Gospel reminds us that our lives are totally dependent on Christ as the Vine and we as the branches. Christ is the head of the body and we are all parts of the same body. We can do nothing on our own.
The Church in our lifetime has been deeply disrupted and many members scattered. There are many forces in the world working against our identity as branches of the same Vine. We are as if thrown into a fire and deemed useless. We are not nearly as fruitful as we should be and it is because we have allowed ourselves to be severed from the Vine, the Head, which is Jesus.
Jesus is always calling us back, but like Paul we are called to mission. The word Mass comes from Misa which is the Latin word for Mission. Just as Saul/Paul was trained many years, around 13 (?) before he was officially sent out by the Church on a mission, so too will we need to be well trained and screened and connected before we can effectively teach, heal and love the way we are commanded. Love is really not an invitation; it is as it says in our second reading today from the First Letter of John, “Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence in God and receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And his commandment is this: we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he commanded us.”
There is a whole script for how we are expected to love. A major part of this script is the Apostolate of the Laity that is laid out in a document from the Second Vatican Council that was held back in the 1960’s. The Church was amazingly prophetic in that Council and we have ignored it way too much and at our peril. It is still our role to Sanctify the world and be God’s personal presence to ‘the nations’.
This week please take some time and consider the following reflection questions which are related to today’s readings:
- Tell someone about your personal encounter with Jesus and how it changed your life?
- Perhaps you could tell of a time when you fell away from the Vine, or deliberately severed yourself from the Vine? What were the results of that period?
- Who may have played the role of Barnabas in your life? Who helped you reconnect with the Vine, the Body of Christ?
- What mission has the Church sent you on? What type of fruit are you producing?
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“Silence is a gift of God, to let us speak more intimately with Him.” St. Vincent Pallotti