Bulletin: December 31, 2023
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. No Social on Dec 31. Will resume Jan 7.
Our next OPEN-DOOR SATURDAY is January 6, 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: December 24, 2023: Offertory: $962; Christmas: $1770 and counting. Thank You!!
FYE: Five months into the new fiscal year as of 11-30-23 our envelope (registered parishioner) offerings are down about 24% from this time last year. Because we have kept expenses in check despite some rising costs, we are still able to keep operations rolling smoothly and have even been diligent in packing some money away. Please extend a big THANK YOU to members of our Finance Committee (who volunteer their time and attention) and to our faithful supporters.
You can also donate on-line at kanabcatholicchurch.org
Diocesan Development Drive: Corrected Update. Our parish goal this year is $8,800 and we have now paid in $9647, 110%!! Fifteen givers (18 gifts) out of a total ‘60’ households have participated. Thank you for your amazing generosity. FYI: The total goal for the Diocese of Salt Lake City this year was $2,620,000. So far $2,442,852 is paid in with unpaid pledges of $50,780. So, if you have a bunch of money burning a hole in your pocket, please send the Diocese a few thousand dollars. (wink, wink)
PRAY FOR HEALING: Fr. Michael Buckley, Sophia Anderson, Suzy Lingwall, Doug Ingram, Msgr. Francis Mannion, Dan Thornton, 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
Solemnity of Mary the Holy Mother of God – January 1st. Fr. Rick will be in Escalante, so there will be a Communion Service at 8:00 AM. This is not a Holy Day of Obligation, but please attend and start the New Year perfectly.
BECAUSE WE LOVE YOU! Your 2024 Offering Envelopes are available in the gathering space.
St. Christopher’s 2024 Calendars are available in the gathering space. They are going fast!!
Vocations Office Prayer for the Week – From Diocese of SLC
Prayer for Vocations Lord Jesus, as You once called the first disciples to make them fishers of men, let your sweet invitation continue to resound: Come, follow Me! Give young men and women the grace of responding quickly to Your voice. Support our bishops, priests, and consecrated people in their apostolic labor. Grant perseverance to our seminarians and to all those who are carrying out the ideal of a life totally consecrated to Your service. Mary, Mother of the Church, the model of every vocation, help us to say “Yes” to the Lord Who calls us to cooperate in the divine plan of salvation. Amen. ~Saint Pope John Paul II
Vocation Terminology and Definitions:
As we are all learning and relearning many things sometimes it helps to have a vocabulary lesson:
Vocation — A calling or summoning. A vocation is God’s invitation to love and serve him and his Church in a particular way of life. It is a call to live o n earth in a way that will impact eternity. The word itself is derived from the Latin word vocare.
Theology of the Body and Prophecy – We don’t really have to argue….much.
As we know, one of the most significant (and controversial) issues of our age has been changes in how we understand love, marriage and sexuality. This issue can be a point of our emphasis in the coming months if there is interest in the parish. The works of St. John Paul II on love and relationship have provided a much more coherent explanation than we may have received in our own religious and spiritual formation. It is essential to the teaching mission of the Church, as well as the stability of the society we pass on to our grandchildren, that we are able to explain God’s plan. We need to do this in a language and tone that is palatable to people of good faith living in our secular and pluralistic culture.
Also, an improved marriage preparation process will have a greater emphasis in the religious formation programs in our Diocese. Being prepared to teach and dialogue in a genuine spirit of synodality is key to our prophetic role as lay persons, religious and ordained. Our Eucharistic Prayer (V-3) declares that we are expected to ‘read the signs of our times through the light of faith.’
We can also do a short (and eventually longer) study on the role and identity of the major prophets of our Scriptures in order to help us understand our role in the Church’s mission.
Today in the Gospel (Luke 2:22-40) we hear of the prophetess, Anna, 88 years old and from the Tribe of Asher. The Tribe of Asher was one of the 10 tribes of Israel that broke off from the 12 tribes in about 921 BC. Eventually Asher and the other broken away 9 tribes were absorbed within the many ‘Gentile’ tribes living in the area. They lost track of their true identity and the sacred mission God had for them. Somehow Anna finds her way back to Jerusalem and is now living a life of prayer and sacrifice for the redemption of Jerusalem.
Anna is a great model of how elders should act when we apply our wisdom and understanding to the history of our own lives. We can see the results of our errors and confusion in the earlier stages of our lives and now want to pass these hard-learned lessons along. It’s very important to do our ‘temple time’; to pray and repent for being so easily seduced by the natural, human contrived world. For losing track of the sacred world that God has been calling us back to.
This Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph is a good time to rediscover the sacred purpose of our own families and how we must forgo our earthly, human-bound vision of life for the life we and our children have actually been called to. Mary was reminded that her own heart would be pierced with a sword as she is dedicating Jesus for consecration into His sacred mission. Abraham in our first reading from Genesis was called out of his natural family and his familiar homeland to achieve a sacred mission.
How are we being called to give witness to the sacred in our age?
How are we calling our people to redemption?
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“Charity wins souls and draws them to virtue.” St. Angela Merici