Bulletin: Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. 12-29-24
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]
NOTE: If you have a sacramental emergency after parish office hours, please call 435-673-2604 for assistance.
parishinfo@kanabcatholicchurch.org
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
Jan. 1st: Solemnity of Mary the Holy Mother of God is a Holy Day of Obligation. Mass is at 9:00 AM
CONFESSIONS BY APPOINTMENT
Today is the Feast of The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph
“I prayed for this child, and the LORD granted my request.
Now I, in turn, give him to the LORD; as long as he lives, he shall be dedicated to the LORD.”
1Sam. 1:27-28
Social Hour after Sunday Mass – Coffee, juice and bagels or muffins are served up along with some fabulous conversation. No social hour after Christmas Masses.
Our next OPEN-DOOR SATURDAY is January 4, 2025 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 22, 2024: Offertory: $1613; Donations Mail: $65; Christmas: $95. Thank you!
You can also donate on-line at kanabcatholicchurch.org
Diocesan Development Drive (DDD) for 2024. We are over!! Our goal this year is once again $8800. We have all $10,265 pledges paid in full!! Fourteen households have participated. Thank you all for your generosity.
PRAY FOR HEALING: Eva Montelongo, Billy Rosenkranz, George Reese, Dusty Reese, Connie Farmer, Sergio Olvera, 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 sale items. New items on the way!
Gospel of Life Prayers for December
December 29th: For all families: As the domestic Church, may they pursue holiness, pass on the faith, and persevere in love, let us pray to the Lord.
USCCB Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities
Calendars – St. Christopher’s new 2025 version available in gathering space.
Offering Envelopes for 2025 are available in the gathering space.
Locking Doors: If you enter through the east door of the social hall, please remember to lock the door after entering. Also, the last one out of the building should check all the doors before departing. It only takes a minute. Thanks.
Funding the Charity Account. The Committee decided to change the method for raising funds for the Community Outreach Account (COA). Rather than taking a special collection on each 5th Sunday of the year, we would apply the ‘loose cash’ from the 5th Sundays to the COA. This is how it was originally set up in 2018. Today is the 5th Sunday of the Month.
Catholic Social Teaching: https://www.usccb.org/offices/justice-and-peace/catholic-social-teaching#tab–discussion-guides-for-use-with-the-videos
Catholic Social Teaching is a central and essential element of our faith. Its roots are in the Hebrew prophets who announced God’s special love for the poor and called God’s people to a covenant of love and justice. It is a teaching founded on the life and words of Jesus Christ, who came “to bring glad tidings to the poor . . . liberty to captives . . . recovery of sight to the blind”(Lk 4:18-19), and who identified himself with “the least of these,” the hungry and the stranger (cf. Mt 25:45). Catholic social teaching is built on a commitment to the poor. This commitment arises from our experiences of Christ in the eucharist.
As the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, “To receive in truth the Body and Blood of Christ given up for us, we must recognize Christ in the poorest, his brethren” (no. 1397).
Gentlemen: Check Out https://exodus90.com/ and standby for more info.
Homily Reflection:
The citation on the front of this bulletin is from today’s first reading from the First Book of Samuel. It denotes a devout Hebrew family dedicating their son’s life to the temple i.e., the service of God’s Holy People. Their son, Samuel, would eventually anoint Saul and David as King of Israel. The parents did not know the exact mission of their son, but in their enormous gratitude to God they trusted that God would use him as needed for the good of the people.
- When Catholics baptize our children, we too dedicate them to the service of the Church and the mission given to us by Jesus Himself: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” Mt. 28:19-20.
Reflect on how you prepared your children to dedicate their lives to the Church’s mission? Consider their prayer lives, the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy, and Catholic Social Teaching. How did they continue to renew these commitments throughout their lives.
- 2. “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.” 1Jn. 3:21-22
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church ‘hearts’ refers to “our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others; only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully. The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter, because as image of God we live in relation: it is the place of covenant.” (CCC. 2563)
How do we attend to this level of our ‘heart’? How has our attention to our heart changed as we aged through our 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s? How have we shared this with our children?
- 3. In today’s gospel, at age 12 Jesus shows a first big rift between the expectations of his parents and His own. The rift involved God’s immediate will for Jesus. As adolescents can be expected to start pulling away from their parents, recall the first big rifts between you and your adolescent children. What might have been the religious implications of the rift? What truth were they expressing either consciously or subconsciously (however clumsily).
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“A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows.” St. Francis of Assisi
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