Pastoral Messages 5/15/22

Fr. Rick’s Pastoral Messages   5/15/22

Return of ‘Unlocking the Mystery of the Bible’  In the near future I will be assessing the interest to revisit this 8 Session study complete with timeline chart,  group video presentations and your own workbook!  Let me know if you are interested.  We might possibly promote this to the larger Kanab community, so if the multitudes come to us, it would be great if they were to meet lots of enthusiastic local Catholics to help guide them on the journey.  Six or eight people have expressed an initial interest so far.  Please let me know this week.

Please give us ALL your money!  Well, it surely seems like it, doesn’t it?

Next week we will take up the annual collection for the Catholic Communication Campaign.  Please see insert for a detailed description of the good work accomplished with these funds.

Sunday, May 29th is the 5th Sunday of the Month and we will take up a collection for the local Community Outreach Fund.  Lately we have been focusing on the needs of the local Care and Share food bank where needs seem to be increasing and will also be considering the needs of the Children’s Justice Center.  Thank you as always for your generosity.

Bishop’s Appeal, aka Diocesan Development Drive 

We seem to be stuck at just above the half-way mark with 10 households so far chipping in.  Our tiny community simply doesn’t function without the many administrative and educational services provided by the Diocesan Pastoral Center.  Also, the total salary and insurance package for your ‘ooool local Padrecito is completely funded by the Diocese.  What a deal!!!  Please chip in.

You were made for perfect happiness.  That is your purpose.  No wonder everything short of God disappoints you.’                Bishop Fulton Sheen

Homily Reflection:  Love One Another

Acts 14:22-23:   “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.”  They appointed elders for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, commended them to the Lord in whom they had put their faith.

Notice it is necessary to undergo many hardships.  And they appointed elders…(to lead them…) 

As a community of ‘elders’ we should be prepared to explain to younger folks how our sufferings have brought us closer to God and how these situations helped to shape the world that they are inheriting.  Young people need to see the fruits of our lives.

Revelation 21:2

“I also saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”

This spousal motif is pervasive throughout our Scriptures and Sacramental Traditions.  How has your marriage brought you closer to Christ and helped you love your children as God has loved you?  How has the love of the Father flowed through your marriage?

John 13:34  “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.”

Notice how the Cross is the method for making the total ‘gift of self’ back to the Father and to each other.  When did you make that total ‘self-gift’?  How did that gift change your life and the people around you?  How did it affect your relationship with the Church?