Pastoral Messages from Fr. Rick 1-2-22

Happy New Year!!

Welcome Back and ‘Art Walk’ – After the First we will experiment with reinstituting coffee and bagel hour after Sunday Mass – stay tuned.

Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament:  Thursdays from 4:00 to 5:00 PM.

Domestic Monastery:  Our book discussion will continue this Thursday at 2:30 PM.  We will be discussing Chapters 7 and 8.

Synod on Synodality – Hopefully this month we can begin our parish sessions on the World-Wide Synod on Synodality.  Basically a synod is a forum and process for listening, dialogue and learning.  The emphasis will be on the pastors listening to the concerns and needs of the people.  This should actually be a perpetual process in the life of a parish, but the Pope and bishops think that this would be an excellent time to have a more deliberate process with some specific themes to be considered.  Since Fr. Dave Bittmenn from St. George is actually the Pastor of St. Christopher’s, I will merely be ‘sitting in’ for him during our initial sessions, but I will be relaying pertinent information to him and he will surely make his personal presence available here in Kanab as needed.  Next week there will be more specific information on times to meet and themes to be discussed.

The Bishops suggest 11 themes to be discussed.  We can discuss all or just some of them and we can make up some of our own topics.  It is recommended that we discuss only one topic per session.  Here are the first two topics we will discuss: 

GROWTH IN THE JOURNEY

A synodal Church, in announcing the Gospel, “journeys together.” How is this “journeying together” happening today in your local Church? What steps does the Spirit invite us to take in order to grow in our “journeying together”?

COMPANIONS ON THE JOURNEY

In the Church and in society we are side by side on the same road. In our local Church, who are those who “walk together”? Who are those who seem further apart? How are we called to grow as companions? What groups or individuals are left on the margins?

Here is a link for the Parish Packet that we will use for the process.  It can be found on our parish website.

https://www.dioslc.org/documents/1237.pdf

Also, if you would like to participate as a note taker or facilitator, please let me know.  It really does not have to be so complex in our tiny community, but it should be very interesting.

EPIPHANY REFLECTION QUESTIONS…..

How long and far was our journey to finally encounter the King?

What gifts did we bring and lay at his manger or his feet?

How can we know if our King is building a kingdom of true justice and peace?

Also, some interesting Epiphany citations from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:    CCC 430; 486; 528; 724; 438; 439; 333; 530