Pastoral Messages from Fr. Rick 10-3-20

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Pastoral Plan and Faith Formation:

At our recent parish council meeting we decided to take a different approach in favor of starting with a basic catechist formation program.  Whether you are interested in being a catechist or not, it is strongly encouraged that as many parishioners as possible take this course.  The lessons can all be taken online at your convenience and we will meet at regular intervals as a group to discuss our experience and progress.  This will be a great opportunity for community building as well as a solid faith formation exercise.  This will also satisfy a major part of the process of becoming a certified catechist which is strongly emphasized in our Diocesan Pastoral Plan.  For a sneak peak at the online materials, join Fr. Rick in the social hall this Tuesday evening at 6:30.  We can easily ‘safe-distance’ 10 to 12 people.

Join Knights of Columbus in a Novena for the Cause of Life October 4 to 10.

For each day, reflect on the quote from Pope Francis, pray a decade of the rosary and conclude with St. John Paul II’s prayer.

  1. Sunday, Oct. 4 – “Even the weakest and most vulnerable, the sick, the old, the unborn and the poor, are masterpieces of God’s creation ….”
  2. Monday, Oct. 5 – “Human life is sacred and inviolable, and the use of prenatal diagnosis for selective purposes must be strongly discouraged.”
  3. Tuesday, Oct. 6 – “It is God who gives life.  Let us respect and love human life, especially vulnerable life in a mother’s womb.”
  4. Wednesday, Oct. 7 – “Every child who, rather than being born, is condemned unjustly to being aborted, bears the face of Jesus Christ ….”
  5. Thursday, Oct. 8 – “The Church cannot be expected to change her position on this question. … It is not ‘progressive’ to try to resolve problems by eliminating a human life.”
  6. Friday, Oct. 9 – “Our defense of the innocent unborn … needs to be clear, firm and passionate, for at stake is the dignity of a human life ….”
  7. Saturday, Oct. 10 – “Equally sacred … are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and elderly ….”
  8. Sunday, Oct. 11 – “All too often … people do not accept the ‘Gospel of Life’ but let themselves be led by ideologies and ways of thinking that block life, that do not respect life ….”
  9. Monday, Oct. 12 – “Unborn children are always to be welcomed; life is always to be protected and loved, from conception to its natural end.”

O Mary, bright dawn of the new world, Mother of the living, to you do we entrust the cause of life:

Look down, O Mother, upon the vast numbers of babies not allowed to be born, of the poor whose lives are made difficult, of men and women who are victims of brutal violence, of the elderly and the sick killed by indifference or out of misguided mercy.  Grant that all who believe in your Son may proclaim the Gospel of life with honesty and love to the people of our time.  Obtain for them the grace to accept that Gospel as a gift ever new, the joy of celebrating it with gratitude throughout their lives and the courage to bear witness to it resolutely, in order to build, together with all people of good will, the civilization of truth and love, to the praise and glory of God, the Creator and lover of life. Amen.               – St. John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae

Visit kofc.org/novena for printable version and sign-up