St George Catholic Church

Jesus Invites, St. George Welcomes

Parish Newsletter

DECEMBER 2016

NEWS BRIEFS St George will host several priests for an Advent Penance Service on Monday, December 5th at 7pm. This is an opportunity for us to receive the sacrament of reconciliation from other priests and prepare for Christmas.

Wednesday night Adult Faith Formation classes began again on November 30th and will continue through December 21st. Deacon Steve Swope will be reviewing St. Pope John XXIII’s Pacem In Terris (Peace on Earth). Sunday mornings, Fr. Henry presents Coffee & Catholicism after the 10am Mass. Two opportunities each week to prepare for Christmas by learning more about our faith and enjoying fel-lowship with your parish family.

Our annual Christmas party will take place in the church hall on Saturday, December 10th at 7pm. St. George will provide the meat and drinks and we parish-ioners will provide the rest of the meal. If your last name begins with the letters A through M, please bring a dessert; if your last name begins with N through Z, please bring a side dish (vegetable or salad). Our new Children’s Choir will make it’s debut performance and we have invited Santa to come too, so be sure not to miss the fun!

The feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe is Monday, December 12th. We at St. George are fortunate to have a dedicated Spanish speaking community that provides for us a wonderful celebration for this day. Festivities begin at 5pm with “Las Mananitas” with Mariachi, Dances will be performed at 7:30 and mass will be at 8pm followed by a potluck dinner, songs and poems. Make a point to join in celebrating this feast of Our Lady of all the Americas!

Come help decorate our church for Christmas! Many hands make light work. We’ll begin at 2pm on Sunday, December 18th. We need men as well as women. Your time will be a wonderful gift to your church family and one that will be truly appreciat-ed!

The Angel Giving Tree is up and waiting to be picked! The angels represent children and adults who may not have Christmas gifts unless we help. Each angel has a person’s gender, age and gift wish so buying something should not be difficult. Some of the requests will just break your heart —shoes from an 8 year old; underpants from a 17 year old—and those are wishes. Be an angel. All gifts must be returned to the church no later than December 16th.

Remember those wonderful nuns, brothers and priests that helped form your faith as a young-ster? Where would we be without them. In addition to a good education, some provided en-tertaining stories over the years! Now is the time to give back. The second collection the weekend of December 17/18 will be for the retired religious. Please be generous. Christmas masses begin Christmas Eve at 4pm with the children’s mass. Our new Children’s Choir will perform their first mass. The Vigil mass is at 6pm; the Spanish mass will be at 8pm. Music for the midnight mass will begin at 11:30. Masses on New Years Day will be our normal schedule.

OH COME LET US ADORE HIM

Every day, 9am to 9pm in the day Chapel.

You don’t have to wait for Christmas to adore Christ. What a great way to prepare for Christmas. Spend time in adoration.

AVE MARIA ACADEMY

As of August this year, we have a new Catholic school in town. Ave Maria Academy, not associat-ed with St. George or sanctioned by the Archdiocese of Atlanta, is located about 7 miles from Newnan, Peachtree City and Sharpsburg on Lora Smith Road. Currently leasing space from the Resurrection Lutheran Church, this new school has the unique enrollment of full time and hybrid students—students who are home schooled part of the time and join Ave Maria students twice a week. The school offers a classical education, to include Latin, along with fun activities like field

trips and growing their own garden. For more information about the school, apply for enrollment or to offer your financial or volunteer support, go to their website. Www.avemariaga.com And watch for their float in the Newnan Christmas Parade December 10th!

YOUTH NEWS

On Saturday, November 19, High School youth and families of our Frassati Ministry came together to help with the Thanksgiving Baskets Service Project. They helped finish sorting, counting and assembling over 70 baskets for 21 families in four hours! In addition to the large supply of canned goods, families also received a frozen turkey and fresh produce (apples, oranges, celery, carrots, potatoes, and butter). The smaller children colored thanksgiving coloring sheets and wrote well wishes for the families receiving the baskets. The teens and adults helped to load the boxes into the trunks of the Saint Vincent de Paul case workers from the Conferences at St. George and Saint Mary Magdalene. As always, the funds from the Spaghetti Supper, coupled with the generous donations of our parishioners of canned goods and monetary donations ensures that our families are well cared for during the holiday season. The Faith Formation office is so grateful for our parish’s

generosity with all of the projects and events planned during the year, but especially during the fall and winter.

Over 250 shoe boxes were filled and turned into the Faith Formation Office by parishioners. They were delivered to the local drop off center last month. The boxes went to the main distribution center in Atlanta and our middle school teens, along with ten adults, will work at that center for three hours on December 15th. From there, the boxes will go to children all over the world. Thank you St. George for your generosity!

SQUIRES

The St. George Squires are having a busy few months! The young men in this Knights of Columbus sponsored ministry, have been collecting Coats for Kids for the past few weeks and will be distributing them to the children in need lat-er in December. If you have good coats that you no longer wear, consider do-nating them to someone who has none. The Squires will be collecting until mid December. Bring your donations to the church hall.

As soon as the coat drive is over, the Squires will be joining forces with the St. George Right to Life Ministry to collect baby items. These will be donated to a local organization to help new mothers. There is a crib in the hall and the Squires hope to fill it by Christmas. Any baby item is welcome. Please bring your donation to the church hall.

CHOIR CORNER

The adult choir will present a 30-minute concert before the midnight mass on Christmas Eve beginning at 11:30 pm. Selections will include Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus" and "O holy night" among others. We will be joined by a special guest soloist, Christine Lyons, a former student of Dock Anderson who is currently singing professionally around the U.S. and abroad. You will not want to miss this very special musical event. The choir will also be presenting some of its Christmas music at the parish Christmas party. The Children's Choir is making its debut at the parish Christmas party, and will also perform at the Children's Mass on Christmas Eve.

Please consider joining our growing music Ministry. There are now two Adult Choir rehearsals each week, one on Tuesday evening and one on Wednesday evening, both at 7 p.m. There is a place for you in the music Ministry at St George! Also, if you play an in-strument, and would like to play during mass or for special musical events, please contact Dock Anderson at dander-

Pope Francis’ Encyclical Letter Laudato Si

“On Care for our Common Home”

Deacon Steve Swope

On Pentecost Sunday, May 24, 2015 Pope Francis published his Encyclical Letter Laudato Si – On Care for Our Common Home. Over the past year I have heard many people refer to this Encyclical; some have praised it, some have argued against it but in each case I ask the question, “Have you read it?” Every time the answer has been “No.” It should be difficult for us to laud or condemn a written work that we have not taken the time to read, but that has been the case with Laudato Si. Since I have read Laudato Si, I will try to condense this 184-page Encyclical into a few pages over the next few months and in doing so hopefully create a summary or ‘Cliff Notes’ for those of us at St. George.

First, it might be helpful to understand what an Encyclical Letter is. These letters originally could be written by any bishop and typically dealt with issues like faith, dogma or doctrine. They were ‘circulated’ hence the name ‘encyclical’ letter. From about 1740AD onward these letters have only been authored by Popes. To date, there have been 298 of them dealing with a broad range of topics. For instance, there are topics ranging from Pope Pius VI’s Inscrutabile (On the Problems of the Pontificate) to Pope Pius XI’s Vigilanti Cura (Vigilant Care – Regarding Motion Pictures) to St. John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life).

Encyclical Letters are a specific category of papal document, concerning Catholic doctrine. They are intended to be thorough and serve as a guide for the faithful to live out their faith in the light of the Gospel. This means that an Encyclical Letter should affect how we view the world and how we act in our day to day lives.

At the heart of Pope Francis’ Laudato Si is the question, “What kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us, to children who are now growing up?” (#160). Francis tells us that we have before us an “Urgent challenge to protect our common home … to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change” (#13). He points to the three relationships that all people of faith must have: relationship with God, relationship with one another and relationship with the created world. Each of these relationships has value, should be cherished and must be protected.

In the coming months, as we journey together through the six chapters of Laudato Si, let us respond to Pope Francis’ call to use his Encyclical as a vehicle to “enter into dialogue” with all people who share this one common home we call earth. (#3)

ORGAN BLESSING AND DEDICATION

We at St. George are fortunate to have the best organ in any church in

Newnan and our Music Director, Dock Anderson proved that at the recent or-

gan debut and blessing. Father Henry gave a special blessing and a recital

provided those in attendance with a full appreciation for the attributes of

our new organ. Beverly Blovin and our own young Christopher Hernandez

sang solos and the choir from Holy Trinity in Peachtree City accompanied our

own adult choir for a wonderful vocal presentation. Following, Dock played a

number of classical selections to showcase the new organ. The Council of

Catholic Women provided a reception after to host the many in attendance

from St. George and the Newnan Coweta Community.