parish first eucharist 2016 information we congratulate ......apr 04, 2016 · kayla giannelli...
TRANSCRIPT
Parish Information
Joining the Parish
New Parishioners are always welcome. Census forms can be found in the vestibule of the churches. Simply fill one out and drop it in the collection basket.
Planning a Baptism
The birth of a child brings joy to the family. Through Baptism, that child is joined to the family of God, which brings great joy to the church. Parents seeking Baptism are asked to contact the parish office.
Scheduling Weddings
Couples contemplating marriage are asked to contact the parish office
and set up an appointment with Fr. Ken before making any other plans for their wedding. This appointment should take place at least one year before the contemplated date.
Our Parish Intercessory Prayer
Group provides prayers for anyone
in need throughout the parish. Mary Ann Magda is the Coordinator and can be reached at 570-655-1218.
Outreach to the Homebound
Sr. Madonna SSCM, assisted by our dedicated EMOCs, provides Sacramental care to the elderly, homebound and hospitalized. If you, or someone you know, are homebound or in need of a pastoral visit, please contact Sr. Madonna.
Anointing of the Sick
The Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick may take place at any time, especially if one is seriously ill. Please contact the parish office to set up a time for Fr. Ken to visit.
Funeral Preparations
The loss of a loved one is a particularly difficult time for those who are bereaved. Our parish community collaborates with local funeral directors in assisting families during their time of grief.
Bequests to the Parish
Please Remember St. Andre Bessette Parish with Memorial gifts at the time of death or with a bequest in your will. Make a return to the Lord for all the good He has given you.
SWING INTO SPRING DINNER DANCE
Saturday, April 30, 6:30—10:30 pm St. Mary’s Hall
$20.00 per person Tickets available this weekend
includes dinner and dessert with soft beverage
Responsible BYOB Must be 21 or older to attend.
The Best of the Oldies by
Rockin’ Father Kloton
April 10, 2016 Third Sunday of Easter
St. Andre Bessette Parish
Night At the Races
April 9, 2016
St. Mary’s Byzantine
Social Hall
Madison St. Wilkes-Barre, PA Doors open at 6 p.m.
FIRST EUCHARIST 2016
We congratulate three of our parish children who
are receiving Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament for
the first time this Sunday:
Kayla Giannelli Ireona Nirka Hailey Stephens
May the Lord continue to dwell with them and
guide them along the path to everlasting Life.
Check out the Gigunda Basket Raffle!!
20 + Baskets of the most amazing prizes.
They Would make even the most
discerning Bunny green with envy!
ADMINISTRATIVE COUNCILS
PARISH COMMITTEES
The Young at Heart Committee will meet on Wednesday, April 20th at 1 p.m. for a time of fellowship,
All seniors are welcome.
Loaves &
Fishes
Food for April
Tea Bags
The next formation
night for new council
members will be April 6,
2016 in the POMR.
The Parish Social
Justice Council will
meet in the POMR on
April 14 at 6:00 p.m.
The Pastoral Council
will meet on Thursday,
April 28th in the Parish
Office Meeting Room. Fr.
Ken will be at the
Diocesan Clergy
Convocation on the 21st!
The Liturgical Council
will meet on Tuesday,
April 26 at 7 p.m.
Discussion will focus on
the Easter Season and
beyond.
The Finance Council will
meet on Thursday, May
19th at 6:30 p.m. All
members of the Finance
Council are asked to plan
to attend.
Sponsored by Scranton Prep Players
Friday, April 8th and 15th
at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, April 9th and 16th
at 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, April 10 and 17
at 2:00 p.m.
Bellarmine Theater at Scranton Prep
1000 Wyoming Ave., Scranton.
For further information
contact Prep at 570-941-PREP
Homemade
Pasta and Sausage Dinner
St. Maria Goretti Parish
Laflin Rd., Laflin
Sunday April 10, 2016
Noon—5 p.m.
Dinner includes Salad,
Rolls/Butter,
Beverage and Dessert
$11.00
Tickets available at the
door.
Take—out Noon—4 p.m.
Book and Bake Sale
Soup for the Soul
Committee
Exaltation of the
Holy Cross
Buttonwood
Thursday, April 14,
10 am-6pm
Friday, April 15,
10 am-6pm
Saturday, April 16,
10 am-4pm
Gently used books
at bargain pricing!
For information
contact
Barry at
570-200-5634
or
Sylvia at
570-825-6370
April 10, 2016 Third Sunday of Easter
Holy Redeemer
Art Show
Spring Concert
Senior Waltz
April 16 and 17 6:00 p.m.
Mc Carthy Auditorium
Holy Redeemer High School is now accepting registrations for the 2016-17 school year. Any student interested in shadowing or registering for high school may call Guidance
Holy Redeemer
Players
April 8th and 9th
7:00 p.m. in
McCarthy Auditorium
Tickets available at the door
Adults $5 ; Seniors $4 Students $3
April 10, 2016 Third Sunday of Easter
Year of Mercy Pilgrimages
The Women’s Spirituality Group is sponsoring a Pilgrimage to the Basilica of Sts.
Cyril and Methodius in Danville on Saturday, May 14th from 10
a.m.—4 p.m.
The Basilica is a designated
Pilgrimage site for the Year of Mercy. We will be leaving from St. Andre Bessette by 9 a.m. The day includes a guided tour of the
Basilica, a self-guided tour of the grounds (guide booklet included), time for group and private prayer, morning coffee and noon meal with the Sisters. Carpooling expected unless we have enough interest to rent a bus. Fee will
be determined by number participating.
The Women’s Spirituality Group is also sponsoring a pilgrimage to the Cathedral of St.
Peter on Saturday, June 4th. The Cathedral is a designated Pilgrimage Site within the diocese for the year of Mercy. The day includes a tour
of the Cathedral, a spiritual talk, opportunity for confession, and noon Mass followed by lunch.
A $10 donation per person is asked by the Cathedral.
Again, carpooling is expected, unless we have enough interest to rent a bus. Additional fees will be determined by number participating. Call the parish office to register for
either:(570-823-4988)
PILGRIMAGES ARE OPEN TO ANYONE IN THE PARISH!
Annual Pro-Life Friday, April 15th 2—6 p.m. Saturday, April 16th 8 a.m.—4 p.m. Bag Day Saturday 2 pm –4 pm
Wyoming Valley Presbyterian Fowler Hall
2 Lockhart St., Wilkes– Barre
To Donate, call 570-826-1819 one person’s junk is another person’s treasure!
BENEFITS THE PRO+LIFE CENTER @ 31 Hanover St. WB
Jewelry, Dolls, Belleek, Lenox,
Staffordshire Ironstone, Paden City
Pottery, Quoizel Lighting,
silverware, housewares, home
décor, knic knacks, linens, purses,
toys, holiday items, dishes, vases,
glassware, DVDs, CDs, VHS,
luggage, small appliances, picture
frames, and much more!
Wine and Spirit
Catholic Faith
and the
Electoral
Process
Wednesday, April 27, 2016 Cork Restaurant
$5.00 per person
Presenter: Rev. Richard G. Malloy SJ
The Great FIFTY DAYS
Eucharist: Christ the Bridegroom’s Gesture of Surrender
Simeon Leiva OCSO
Eucharistic Congress, Diocese of Saint Augustine Florida Jacksonville, 29 March 2014
TENDERNESS AND MERCY ARE THE HEART OF
THE GOSPEL. Otherwise, one doesn’t understand
Jesus Christ, or the tenderness of the Father who
sends Him to listen to us, to heal us, to save us.”1
Perhaps you recognize these words as conveying the
signature message of our holy father Francis. Yes, we
Christians have been urgently entrusted by God with
the mission of allowing the flood of tenderness God
has already made to flow into us, to flow out further
through us into the whole world. How appropriate it is
to begin with this theme of tenderness and mercy our
reflection on the Eucharist as the gesture of surrender
of Christ the Bridegroom.
1. Christ loved us and handed himself over for us
The experience of divine tenderness should be for us
far more than a private emotion of overwhelming
security. In God love is not an emotion but the law of
his Being, his very identity and substance; and so, too,
must such unwavering and substantial love become
the law and spontaneous operation of our own being.
“Be imitators of God, as beloved children,” St. Paul
exhorts the Ephesians, “and walk in love, as Christ
loved us and handed himself over for us as a sacrificial
offering to God” (Eph 5:1-2). Paul is here describing
how it was that God’s tender love entered the world
historically, and how it continues to operate in our
lives today. God’s love, he says, is the communication
of his person and life to us as the result of a particular
free act on his part.
Divine love is not a vague and faceless cosmic
“energy”, automatically diffused throughout the
universe like some ethereal gas. The human heart
yearns for far more than the reassurance that the
world is somehow pervaded by a friendly, benign
“force”. If the cosmos is full of the beauty and wonder
of stupendous processes, this is because it came into
being by the work of a Master Artist whose glory it
reflects.
Paul’s words convey the double truth that God is a
personal being motivated by infinite love, and that “our
hearts remain restless until they rest in him”. Christ’s
‘handing-over-of– himself’ for our sake reveals the
specific act of love we must imitate as God’s “beloved
children” in order to come to rest in him.
God’s self-surrender in love was something he decided
to do out of his eternal and infinite freedom. There is
nothing automatic or compulsory about God’s gift of
himself, because love can never be the result of
constraint or inevitable cycles that recur impersonally.
Once God decides to give himself as exhaustively as he
does in Christ, he sets the bar very high for us.
God came to us in
human flesh to make
his self-surrender
possible. This self-
bestowal occurred at
a given moment of
historical time. To be
Christian is to imitate
in our own present
time an act of total
self-surrender that
God accomplished in
Christ when he was
born in Bethlehem;
but it was an act of
such magnitude that
it has vital repercussions in every succeeding age
because, in fact, it is an act of unceasing self-
surrender in the present. That is how far the Love God
is (1 Jn 4:8,16) made him go: the Uncreated became
creaturely; pure Spirit took on flesh; the Infinite
accepted limitations; and the Eternal embraced the
temporal as his own dwelling-place—all for the sake of
being with us and sharing our mortal existence to the
full.
A few verses later in this same chapter 5 of Ephesians
I have quoted, the plot thickens when Paul writes:
“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the
church and handed himself over for her to sanctify
her” (Eph 5:25-27). God’s gift of self is not a
suspended abstraction; it is the surrender of a lover to
his beloved. Christ’s deliberate handing-over of himself
is a gesture that reveals that God’s love for us is not a
generic benevolence but rather the specific love driving
the heart of a passionately committed Bridegroom.
http://www.spencerabbey.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Gesture-of-Surrender.pdf
In the Incarnation,
Christ comes to
encounter us as the
Bridegroom of redeemed
Humanity and of each of
our souls. This is his
most intimate identity.
Think of what being a
bridegroom implies by
way of desire for union,
passionate attachment
to the beloved,
unceasing labor for her
benefit, and fidelity to
the point of death. Paul
says elsewhere: “The
husband does not rule
over his own body, but
the wife does” (1 Cor
7:4). This principle
graphically illustrates how totally wedded spouses
should surrender their whole persons to one another.
But it also has a strong Eucharistic resonance because
it shows how unconditionally the Lord Jesus has
entrusted his Real Presence into the hands of the
Church, for his Spouse to do with him whatever she
deems necessary for the salvation of the world. This
includes not only the Eucharistic Sacrifice, but also the
Reserved Sacrament for adoration and as viaticum for
the sick and dying.
This gesture of handing-over of self, moreover, is not
only an action of the incarnate Word himself. It is
important to see also that, because the Son does
everything out of loving obedience to his Father, the
Son gives himself to us as total gift only in absolute
coöperation with the Father. Christ makes himself our
gift only through the Father’s own action of giving him
to us. Christ consents to be given as gift. “[God] who
did not spare his own Son,” Paul tells us, “but handed
him over for us all, how will he not also make us the
free gift of everything else along with him?” (Rom
8:32).
2. For our sake God made him to be sin who
knew no sin
Up to now we have been comforted by the luminous
aspects of the Paschal Mystery. But now we must
pursue our meditation into the dark side of the
Redemption, because this is a darkness we all carry
within us. We must glimpse into the abyss of suffering
into which our Lord Jesus was plunged in the hours
that led him into the desolation of abandonment by
the Father and, ultimately, to a horrendous death. In
the days of his Passion, Jesus, obeying the will of the
Father, willingly and even joyously (Heb 12:2) entered
into what Paul calls “the mystery of iniquity” (2 Thes
2:7). Fully aware of what was involved, and with full
consent of heart and will, Jesus handed himself over
into the hands of sinners, to be treated by them as
they pleased.
But who are these “sinners” into whose hands Jesus
so willingly hands himself? Ourselves, of course. And
yet Jesus sits at our table and eats with us,
scandalizing the Pharisees. He surrenders himself into
our sinful hands just as literally as the fact that we
today receive his Body as bread in our hands and
drink his outpoured Blood as wine. ‘When you did not
have mercy on one of these, the least of my brothers,
you did not have mercy on me’, the all-knowing King
says to us at the Last Judgment (cf. Mt 25:31-46).
How could we forget this painful truth a mere two
weeks away from Holy Week? Jesus knew who we
were; he knew what we would do with him; and yet
he still surrendered himself totally into our hands. If
we are ever tempted to view Jesus’ Passion and Death
as merely the regrettable failure of an otherwise
admirable mission, then we should read the Gospels
carefully again. There we would see clearly the
dazzling light of an ardent love, a light that blinds our
natural logic with the divine truth that precisely
surrendering into the hands of sinners who he knew
would kill him WAS the strategy of divine love to
redeem the world. “For our sake [the Father] made
him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we
might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21).
“We were reconciled to God by the death of his Son
while we were [his] enemies” (Rom 5:10). What an
incredible exchange!
Don’t such declarations make us
gasp? Consider the depth of the
mystery of divine love: On the one
hand, God cannot be God without
being from all eternity the Father of
his only Son, his beloved Jesus
Christ. At the very same time,
however, God did not love the One
by whose sonship he is God more
than us, his creatures! Paul’s words
above declare this wonderful,
terrible truth: God did not spare his
own Son but made him to be sin for our sake. For us
to be liberated from the death of sin, the Father
deemed it necessary that his innocent Son should
become sin, that which is most abhorrent to God!
Christ, the All-Holy One, became sin by taking up into
his person the full consequence of our sins, namely,
death. The very God who would not allow Abraham to
kill his beloved son Isaac “did not spare his own Son
but handed him over for us all”! The all-powerful King
exchanged his dignity for that of the condemned
slave. The greatest truths are always unbelievable,
and that’s precisely why we have to believe them.
The supreme power by which Christ is able to destroy
death is not human-styled violence raised to an
omnipotent degree. No: God’s only power is the power
of love, which means the power of tenderness and
mercy, which means in turn that Christ takes upon
himself the corporate sin of all ages and allows it to
crush him on the Cross. Only the power of God’s
infinite love is capable of absorbing all evil in this way:
it hurls the raging dragon into the consuming heart of
the sun. And God’s infinite love was housed within a
very human person, Jesus of Nazareth, who bled when
wounded and endured horrific anguish when
abandoned by those he thought loved him; and so his
absorption of the collected sin of the world utterly
broke his human frame. In Christ, God still makes
himself vulnerable every day as he entrusts himself
into our hands. The mystery of iniquity into which
Christ descended in the Passion could only be done
away with by the courage of an even greater love, a
love that descends into the gaping jaws of hell itself to
rescue the beloved. Christ consented to “catching sin”
as a dog catches rabies, and he died of it. As the
saying goes, “Once the dog dies, the rabies dies with
him”; and in the Passion, Jesus made himself less
than a dog, less than the dogs who licked the ulcers of
Lazarus the poor man in Luke (16:21): He was “a man
scoured by suffering; people hid their faces from him;
he was despised, and we considered him nothing”, as
Isaiah prophesies (Is 53:3). “When Christ came into
our midst to redeem us,” says a great theologian, “he
descended so low that after that no one would be able
to fall without falling into him”.2
But what does Christ’s handing-over of self out of love
look like “on the ground”, so to speak, that is, at the
level of the concrete events of Christ’s life toward the
end of Jesus’ earthly sojourn?
Just before the events of Palm
Sunday in Matthew’s Gospel,
we read of Jesus’ third
prediction of his Passion to his
disciples: “As Jesus was going
up to Jerusalem, he took the
twelve aside by themselves,
and said to them on the way,
‘Behold, we are going up to
Jerusalem, and the Son of
Man will be handed over to
the chief priests and the
scribes, and they will
condemn him to death, and
hand him over to the Gentiles
to be mocked and scourged and crucified, and he will
be raised on the third day’” (Mt 20:17-19). And in the
Gospel of John we witness the first station on the Way
of the Cross: “Then [Pilate] handed him over to them
to be crucified. And carrying the cross himself [Jesus]
went out to what is called the Place of the Skull, in
Hebrew ‘Golgotha’” (Jn 19:16-17).
We note at once how the context of the gruesome
events of the Passion violently alters our
understanding of the expression ‘to hand oneself
over’. Until now it has given us comforting feelings of
gratitude that Christ would so generously give himself
to us. It has also conveyed emotions of a deeply
reassuring intimacy, of a sweet embracing and being
embraced by a cherished beloved, of an affective
ecstasy beyond all human imagining, and all this
because we now possess the Father’s most prized
treasure as our very own. And these are all immensely
consoling truths. Now, however, in the Gospels, the
physical events of the Passion make us feel the full
shock of what it means for Jesus to descend into the
“mystery of iniquity” that will destroy him. His
wedding with humanity is going to be a blood-
wedding, the wedding feast of “the Lamb slain since
the foundation of the world” for the love of his Bride,
the Church (Rev 13:8; 19:7).
It has always been a hateful
and cowardly injustice to
blame the Jews alone for the
death of Jesus, because in the
drama of the Passion the Jews
represented only one portion
of guilty humanity. The
teachers of the Law, the non-
Jews in Jerusalem, the pagan
Roman Pilate himself, as well
as the Jewish high priests and
the clamoring multitude
outside the praetorium, all
taken together, represent us,
that is, the totality of human
beings of all times and places in our collusion with
evil. Let us confess that, at least initially, we do not
very gladly receive the gift of Jesus in our hands and
pass it on as something precious. Like that self-
serving crowd, we receive Jesus, rather, as an object
of scorn, as a source of irritation to be done away
with, or at best as an object of indifference, and
indifference can be just as murderous as hatred. From
Annas and Caiaphas and Pilate all the way down to the
last serving girl, all of these representatives of sinful
humanity are portrayed as handing Jesus over to one
another blasphemously as their common plaything—
for mockery, torture and crucifixion. The players in the
Passion reciprocate God’s tender gesture of handing
over his Son to them, not by joyfully embracing him,
but by betraying him. And the silent Jesus allows it to
happen; he allows himself to be made a thing to be
maliciously played with and thrown out in the end.
But: “Do you think that I cannot call upon my Father
and he will not provide me at this moment with more
than twelve legions of angels? But then how would the
Scriptures be fulfilled which say that it must come to
pass in this way?” (Mt 26:53-54). The Son saves us by
obeying the design of his Father. Here lies all the
power of his love.
The Greek word for what I have been translating as
‘handing-over’ is parádosis, and it contains a
meaningful ambiguity worth pursuing. This one word
can be translated not only as ‘to hand over’ or
‘surrender’ but also as ‘to betray’, because a certain
kind of handing-over can be a betrayal. A father
hands his daughter over to her bridegroom at the
altar full of love and hope, but Judas hands Jesus
over to his enemies to be rid of him.
3. The Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed
over, took bread
But what has all of this to do with the Eucharist? I’m
sure you sense it! The great clue to the connection
between handing-over/betrayal nd Eucharist is the
jarring coincidence in Jesus’ life of two antithetical
events, an event of utter goodness and an event of
utter malice, which nevertheless are fused by the
power of Jesus’ action into the single event of
Redemption.
Have you ever wondered
why Jesus chose to
institute the Holy
Eucharist precisely on the
very evening of his
betrayal, only shortly
before Judas kissed him
in the garden as he
handed him over to the
forces of destruction?
Judas surrendered Jesus
into the hands of his
enemies immediately
after Jesus had handed
himself over to Judas at
the Last Supper in sacramental communion. And, as
the betrayer leaves the cenacle to perform his
heinous deed, Jesus’ words to him are: “What you are
going to do, do quickly.” (Jn 13:27,30). This is a
command by Jesus that seems mysteriously to trigger
the drama leading to his own death.
Essential to understanding this mystery of coincidence
between Eucharist and betrayal is the paramount text
from St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians (chapter
11), which memorializes the Last Supper and its
permanent centrality to all Christian existence. Please
pay particular attention in this narrative to the
gestures performed by Jesus to accompany his
words:
For I received from the Lord what I also handed
on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he
was handed over, took bread, and, after he had
given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body
that is for you. Do this in memory of me.” In the
same way also the cup, after supper, saying,
“This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do
this, as often as you drink it, in memory of me.”
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the
cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he
comes.3
This text portrays marvelously Jesus’ intentions and
actions on the threshold of the Passion, “on the night
he was handed over”. By describing so objectively the
significant words and gestures of Jesus at the end of
this momentous meal, Paul is in fact revealing to us—
if we know how to “read” the signs—the depth of
God’s creativity in Christ in the face of the Son’s
imminent suffering and death. Paul, who was not
present at the Last Supper, stresses that he is
handing on to the Corinthians what had been handed
on to him by the Apostles. The solemn care,
furthermore, with which Paul frames his account
means he is conscious that what he is giving us here
as his most precious legacy is of supreme importance
to the life of the Church, because Christ himself
decreed that it should be so. What Paul is here
handing on is what he himself had received: namely,
the celebration of the Eucharist by the Church as
containing and communicating sacramentally the
Death and Resurrection of Jesus under the material
signs of bread, wine, words and gestures.
In his text Paul uses the very same word, parádosis,
to refer to his handing-on of the celebration of the
Eucharist that we have seen him use to refer to the
Son’s own handing-down to humanity by the Father,
and that the Gospel also uses to refer to the betrayal
of the Son by Judas and all sinners. The Latin
equivalent of parádosis is traditio, and so we see here
that the Eucharist is the core and source of our living
tradition as Christians, our most precious heritage.
The gesture of surrender contained in the Eucharist,
then, communicates not two but three interrelated
meanings: (1) the eternal divine action of Father and
Son, (2) the temporal human action of betrayal at the
time of the Passion, and (3) the sacramental divine-
and-human action of the Church. All three are
parádosis, traditio, ‘handing-over’, and they are
inseparable from one another.
The great act of
thanksgiving that is the
Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
is, in fact, the obedient
execution by the Church
of Christ’s command: “Do
this in memory of me”.
The familiar words we
daily hear the priest
pronounce at the altar as
he bends over for the
consecration are really an
ecclesial synthesis of the
words of Paul in First Corinthians and of the
narratives of the Institution that we find in the
Synoptic Gospels:
For on the night he was betrayed [and entered
willingly into his Passion], he himself took
bread, and, giving you thanks, he said the
blessing, broke the bread and gave it to his
disciples, saying: TAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, AND
EAT OF IT, FOR THIS IS MY BODY, WHICH WILL
BE GIVEN UP FOR YOU. In a similar way, when
supper was ended, he took the chalice, and,
giving you thanks, he said the blessing, and gave
the chalice to his disciples, saying: TAKE THIS,
ALL OF YOU, AND DRINK FROM IT, FOR THIS IS
THE CHALICE OF MY BLOOD, THE BLOOD OF THE
NEW AND ETERNAL COVENANT, WHICH WILL BE
POURED OUT FOR YOU AND FOR MANY FOR THE
FORGIVENESS OF SINS. DO THIS IN MEMORY OF
ME. 4
The most striking aspect of Jesus’ actions in this text of
the Mass is what can be called Jesus’ creative
anticipation of his death. We begin in the past
historical tense, which remembers that Jesus took
bread and broke it. But then we suddenly jump to the
present tense of our own life, and we see and hear
Jesus directly handing the bread over to his disciples
and commanding them to eat of it right here and now.
And the meaning Jesus himself gives these gestures
and actions is: “for this is my Body, which will be given
up for you”, in the future tense. In other words, here
Christ sacramentally institutes in the present an action
that overtakes in time the destructive historical action
of his murder that hasn’t yet occurred, while at the
same time giving to it a startling redemptive meaning.
Thus, the interior significance and effects of the future
action of betrayal are radically changed by divine
intervention before the betrayal occurs. The malice of
man is overtaken by the goodness of God. Love
swallows up hatred, even though the lover dies of its
poisoning. A hate-filled enemy—including both his evil
intentions and his murderous deed—is embraced as
brother and friend.
In the Sacrament, Jesus’
death becomes the source
of our life because the
power of his love
anticipates the mangling of
his body and the shedding
of his blood, and it
transforms their vital
meaning and effect: from
an act of violent hatred it is
transformed into the
execution of a sacrifice and
the preparation of its victim
as food. The separate
consecration of the bread
and the wine manifests the
character of the act as a
sacrifice since, according to Leviticus, all the blood of
the victim had to be drained off before its body could
be consumed (7:2). At a moment when one would
expect the victim to be overwhelmed with fear, such
anticipation is instead a forceful and deliberate
initiative by the One in whom the universe was first
created and which the
humiliated Word is now
recreating through his
Passion. Jesus takes bread,
pronounces a thanksgiving
that changes it
substantially into his Body,
breaks it and distributes it
for eating; takes wine,
blesses it and transforms it
into his Blood, and then
pours it out to be drunk.
This is Jesus’ way of
guaranteeing that the
Substance of his being will
not fall on the Cross into a
bottomless abyss as a
result of human violence,
but rather that that sacred Substance will be made
available to all as a source of new life and joy: “This is
why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in
order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but
I lay it down on my own. I have power to lay it down,
and power to take it up again” (Jn 10:17-18). This
power and choice of Jesus to lay down his life contains
the whole secret of his love.
At the very moment when he is going to allow himself
to be handed over to the forces of darkness, Jesus
shows himself to be more than ever the sovereign Lord
of creation and of history: of creation, because he
takes the elements of bread and wine and re-creates
them, transforming them into his Body and Blood; of
history, because he takes the impending evil deed of
his betrayal and transforms it already before it occurs
into the best possible occasion for him to surrender his
person to us, his betrayers, out of love, as the
Bridegroom of the Church, with the total fidelity,
dedication and passionate love that befits a royal
bridegroom.
4. Do this in memory of me!
Paul’s narrative of the Institution of the Eucharist has
vital implications, and not only at the most obvious
level for our liturgical and sacramental life. His
account, but above all our Eucharistic practice, should
also leave a deep mark on our individual life of faith, in
which we struggle with doubts and temptations of
many kinds, and on our moral life, in which we strive
to live by the commandment “Love one another as I
have loved you” (Jn 13:34). The other command “Do
this in memory of me!” that concludes the solemn
words of institution refers not only to the liturgical
celebration of the Eucharist. It also refers—and with
special urgency, if we are to believe Pope Francis—to
the fact that our everyday life as Christians ought to be
the existential celebration of the Real Presence of
Christ in our ordinary interaction with the world.
“Do this in memory of
me!” Love doesn’t
forget; love
remembers; and the
memory of Jesus in us
throbs with the power of
his Word and the
promise of his
Resurrection. How
beautiful that Christ
asks us to do to others
out of love what he
has first done to us by
telling us to do it in his
memory—as if he
were saying: ‘Just
remember me and
love will come easily!’ Truly, it is the quality of our
interaction with others—at home, in the workplace, in
the street where we encounter the homeless—that will
confirm the authenticity and heartfelt devotion of the
liturgical Mystery celebrated in the church. Or do we
simply forget Christ and his gift of self to us when we
leave the church? Is the Mass nothing but a ritual
fantasy that confirms my self-complacency?
‘Do not forget what I have done for you,’ Jesus says to
us incessantly. When we are overwhelmed by sorrows
of any kind, or are perhaps suffering the pangs of a
devouring guilt that can tempt us to despair; when it
seems that our life has reached a dead-end either
through the treachery of others or through our own
grave errors: then our only salvation is to believe with
all our might in the power of Christ’s creative
anticipation, that is, in the sovereign ability Christ
demonstrated at the Last Supper and on the Cross to
take an evil deed that will lead to his own crucifixion
and providentially transform it into an event of
Resurrection. Christ’s unconditional handing-over of
himself to us in advance of anything we might do ought
to give us the certainty that no sin we commit can
defeat the Mercy of God, and that no wound that is
inflicted by others on us can surpass the power to heal
of the divine Physician. Indeed, Christ “has foresuffered
all”. 5 Let us not stubbornly clutch our sufferings to
our chest like greedy paupers; Christ’s tender deed of
creative anticipation on the Cross has made it so that
all my sufferings already belong, in advance, more to
him than to me.
“Love one another as I have loved you”, Jesus
commanded us (Jn 13:34). As Christians we are not
free to love any way we wish, half-heartedly or when
convenient. We must strive to love as we have been
loved, which is with all the tenderness of God’s whole
Heart. “The measure of love,” says St. Bernard, “is to
love without measure.” We cause something like a
short-circuit in the cosmic circulation of love, which is
supposed to flow on through us, if, after receiving
Christ from the Father, we do not imitate God’s gesture
and instead make his outpoured love stop abruptly with
ourselves.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus lays down this
teaching: “If you bring your gift to the altar, and there
recall that your brother has anything against you, leave
your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled
with your brother, and then come and offer your
gift” (Mt 5:23-24). This means that anger and
resentment between brothers clogs up the free
circulation of love, not only between
the two brothers at odds but also within the
worshipping community and between all believers and
God. Eucharist cannot be offered by one who hates.
Mercy is the power of self-giving; it is meant to flow
ever onward; the more of it we give, the more we
receive. Whoever receives mercy must give mercy, or
else he will choke on it. God gives me his mercy so
abundantly that I always will have more than enough
for myself and all I encounter. Like the miraculous
loaves, mercy becomes multiplied in the giving.
The Gospel everywhere
urges us to allow the
irresistible tenderness of
Christ to invade our person
and take over our every
thought, feeling and action.
Realistically, however, none
of us can by nature be as
selfless as Christ, the Good
Samaritan who has only to
glance at a wounded or
needy person to shudder
with mercy. The problem is
not so much that of willfully
imposing on ourselves a strict consistency between
faith and action; it is more a matter of allowing the
power of the Christ, who has given himself to me with
love, to have its full effect in my person, rather like a
pregnant mother-to-be who allows the child to grow in
her womb and simply nourishes it by offering it her
whole being and doing nothing to harm it.
This is not our work, but the work of God in us. Christ
in us is never a mere static object that we dispose of;
he is the Subject acting in my soul, the risen Lord who
lives in me and strengthens me, the true Protagonist of
my life and personal history.6
……..
In summary, then: It was his unbounded divine
compassion as response to human betrayal that moved
Jesus to institute the Holy Eucharist. The Eucharist is a
sacred work of total transformation which the Church
performs in obedience to and imitation of her Lord. It
effects a transformation of time, of matter, of the
meaning of emotions and experiences, and of the
human person. In it we see Jesus transform, not only
bread and wine into his Body and Blood, but also his
own human weakness and defeat and death into divine
tenderness and mercy. He makes one supreme
moment in time flood any other moment that
remembers his action—all by the power of the Holy
Spirit that indwells Jesus. This pattern of
transformation through the power of mercy should, in
turn, rule our whole life as Christians.
The act of eating the Body of Christ and drinking the
Blood of Christ with faith
generates a dynamic
process that forms Christ
in us,7 and this
transformation within us is
profoundly linked to the
Blessed Virgin’s own
conception of the Son of
God in her womb. We
conceive Christ in the
womb of our faith by the
power of the same Holy
Spirit that overshadowed Mary at the Annunciation (Lk
1:35), the same Holy Spirit whose fire effects at Mass,
through the epiclesis, the transformation of the
elements into the Body and Blood of Christ. Christ’s
incandescent, indeed radioactive, Presence in the
Blessed Sacrament is no inert object for mere distant
veneration. Christ wants to pervade my whole person
so that I become his Real Presence in the world. Christ
wants to be born into the world, wants to be handed
over by me to others, through my deeds of love, until
his love becomes the vital law and spontaneous
impulse of my own being.
Dear brothers and sisters: “Let us rejoice and exult and
give God the glory, for the marriage
feast of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made
herself ready” for him (Rev 19:7).
________________________________________
1.) Interview with Ferruccio de Bortoli Correiere de
Serra, 5 March 2014
2.) Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Heart of the World
3.) Ἐγὼ γὰρ παρέλαβον ἀπὸ τοῦ κυρίου, ὃ καὶ παρέδωκα ὑμῖν, ὅτι
ὁ κύριος Ἰησοῦς ἐν τῇ νυκτὶ ᾗ παρεδίδετο ἔλαβεν ἄρτον 24 καὶ
εὐχαριστήσας ἔκλασεν καὶ εἶπεν· τοῦτό μού ἐστιν τὸ σῶμα τὸ ὑπὲρ
ὑμῶν· τοῦτο ποιεῖτε εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν. 25 ὡσαύτως καὶ τὸ
ποτήριον μετὰ τὸ δειπνῆσαι λέγων· τοῦτο τὸ ποτήριον ἡ καινὴ
διαθήκη ἐστὶν ἐν τῷ ἐμῷ αἵματι· τοῦτο ποιεῖτε, ὁσάκις ἐὰν πίνητε,
εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν. 26 ὁσάκις γὰρ ἐὰν ἐσθίητε τὸν ἄρτον τοῦτον
καὶ τὸ ποτήριον πίνητε, τὸν θάνατον τοῦ κυρίου καταγγέλλετε ἄχρι
οὗ ἔλθῃ. (1 Cor 11:23-26)
4.) The introductory section is from EP3 while the
clause in brackets is from EP 2. The rest is common to
all Eucharistic prayers.
5) T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land “The Fire Sermon” with
reference to the Greek prophet Tiresias whom many
critics consider a Christ-figure in this poem.
6.) I am very grateful to my friend Fr. William Nelson,
a priest in Japan, who, on reading this passage,
commented as follows. Here the heart of a pastor is
truly speaking, giving the best possible evidence for
the indispensable nature of the Eucharist in human life:
“Here I think about the people I have been with
today—three very small congregations in very small
towns in Shikoku. Some immigrants, some workers,
some very old, some children, some baptized and
some not..., no one socially or economically very
important, no one with much higher education, but all
of them thirsty for a soul satisfying, joy-bringing,
overflowing love. These people (and I don’t suppose
they are all that different from people anywhere else)
are, for the most part, trying to do what they can to be
happy, and are, for the most part, very tired and
frustrated. How they, how we, welcome the good news
of love poured out, of love and rest! Do you remember
the old spiritual? There is a balm in Gilead, / to make
the wounded whole, / there is a balm in Gilead, to heal
the sin-sick soul. This is what I think as a pastor, as a
father, as a brother. There is a balm, a fountain, love
poured out and bread broken and wine served. What
more could we ask for?”
7.) “My children, for whom I am again in labor, until
Christ be formed in you. (Gal. 4:19)
ALLELUIA!
The Wedding Feast of the Lamb has begun!
His Bride is made ready to receive Him!
ALLELUIA!
ST. JOSEPH’S ABBEY 167 North Spencer Road • Spencer, MA 01562 • 508.885.8700
This Week’s Finances
Expenses
March 31-April 6, 2016
Administration 2,824.44
Parish Assessment
-0-
School Assessment
-0-
Clergy Residence
51.00
Liturgy 3,062.15
Religious Education
-0-
Social Justice -0-
Operation & Maintenance
2,139.79
Parish Debt -0-
Insurance -0-
Taxes -0-
Diocesan Collections
3,535.45
TOTAL EXPENSES THIS WEEK
$11,612.83
+
General Fund Recapitulation
General Fund Previous Balance
$17,888.37
+ Income this week
+8,511.59
- Expenses this week
-11,612.83
Balance Forward
$14,787.13
Income
April 2-3, 2016
In Church Mailed In
Loose 224.46 -0-
Sunday Offering 3,587.00 586.00
EASTER 595.00 1,021.00
Holy Days -0- -0-
Initial Offering -0- -0-
Dues 1,237.00 202.00
Debt Reduction 12.00 10.00
Holiday Flowers 10.00 -0-
TOTAL PARISH
COLLECTION
$5,665.46 $1,819.00
Our Weekly goal for our Total Parish Collection is
$7,500.00.
This will ensure the financial stability of our parish.
Diocesan and Other Collections These are charitable collections that go directly to the
Diocese and do not impact our operating budget.
Clergy Collection 667.74 7.00
Rice Bowl 50.00 106.39
Holy Land 20.00 132.00
TOTAL DIOCESAN COLLECTIONS
$737.74 $145.39
TOTAL SUNDAY
COLLECTION $6,403.20 $1,964.39
Other Income This income is in addition to our regular income and
contributes toward the operating budget.
Candles 44.00
Perquisites -0-
Rent -0-
Miscellaneous -0-
TOTAL OTHER
INCOME $44.00
TOTAL INCOME
GENERAL FUND
THIS WEEK $8,511.59
Mass Attendance
April 2-3, 2016
People In-Church Collection
Average Offering
Per person
4:00 p.m. 174 2,567.60 14.76
5:30 p.m. 74 1,601.60 21.64
8:00 a.m. 68 1,025.00 15.07
11:00 a.m. 70 1,209.00 17.27
Total 386 $6,403.20 $16.59
Monthly Diocesan Bills (July 1, 2015– June 30, 2016)
Title Amount Billed Amount Paid Balance
Parish Assessment 34,730.42 34,730.42 -0-
Assessment for Schools 59,434.83 43,637.46 15,797.37
Insurance 22,720.00 17,844.48 4,875.52
Clergy Pension 6,600.00 6,600.00 -0-
Clergy Medical (BC/BS) 14,663.00 14,663.00 -0-
Post Retirement Fund 5,200.00 5,200.00 -0-
Clergy Care and Wellness Fund (In addition to the Monthly
Collection)
9,732.00 9,732.00 -0-
BALANCE 153,080.25 132,407.36 20,672.89
Votive Offerings
Offered by In Memory of
Sanctuary
Lamp
Bread and Wine
Your Gift to God
April 2-3, 2016
>$100.00 1
$100.00 3
$76-99 1
$75 0
$51-74 0
$50 7
$26-49 15
$25 9
$21-24 1
$20 44
$16-19 0
$15 22
$11-14 3
$10 88
$6-9 10
$5 66
< $5 18
Total Used 288
$32,000
$16,000
$3,200
$22,400
Parish Appeal
$ 25,754.00
$12,800
$28,800
April 3, 2016 Feast of Divine Mercy
ENCYCLICAL LETTER: LAUDATO SI’ of Pope Francis
VII. THE TRINITY AND THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CREATURES
238. The Father is the ultimate source of everything, the loving and self-communicating foundation of all that exists. The Son, his reflection, through whom all things were created, united himself to this earth when he was formed in the womb of Mary. The Spirit, infinite bond of love, is intimately present at the very heart of the universe, inspiring and bringing new pathways. The world was created by the three Persons acting as a single divine principle, but each one of them performed this common work in accordance with his own personal property. Consequently, “when we contemplate with wonder the universe in all its grandeur and beauty, we must praise the whole Trinity”.[169]
239. For Christians, believing in one God who is trinitarian communion suggests that the Trinity has left its mark on all creation. Saint Bonaventure went so far as to say that human beings, before sin, were able to see how each creature “testifies that God is three”. The reflection of the Trinity was there to be recognized in nature “when that book was open to man and our eyes had not yet become darkened”.[170] The Franciscan saint teaches us that each creature bears in itself a specifically Trinitarian structure, so real that it could be readily contemplated if only the human gaze were not so partial, dark and fragile. In this way, he points out to us the challenge of trying to read reality in a Trinitarian key.
240. The divine Persons are subsistent relations, and the world, created according to the divine model, is a web of relationships. Creatures tend towards God, and in turn it is proper to every living being to tend towards other things, so that throughout the universe we can find any number of constant and secretly interwoven relationships.[171] This leads us not only to marvel at the manifold connections existing among creatures, but also to discover a key to our own fulfilment. The human person grows more, matures more and is sanctified more to the extent that he or she enters into relationships, going out from themselves to live in communion with God, with others and with all creatures. In this way, they make their own that trinitarian dynamism which God imprinted in them when they were created. Everything is interconnected, and this invites us to develop a spirituality of that global solidarity which flows from the mystery of the Trinity.
VIII. QUEEN OF ALL CREATION
241. Mary, the Mother who cared for Jesus, now cares with maternal affection and pain for this wounded world. Just as her pierced heart mourned the death of Jesus, so now she grieves for the sufferings of the crucified poor and for the creatures of this
world laid waste by human power. Completely transfigured, she now lives with Jesus, and all creatures sing of her fairness. She is the Woman, “clothed in the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (Rev 12:1). Carried up into heaven, she is the Mother and Queen of all creation. In her glorified body, together with the Risen Christ, part of creation has reached the fullness of its beauty. She treasures the entire life of Jesus in her heart (cf. Lk 2:19,51), and now understands the meaning of all things. Hence, we can ask her to enable us to look at this world with eyes of wisdom.
242. At her side in the Holy Family of Nazareth, stands the figure of Saint Joseph. Through his work and generous presence, he cared for and defended Mary and Jesus, delivering them from the violence of the unjust by bringing them to Egypt. The Gospel presents Joseph as a just man, hard-working and strong. But he also shows great tenderness, which is not a mark of the weak but of those who are genuinely strong, fully aware of reality and ready to love and serve in humility. That is why he was proclaimed custodian of the universal Church. He too can teach us how to show care; he can inspire us to work with generosity and tenderness in protecting this world which God has entrusted to us.
IX. BEYOND THE SUN
243. At the end, we will find ourselves face to face with the infinite beauty of God (cf. 1 Cor 13:12), and be able to read with admiration and happiness the mystery of the universe, which with us will share in unending plenitude. Even now we are journeying towards the sabbath of eternity, the new Jerusalem, towards our common home in heaven. Jesus says: “I make all things new” (Rev 21:5). Eternal life will be a shared experience of awe, in which each creature, resplendently transfigured, will take its rightful place and have something to give those poor men and women who will have been liberated once and for all.
244. In the meantime, we come together to take charge of this home which has been entrusted to us, knowing that all the good which exists here will be taken up into the heavenly feast. In union with all creatures, we journey through this land seeking God, for “if the world has a beginning and if it has been created, we must enquire who gave it this beginning, and who was its Creator”.[172] Let us sing as we go. May our struggles and our concern for this planet never take away the joy of our hope.
245. God, who calls us to generous commitment and to give him our all, offers us the light and the strength needed to continue on our way. In the heart of this world, the Lord of life, who loves us so much, is always present. He does not abandon us, he does not leave us alone, for he has united himself definitively to our earth, and his love constantly impels us to find new ways forward. Praise be to him!
_____________________________________________
[169] JOHN PAUL II, Catechesis (2 August 2000), 4: Insegnamenti 23/2 (2000), 112. [170] Quaest. Disp. de Myst. Trinitatis, 1, 2 concl [171] Cf. THOMAS AQUINAS, Summa Theologiae, I, q. 11, art. 3; q. 21, art. 1, ad 3; q. 47, art. 3. [172] BASIL THE GREAT, Hom. in Hexaemeron, I, 2, 6: PG 29, 8
Liturgical Ministries April 16-17, 2016 Fourth Sunday of Easter
Servers Lectors EMOC
4:00 pm A.J. Kondracki Ann Bergold John Bergold
5:30 pm Michael Boris Diane Gregor Mimi Tosh
8:00 am Nicholas Kreidler Christian Krupsha John Benz
11:00 am James Rushton Sandy Snyder Elaine Snyder
Third Week of Easter April 11-17,2016 Day and Date Time Intention Offered by Events of the Week
Monday, April 11 St. Stanislaus of Krakow
No Morning Mass Scheduled
Tuesday, April 12 EASTER WEEKDAY
8:00 am John Kuczma Mr. & Mrs. John Connell 5:30 p.m. Choir Rehearsal
Wednesday, April 13 Pope St. Martin I
8:00 am Thomas Tomko Carol Zukowski
Thursday, April 14 EASTER WEEKDAY 8:00 am Rosalyn Fazzi Mr. & Mrs. Michael Murphy
10 am Administrative Staff
Noon—5 pm Eucharistic Adoration
5 pm Vespers
6 p.m. Social Justice Council
Friday, April 15 EASTER WEEKDAY
8:00 am Theresa Barber John & Debbie Balut
Saturday, April 16 EASTER WEEKDAY No Morning Mass Scheduled
3 pm Confessions
Fourth Sunday of Easter
Vigil 1 Saturday
4 pm Parishioners Pastor
8 am Mass
9:30—11 am Religious Ed
11 am Mass
Noon RCIA
Vigil 2 Saturday
5:30 pm
Agnes & James McCabe James Jr. & Claire
Mary Therese McCabe
Sunday Sunday
8 am Laurie Merritt
Tony & Lorraine Shurmanek
Sunday Sunday
11 am Craig Cummings
Fr. Ken & the Parish of St. Andre Bessette
AGNUS DAY by Pastor James Weitzstein
is our
Song! We are an
Easter People