Announcements

1.      On the Thursday of this coming week we celebrate the beautiful feast of All Saints. Masses will be celebrated in St. Joseph Church at 6 am and in St. Jude Chapel at 6 pm. We would like to invite you to come and celebrate this solemnity. On the 2^nd of November we celebrate the All Souls day. Masses will be celebrated in St. Joseph Church at 6 am and 6 pm. Before masses we will recite the rosary for our departed brothers and sisters after theses masses we will go with short and simple procession to our so called ‘private cemetery’. Once again we would like to invite you and pray for the departed members of our community.

2.      We would like to remind you that in comming days you can obtain the indulgence for the souls of those who are dear to you. A partial indulgence can be obtained by devoutly visiting a cemetery and praying for the departed, even if the prayer is only mental. One can gain a plenary indulgence visiting a cemetery between November 1 and November 8 and fulfilling ordinary conditions: a.) the faithful must receive the sacrament of confession, either eight days before or after the pious act is performed, b.) receive Holy Communion on that day; c.) and recite prayers for the intentions of the Holy Father (one Our Father and one Hail Mary is the minimum, but any other additional prayers may be added). These indulgences are applicable only to the Souls in Purgatory.

3.      To deepen our experience and understanding during this year of ‘Faith’ you are invited to join the RCIA group as we explore the ALPHA Programme. Alpha can help to dispel our doubts, answer questions about our faith, and help us to live our Christian faith. We meet on Fridays @7pm.

4.       Registration for Infant Baptisms for November 17th & December 15th is ongoing. Parents are asked to register on Monday afternoon’s at the parish office.

5.      The next Mass for the Sick and Shut-ins is November 17^th @ 10am at St. Joseph. Eucharistic Ministers who take Holy Communion to the Sick, please make arrangements for these persons to attend this Mass. If transport is needed or if you can assist with transport, please notify Chris Singh.

6.      Envelopes for the Novena of Masses for our Deceased Relatives & Friends are now available. You can place the completed envelopes in the Collection Basket, or give it to Father, Catherine our Sacristan, Mr. Smith or Deacon Jeffrey. We would like to encourage you to offer masses for the dead. We are still together in the same community of the Church and we rely on the help of one another. So let us pray for our departed and help them to reach the heaven.

7.      Please enjoy reading of our parish Newsletter.

8.      From this week the office hours of the Parish Priest are: Thursdays and Fridays, 4 - 5 pm.

Cinema Club Feature Movie - Padre Pio

On Nov 11th, the Cinema will present the film “Padre Pio”. This movie captures Padre Pio's intense faith and devotion, and deep spiritual concern for others, as well as his great compassion for the sick and suffering. 

It reveals the amazing details and events in Padre Pio's life as a boy and throughout his 50 years as a friar, especially his wounds of the stigmata. The movie dramatizes the frequent attacks of the Devil on him, as well as the persecution he suffered at the hands of people, including those in the church.

The movie is 3 and a half hours long and therefore will start promptly at 4pm and have a brief intermission at the end of Part 1. The movie will be followed by a short discussion on how we can follow the saint’s virtues. The movie is open to all over the age of 15. Bring along snacks to share with others. Come and enjoy faith, fellowship and inspiration with your fellow parishoners.

Should Catholics Participate in Halloween Festivities?

If we want to bring Christ’s wandering sheep back into the fold, we need to follow the same pattern of creative evangelization.

by Father John Bartunek, LC | Source: Catholic.net

Question: Some parents at the Catholic school where my child attends want to have a Halloween Party. I am really disturbed by this. To me it seems clearly antithetical to our faith to celebrate a pagan ritual rooted in the idea that sacrifice to demonic spirits would ward off their punishment. Even if the meaning is watered down at this point, the practice still celebrates evil and minimizes its dangers and realities. Am I on target here or do I just need to relax and let this happen?

Answer: Let’s start by making some practical distinctions, and then reflect on the spiritual principle touched on by this question – a principle that comes into play more often than just on Halloween.

If the proposed Halloween party is to take place at the Catholic school, it is perfectly reasonable to be concerned.  If the proposed party is to take place at the family’s house, your indignation should be a bit less strident, I would imagine, and should be mixed with compassion for this couple that may not be as educated as you are in the Catholic faith.  In the second case, your reaction will depend on the quality of your relationship with that couple.  If you know them, you may want to approach them to talk about it – after all, their idea of a Halloween party may have no relationship to demonic sacrifices or celebrating evil.  If you don’t know the couple, you may want to make this an occasion to introduce yourself, or you may want to simply make sure your own children understand your concerns and have clear ideas about Halloween.

In any of the above cases, however, your goal should be to build momentum at the school to celebrate All Hallow’s Eve (an earlier name for “Halloween”) in a Catholic way.  Kids like Halloween.  If you appear to be stomping on their fun for religious reasons, you could easily created the impression that the Catholic faith leaves no room for fun.  Bad (and wrong) idea.

Catholic Halloween?

So, what is the Catholic way to celebrate All Hallow’s Eve?  When the Church’s Solemnity of All Saints was moved to November 1 (back in the ninth century), it gave Catholics a chance to baptize an ancient pagan tradition.  The Celtic peoples used to celebrate their New Year on November 1, and they believed that the spirits of the dead, both good and evil, wandered earth again the night before.  To protect themselves from those spirits, they had ceremonies involving costumes and fire – lighting bonfires to keep the ghouls away, and wearing sacred masks to scare them, for example.  A later Roman tradition (pagan Rome) added trick-or-treating to the Celtic practice, as the Romans celebrated the harvest at the same time.  (More fun facts and a more detailed history can be found at this resource list.)  Baptizing these pagan customs simply involved interacting with the dead from a Christian perspective instead of a non-Christian one.  And so, on November 1 we honor and ask for intercession from the saints – the dead who died in friendship with Christ and are now in heaven – while on November 2 we pray for the souls in purgatory – the dead who died in friendship with Christ but are still being purified from selfishness before they can enjoy the fullness of communion with God.

It isn’t hard to give a Halloween party a Christian spin, when this is understood.  Costumes can be those of saints.  Treats can be related to heaven.  Games can be fun, celebrating the hope for eternal life…

Creative Evangelization

And that brings us to the spiritual principle at work here.  As the Church expanded into pagan lands, Christians had to figure out how to communicate their faith to people with radically different world views.  Almost always, the most fruitful interaction was that in which the Christians were able to find some seeds of truth or beauty in the pagan practices, embrace them, and show their more complete meaning in the Christian context.  In other words, whenever missionaries met the pagans where they were at, the pagans more easily learned to understand and appreciate the Christian faith.  On the other hand, when the Christians met pagan customs only with blanket condemnation, progress was harder to come by.

Let me quote Pope St Gregory the Great’s advice to missionaries in seventh-century England in this regard (just so you don’t think I’m making it up):

Do not destroy the pagan temples, but instead sprinkle them with holy water, set up altars in them, and place relics there.  In the places where it has been the pagan custom to offer sacrifices to their diabolical idols, allow them to celebrate Christian festivals instead, in another form, on the same date.  For example, on the festival of the blessed Martyrs, have the faithful make bowers of branches, and organize love feasts there.  In permitting the converted these external pleasures, the joys of the soul will be more easily acquired.  We cannot wipe the whole post from these savage souls all at once.  A man does not climb a mountain in great bounds, but by taking slow, steady steps. (Letter to Miletus, 601)

Today we are missionaries in a neo-pagan culture, in many ways.  If we want to bring Christ’s wandering sheep back into the fold, we need to follow the same pattern of creative evangelization.  I hope you can do so this upcoming Halloween.

Yours in Christ, Fr John Bartunek, LC, ThD 

Novena to St. Jude

We would like to invite you to give thanks to God with us for St. Jude asking St. Jude to pray with and for us. We gather at St. Jude Chapel, Mt. D’or:
Friday, 19th of October: Novena at 5.30 pm followed by Holy Mass at 6.00 pm.
Saturday, 20th of October: Novena at 4.30 pm followed by Holy Mass at 6.00 pm.
Sunday, 21st October – Wednesday, 24th October: Novena at
5.30 pm

Triduum to St. Jude: The Faith
Saturday, 26th October, the Feast of St. Jude, our Saint Patron: Novena at 4.30 pm followed by Holy Mass at 5.00 pm

Thursday, 25th October and Friday, 26th October: Novena at 5.30 pm followed by Holy Mass and Conference at 6.00 pm



About St. Jude

St. Jude is known as the brother of Saint James the Less. According to tradition, he wrote the epistle bearing his name in the New Testament as well, although this is not as certain.

In his letter he stressed having faith in apostolic teachings in the midst of heresies through fraternal charity, prayer, and loving obedience to God. According to the historian Eusebius he assisted in his brother St. Simeon’s election as Bishop of Jerusalem in 62 A.D.

St. Jude is said to have preached the gospel in such regions as Judea, Samaria, Libya, and Mesopotamia, before suffering martyrdom in Armenia, which was then part of Persia. According to one account, he is said to have cured the King of Edessa’s leprosy in Mesopotamia with an image of Jesus’s face that our Lord had pressed on a cloth.

The king was so impressed he converted to Christianity, along with much of his family and kingdom. Talk about a picture being worth a thousand words! St. Jude converted countless others to the faith as well.

He is often shown in drawings, like the one above, holding an image of Jesus in one hand and a club (a symbol of his martyrdom) in the other. Often the Holy Spirit is seen over his head as a tongue of fire (in remembrance of Pentecost when He came upon the apostles).

- Excerpt taken from Our Catholic Prayers

The Year of Faith 2012 - 2013

Over the last two weeks I'm sure that you've been hearing about the Year of Faith. Either about preparing for it or about its celebration on October 11th 2012. But what is the Year of Faith all about?

One of the primary objectives of the year of Faith is simply about rediscovering the journey of faith in the Catholic church with renewed vigor, love and enthusiasm for the church. During this year we're asked not to just receive the Body and Blood of Christ during the Eucharist but to receive it and allow it to be apart of us as we continue to grow in faith and love for the Holy Catholic Church.  

However, this is only the beginning of what is asked of us. This poster taken from CTS Catholic Compass sums it up nicely.

The Year of Faith also has its own logo.

It is composed of a square, bordered field on which a boat, symbolizing the Church, is represented as sailing on a graphically minimal representation of waves. The main mast of the boat is a cross from which sails are displayed in the form of dynamic signs which compose the trigram of Christ (IHS). The background to the sails is a sun which, associated with the trigram, refers also to the Eucharist.

To read the entire Apostolic Letter entitled "PORTA FIDEI" you can click on this link http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/motu_proprio/documents/hf_ben-xvi_motu-proprio_20111011_porta-fidei_en.html

   

So how do you see yourself growing during this Year of Faith. In our parish we encourage you to join one or more of our many groups that will help encourage you to develop your faith. Below is a list of some of our groups within the parish.

Do you have further suggestions or would you like to share how you would like to celebrate this Year of Faith? Then you are encouraged to leave a comment in the below .

God Bless.