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October 26, 2009

October 27th Holy Spirit Novena
Scripture selection is Day 9 Period I.

The Novena Rosary Mysteries  
for October 27th are Joyful.

 

Florida Retreat

November 2nd - 5th

1:30pm & 6:20pm each day

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urgent intention.

   

 

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homily book to a priest

for a little over a dollar.

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October 26, 2009

 

 

  3rd Sunday of Advent
 

Zephaniah 3: 14-18

Shout for joy, daughter of Zion, 
Israel, shout aloud! 
Rejoice, exult with all your heart, 
daughter of Jerusalem! 
Yahweh has repealed your sentence; 
he has turned your enemy away. 
Yahweh is king among you, Israel, 
you have nothing more to fear. 

When that Day comes, 
    the message for Jerusalem will be: 
Zion, have no fear, 
do not let your hands fall limp. 
Yahweh your God is there with you, 
the warrior–Saviour. 
He will rejoice over you with happy song, 
he will renew you by his love, 
he will dance with shouts of joy for you, 
as on a day of festival.

 

Philippians 4: 4-7

    Always be joyful, then, in the Lord; I repeat, be joyful. Let your good sense be obvious to everybody. The Lord is near. Never worry about anything; but tell God all your desires of every kind in prayer and petition shot through with gratitude, and the peace of God which is beyond our understanding will guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.

 

Luke 3: 10-18

    When all the people asked him, 'What must we do, then?' he answered, 'Anyone who has two tunics must share with the one who has none, and anyone with something to eat must do the same.' There were tax collectors, too, who came for baptism, and these said to him, 'Master, what must we do?' He said to them, 'Exact no more than the appointed rate.' Some soldiers asked him in their turn, 'What about us? What must we do?' He said to them, 'No intimidation! No extortion! Be content with your pay!'

    A feeling of expectancy had grown among the people, who were beginning to wonder whether John might be the Christ, so John declared before them all, 'I baptise you with water, but someone is coming, who is more powerful than me, and I am not fit to undo the strap of his sandals; he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fan is in his hand, to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his barn; but the chaff he will burn in a fire that will never go out.' And he proclaimed the good news to the people with many other exhortations too.

 

December 17, 2006

INTRODUCTION:  Our theme for today, as it often is, is summed up in the Psalm Refrain: “Cry out with joy and gladness, for among you is the great and holy one of Israel.”  Our first reading from the prophet Zephaniah goes back about 700 years before Christ.  The Assyrians were the dominant force in the Middle East and were an unusually warlike, brutal people.  Their capital city was in northern Iraq near modern day Mosul.  Our first reading comes from a time shortly after the Assyrians wiped out the northern part of Israel.  They brought severe suffering upon the southern part of Israel too, the area around Jerusalem, but they did not conquer it.  Jerusalem would still stand for another 130 years until the Babylonians conquered it.  The Babylonian empire, as you might remember, was centered around Baghdad and it was after they destroyed the Assyrian empire that they moved on to conquer many other nations in the Middle East which included Judah and Jerusalem.   (It sounds very much like what’s going on over there today, doesn’t it?)  Meanwhile back to Zephaniah 700 years before Christ after the northern part of Israel had been devastated.  Jerusalem was struggling to recover from the near destruction they had suffered, but they didn’t learn their lesson.  Idolatry and immorality were rampant among the Jews.  The king of Judah himself offered his own son as a human sacrifice to the pagan gods.  Most of Zephaniah’s book records his efforts to correct abuses among God’s people.  His book ends on a note of hope, however, as he addresses those who are faithful to God.  He tells them to rejoice and assures them God will rejoice and sing too because of his love for them and for all the blessings that will be theirs.  Can any of us begin to imagine what it would sound like to hear God singing?   

There is something we should be aware of when we hear the second reading too.  St. Paul is sitting in prison somewhere when he wrote this, and prisons in those days were really bad.  Today’s prisons would look like a luxury hotel by comparison.  Yet Paul can be joyful and he is able to encourage the Philippians to have no anxiety and to rejoice always.   

HOMILY  In the days when we had Mass in Latin, today was known as Gaudete Sunday.  That means “Be Joyful.”  The liturgy continues to communicate that theme of joy with rose colored vestments and readings telling us to rejoice.   

So on this Gaudete Sunday I thought you would enjoy a couple of laughs.

First a riddle for you: Why is Christmas just like a day at the office?  Answer: You do all the work, and the guy that wears that big fancy suit gets all the credit. 

A couple were always fascinated by old churches and wherever they traveled if they came near an old church they had to stop and look inside.  Once in a small town church they saw an oddly shaped bell and asked the person cleaning the church what the strange bell was used for.  They were told “That bell is reserved for calamities, like fires, floods, or a visit from the archbishop.”   

Lastly, if laughter really were the best medicine, hospitals would have found a way to charge us for it long ago.   

Laughter fades away, but there is something that lasts and sustains us all the more: joy.  Joy goes deeper than just being funny.  We heard the prophet in today’s first reading telling God's people, during an especially difficult time in their history, to “sing for joy.”  They should sing for joy not because things were wonderful, but because God was in their midst.  And we heard Paul, in prison, tell the Philippians to rejoice always.  The scriptures give us different ideas about joy than our culture does.  Our society seems to tell us joy stems from what we have.  The scriptures tell us our joy comes from what we have (for the Lord is in your midst as Zephaniah tells us) but it also comes from what we will have in some future time, something we can trust in because God is faithful to his promises.   

In the few minutes I have, let me name some of the things that keep us from having joy:  * Feeling sorry for oneself.  * Constantly putting other people down to make ourselves look smarter or better.  * Putting ourselves down all the time.  Because we’re human we all make mistakes or do wrong and there are healthy ways of dealing with guilty or shame, but constantly beating ourselves up is not one of them.  * Holding on to anger and resentment.  It only eats us up inside and does not produce joy.  We have to forgive.  * Thinking that having more things is going to make us happy.  It satisfies us only momentarily.  * And then there’s fear and worry.  Paul says have no anxiety at all.  That might sound impossible but there are so many things that cause us anxiety, which we can do nothing about and we have to leave in God's hands. 

If self pity, guilt, unforgiveness, anger, resentment, fear, and worry work against our having joy, then what will lead to joy?  We must decide to be joyful.  Paul tells the Philippians “rejoice” as if it is something for them to choose to do rather than it being something that just happens to them.  I think it was Abraham Lincoln who said most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.  Dr. Hans Selye, the scientist who developed and researched the concept of stress, would agree.  He said:  it’s generally not the things outside of us that create stress for us, but it’s the way we respond to these things.  Next we need to be good and to do good.  Otherwise we won’t feel good about ourselves.  The people in today’s gospel ask the Baptist, “what should we do?”   John gave them a few specific ideas.  All we have to do is read the gospels or the 10 Commandments and we’ll get the idea that there’s more to a good life than just to say, “I believe!”  Lastly, I think gratitude is the final key to unlock the way to joy.  And again, being grateful is an intentional thing, it is an attitude we must develop.  St. Paul said: “in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.”  A heart that is ungrateful is not happy.  This is not all that could be said about joy, but it’s probably enough for us to think about today.   

My closing words for today are don’t make yourselves so anxious this season that you lose the joy that can be found only in knowing Jesus’ love.  “The Lord, your God, is in your midst.”

  

              

 

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22"

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22"

$100  
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20"

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16"

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18"

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18"

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18"

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18"

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18"

$300  
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18"

$300  
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18"

$300  
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18"

$300  
 Our Lady of Grace w/glass

18"

$300  

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18" $300  
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12"

$200  

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11"

$150  

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$250  
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 12"

$160  
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Tell My People
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The Pain and the Joy

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The Fire of His Love

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So Deep Is the Love of His Heart

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Response to God's Love

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July 31, 1994

Words of Jesus to Members of
Shepherds of Christ Associates:

"My beloved priest-companion, I intend to use the priestly newsletter, Shepherds of Christ, and the movement, Shepherds of Christ Associates, in a powerful way for the renewal of My Church and the world.

"I will use the newsletter and the chapters of Shepherds of Christ Associates as a powerful instrument for spreading devotion to My Heart and My Mother's Heart.

"I am calling many to become members of Shepherds of Christ Associates. To all of them I will give great blessings. I will use them as instruments to help bring about the triumph of the Immaculate Heart and the reign of My Sacred Heart. I will give great graces to the members of Shepherds of Christ Associates. I will call them to be deeply united to My Heart and to Mary's Heart as I lead them ever closer to My Father in the Holy Spirit."

- Message from Jesus to Father Edward J. Carter, S.J., Founder, as given on July 31, 1994,
feast of Saint Ignatius Loyola, Founder of the Society of Jesus (The Jesuits)

 

  

 

  


 

The China Church is over 140 years old

and we pray in there 24 hours a day.

It needs stucco and so does

the community building.

Can you please help us?

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Likewise the priest house

is 150 years old.

Jesus told us to repair it

which we have been doing.

We need $13,000.00 for this work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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we need $1,200 postage for this

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