A New Photo Directory

It's been six years since our last Photo Directory.

It's time for a new one!

Click on the link to make your appointment.

The directory doesn't cost the parish anything. The directory knows that about half of our parishioners will decide to purchase some additional pictures. They also know that the other half will be content with their free 8 x 10 picture and free copy of the directory.

Please get you picture taken.

The directory won't be complete without you!

Dogs providing Therapy

Students in our After School Care program

were recently visited by some Therapy Dogs.

These animals are trained to visit people in hospitals,

nursing homes and other places where they

can provide comfort simply by being there.

We can learn something from therapy dogs.



From Pope Benedict's Easter Homily

At the beginning of the Liturgy of the Word on Easter night, then, comes the account of the creation of the world. Two things are particularly important here in connection with this liturgy. On the one hand, creation is presented as a whole that includes the phenomenon of time. The seven days are an image of completeness, unfolding in time. They are ordered towards the seventh day, the day of the freedom of all creatures for God and for one another. Creation is therefore directed towards the coming together of God and his creatures; it exists so as to open up a space for the response to God’s great glory, an encounter between love and freedom. On the other hand, what the Church hears on Easter night is above all the first element of the creation account: "God said, ‘let there be light!’" (Gen 1:3). The creation account begins symbolically with the creation of light. The sun and the moon are created only on the fourth day. The creation account calls them lights, set by God in the firmament of heaven. In this way he deliberately takes away the divine character that the great religions had assigned to them. No, they are not gods. They are shining bodies created by the one God. But they are preceded by the light through which God’s glory is reflected in the essence of the created being.

What is the creation account saying here? Light makes life possible. It makes encounter possible. It makes communication possible. It makes knowledge, access to reality and to truth, possible. And insofar as it makes knowledge possible, it makes freedom and progress possible. Evil hides. Light, then, is also an expression of the good that both is and creates brightness. It is daylight, which makes it possible for us to act. To say that God created light means that God created the world as a space for knowledge and truth, as a space for encounter and freedom, as a space for good and for love. Matter is fundamentally good, being itself is good. And evil does not come from God-made being, rather, it comes into existence only through denial. It is a "no".

At Easter, on the morning of the first day of the week, God said once again: "Let there be light". The night on the Mount of Olives, the solar eclipse of Jesus’ passion and death, the night of the grave had all passed. Now it is the first day once again – creation is beginning anew. "Let there be light", says God, "and there was light": Jesus rises from the grave. Life is stronger than death. Good is stronger than evil. Love is stronger than hate. Truth is stronger than lies. The darkness of the previous days is driven away the moment Jesus rises from the grave and himself becomes God’s pure light. But this applies not only to him, not only to the darkness of those days. With the resurrection of Jesus, light itself is created anew. He draws all of us after him into the new light of the resurrection and he conquers all darkness. He is God’s new day, new for all of us.

Happy Easter

On the last day of preschool before the Easter

Break, we set out for an Easter Egg Hunt.

It was a beautiful day to be outside.

Once inside, we compared eggs.

We prepared to go home with an Easter surprise on our heads.

 We wish everyone a Happy Easter!

The Secret and Solution to Family Problems Lie in the Crucified Christ

Each year in Rome, The Way of the Cross is celebrated at the

Colosseum. Meditations for the 14 stations are written each year.

This year, at Pope Benedict XVI's request, Anna Maria and Danilo Zanzucchi wrote the reflections. It is the first time the reflections have been written by a married couple. Anna Maria and Danilo are an Italian couple with 5 children and 12 grandchildren.

“In the face of such an important task, our first reactions were of wonder and trepidation, for we did not feel equal to it,” Danilo said.

“In reflecting on the Cross," Anna said, "We felt that not only the Church but the whole of humanity is caught up in this mystery. It is also clear how much Christ must have suffered, like any human being but with the sensitivity of a God.

“In our meditations, we have sought to convey our impressions of what Jesus lived in those moments, seeking to actualize them in the light of our own experience. It was not of course easy because we stand before such a great mystery. Yet we firmly believe that the secret and the solution to family problems lie in the Crucified Jesus. Christ on the Cross gave meaning to the pain we must face.

“I would just like to tell families in difficulty that we too have had our problems. Our marriage was born from reciprocal love like the marriage of every husband and wife. It is this spark that nourishes marriage. However, this love is sometimes extinguished because of many factors, it remains hidden and is forgotten, but its initial impetus lives on although it is smothered by the worries, misunderstandings and dramas of daily life. It must be rediscovered in the light of the love of God which unites. Christianity, in fact, brings two people who seek to love God and to love each other to be at once united and nevertheless distinct."

For their meditations, see the Vatican website.

Here is one excerpt:

As with each individual Christian, so each family has its own way of the cross, marked by sickness, death, financial troubles, poverty, betrayal, wrongdoing, clashes with relatives, natural disasters.

Yet each Christian, each family, in walking this path of sorrows, can look resolutely to Jesus, man and God.

Living the Stations and Resurrection

Eighth grade students led a Living Stations of the Cross and the Resurrection for the rest of the students at St. Columbkille Catholic School.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Afterwards the eight grade students prayed

and reflected on their experiences.

Hunting for Easter Eggs

A natural result of gathering to grow in faith is the desire to serve. One of our SPIRITuality ALIVE groups, the Morning Moms, experienced this first hand. They planned an Easter Egg Hunt for the women and children at Restored Hope on Sunday, March 25.  These pictures show how it went!!

 



In the Shadow

When the sculpture is covered, in the spring afternoons at about 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. there is an interesting shadow that appears in the church.

What do you think it looks like?

Palm Sunday

 Before Masses last weekend all of our palms were blessed.

Some of us prepared to process with

 our palms like Jesus did long ago.

 

 Some of us got to carry lots of palms.



Our Stations of the Cross

When our second church was built in 1923, the Altar Society raised $570 to purchase 14 Stations of the Cross for the worship space, as pictured above.

In 1982 when we moved into our current

 church, the Stations moved as well.

The cover of today's bulletin is one of those images.