More on Souls and Goals

As previously mentioned, Fr. Vogel was recently in St. Louis to compete for the...

... Souls and Goals Soccer Cup.

The game designed to show that priests and men studying for the priesthood take part in normal activities with joy and drew over 1,000 spectators.

Before the game, The Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart of Jesus led the teams and the crowd in evening prayer.

In the game, Kenrick-Glennon Seminary Lions soccer team (who play in the CYC's adult soccer league) faced Clergy and Co., a team of priests and a few of their friends.

 It was a tight game that was scoreless at halftime...

... but the seminarians pulled at a 2-0 win in the end.

You can read more about this in the St. Louis Review. They were the source of the pictures shown above.

Ending the Year of Faith

Today's Feast of Christ the King ends the Year of Faith proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI. The closing Mass in St Peter’s Square included exposition, for public veneration, of the bones of St. Peter. Eight bone fragments were in an open bronze reliquary displayed to the side of the altar.

In 1971, Paul VI was given an urn containing the relics, which were kept inside the private papal chapel inside the Apostolic Palace and exhibited for the pope's private veneration each June 29, for the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. Sunday marked the first time they were shown in public.

During the ceremony, the Pope – the 265th successor of Peter – held the closed reliquary for several minutes in silent prayer while choirs sang the Nicene Creed in Latin. The bones, which were discovered during excavations of the necropolis under St Peter’s Basilica had never been displayed in public.

“When Jesus is at the centre, light shines even the darkest moments of our lives; he gives us hope,” Pope Francis said in his homily.

At St. Columbkille, to mark the end of the Year of Faith we are renewing our Baptismal Promises.

Renewal of Baptismal Promises: (replaces Creed)

Priest:

Brothers and sisters,
through the Paschal Mystery
we have been buried with Christ in Baptism,
so that we may walk with him in newness of life.
And so, as the Year of Faith comes to an end,
let us renew the promises of Holy Baptism,
by which we once renounced Satan and his works
and promised to serve God in the holy Catholic Church.

(Congregation should be standing.)

And so I ask you:

Priest:  Do you renounce sin,
          so as to live in the freedom of the children of God?
ALL:  I do.

Priest: Do you renounce the lure of evil,
          so that sin may have no mastery over you?
ALL:  I do.

Priest:  Do you renounce Satan,
          the author and prince of sin?
ALL:  I do.

Priest: Do you believe in God,
          the Father almighty,
          Creator of heaven and earth?
ALL:  I do.

Priest: Do you believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
          who was born of the Virgin Mary,
          suffered death and was buried,
          rose again from the dead
          and is seated at the right hand of the Father?
ALL:  I do.

Priest: Do you believe in the Holy Spirit,
          the holy Catholic Church,
          the forgiveness of sins,
          the resurrection of the body
          and life everlasting?
ALL:  I do.

Priest: And may almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
          who has given us new birth by water and the Holy Spirit
          and bestowed on us forgiveness of our sins,
          keep us by his grace,
          in Christ Jesus our Lord,
          for eternal life.

ALL:  AMEN.

Fr. Michael Dodd

Fr. Dodd is a Columban priest who has been able to fill in countless times when our priests were at conferences or out of town. A native of Ireland, he was fond of telling the students at the school Masses that he is the national spokesman for Irish Spring.

Fr. Dodd recently wrote: "I am returning to Ireland to be closer to my aging and ailing siblings and also involve myslef on a part time basis in the fundraising ministry of the Columbans over there. I'm aging too -- 77 on my next birthday."

Fr. Dodd is a missionary priests who served in Korea as well as working in the national office in Bellevue. We thank him for his service to God as well as our parish as he returns to his homeland.

National Catholic Youth Conference

 

The 2013 National Catholic Youth Conference (NCYC)

 is underway in Indianapolis. We are represented there.

 

Tonight's Keynote speak is Jackie Francois, who has been to our parish. If you go to NCYC website, you can see streaming video of her keynote address.

These sessions can be watched tomorrow from the same site.

Saturday, November 23

• 8:00 a.m. CST: General Session 3 (Ansel Augustine)
• 10:45 a.m. CST: Workshop D20—What Your Teen Wants You to Know...But Doesn't Tell You! (Roy Petitfils)
• 7:00 p.m. CST: Closing Session and Mass (Archbishop Joseph Tobin, presider and homilist)

Appreciated

Today is National Principal Appreciation Day. At St. Columbkille Catholic School we celebrated after Mass highlighting the qualities Mr. Makey and Mrs. Redburn display as principals at our school.

Thank you Principal Makey and Asst. Principal

 Redburn for your service to our school!

"Now Thank We All Our God"

" Now thank we all our God,
With hearts, and hands, and voices
Who wondrous things hath done,
In whom His world rejoices
Who, from our mothers' arms,
Hath blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love,
And still is ours today." 

-- Traditional hymn

While driving this week I noticed that some homes already were lit up with Christmas lights, and  I was kind of sad about that.

I've come to accept that people like to start decorating early, while the weather is still nice. But jumping ahead to Christmas often means glancing over both Thanksgiving and Advent, two times of the year we should savor and enjoy.

I love Thanksgiving and hate to watch it fade as Christmas shopping not only encroaches upon it but completely envelopes it. As a nation we need an occasion to just pause and say thanks. We often forget how blessed we are and tend to take our freedom and prosperity for granted. We need to remember God, the source of all blessings.

I love the 9 a.m. Masses that St. Columbkille offers on holidays like Thanksgiving, Labor Day, Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. Apparently others do, too, because the pews seem to get fuller each year. Musicians and other liturgical volunteers give us a full celebration.

The holidays become more meaningful in the context of Mass, especially Thanksgiving. Worshipers praise and thank God and ask for His blessings on themselves, their families and even the dinner bread they bring and will later share at home. They also bring food pantry donations, a way to acknowledge their blessedness by sharing with others.

The entire Mass puts me in the right frame of mind to enjoy all the other good things about Thanksgiving --  including food, family and football.

Inspired by this Year of Faith we will be posting columns like this from Susan Szalewski about exploring and/or deepening our faith. Watch for it on Thursdays and see the Year of Faith Blog here.

Our Bishops Met

This week the US Bishops gathered in Baltimore earlier this week. There they heard from apostolic nuncio Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò who encouraged them to be witnesses of Christ. He said, "Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers."

Also during the week, our Archbishop George Lucas was elected by his fellow bishops to Chair of the Committee on Education.

There are currently 265 active and 180 retired Bishops in the United States. Archbishop Elden Curtiss was among the retired bishops attending.

Bishop Christopher Coyne (@bishopcoyne) tweeted some picture from the conference including the one above and two below. Above he shows his view at the conference.

Here he shows how much space the bishops had at their seats.

Above is the device bishops would use to cast their votes.

Cardinal Sean O'Malley decribed the conference in his blog:

There was also time spent at the conference on the situation in the Philippines and how the Catholics of the United States might assist them, both through prayer and monetary contributions, in relief and rebuilding efforts.

Perhaps one of the most widely anticipated actions we took during our meeting was the election of our new president, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky who will succeed Cardinal Dolan in that position. ...

Of course, the issue of the HHS mandate was also discussed at the meeting, and on the final day of the conference, we released a Special Message on the issue that I want to share with you here:

Mary's Minions

Somehow two boys turned a conversation about clothes into a lesson about our Blessed Mother Mary.

My sons Paul, 10, and David, 6, had just changed clothes, and both were wearing striped polo shirts. Paul casually mentioned that he thought his shirt was the color of angels: blue, white and yellow. He said those were the colors he typically saw in artwork of angels.

David, wearing green stripes, said he was wearing Mary's colors.

Wait a minute. What? Paul and I looked at each other, both confused. I told David that blue is traditionally associated with Mary, that she is often pictured wearing it, that sometimes mothers dress their children in blue out of devotion to our Lady, and there's even an old  song and poem about a "Lovely Lady Dressed in Blue."

 So I had to ask, "Why is green Mary's color?"

"Mary wears green, not blue," he said, pointing to a painting behind me. Sure enough, in an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mary was wearing green. 

"OK, green can be Mary's color too."

Then David said, "I could be Mary's minion."

That comment dazed me. Later I realized he probably said that because he was imitating her in wearing green. And of course minions are popular among 6-year-olds now because of the "Despicable Me" movies.

But at the moment I thought, "Wow, where did he get that from?"

I told David that actually Mary has minions. Sometimes they call themselves her children, her servants, even her slaves. And when we place ourselves at her service, we serve Jesus at the same time.

But I kept thinking about minions. What a perfect word. One dictionary has this definition: "a favorite or dependent, especially a servile or fawning one." It's good to be one of Mary's favorites, dependent on her, serving her, even fawning over her. I think her Son would like that.

I'm going to encourage David to be Mary's minion. And I want to be one, too.

Inspired by this Year of Faith we will be posting columns like this from Susan Szalewski about exploring and/or deepening our faith. Watch for it on Thursdays and see the Year of Faith Blog here.

Helping the School at H.S.A.

At the Home School Association (HSA) meeting last night Principal Makey gave an in-depth report on the results of the TerraNova testing that was recently done for all the students in grades 3 through 7. This standardized test is done to assess reading, language, math, science, and social studies. He could immediately see that the effort put into reading the last few years has shown fruits in the scores.

After he displayed the scores grade by grade he showed his teaching roots by asking (rather than telling) if the parents saw any trends? They quickly spotted two. The first is that as the students get older the gap between their scores and the national averages get bigger each year. He said this is what he expected and wanted to see, as it should be in every good school. The second is that while all the scores were higher than the national average, math scores were relatively lower. He then addressed specific, implementable steps the school will undertake to make those scores even better in the future.

Perhaps the most exciting event of the meeting was hearing that the Not-A-Thon, as it came down to the wire brought in $31,500 exceeding the $30,000 goal. In comparison, in previous years selling candy or other items, the best the fundraiser ever netted was just over $15,000. This is due in a large part to a dedicated group of parents who create excitement in the kids to ask for help and in keeping the fundraiser in everyone's minds.

On Friday HSA has their next event: Turkey Bingo. A number of prizes have been collected including a signed Doug McDermott jersey. The food, bingo and fun will all be ready Friday starting at 6 p.m. in the Social Level of the church.

Helping those affected by Typhoon Haiyan

Catholic Relief Services teams arrived at the port in Ormoc (Leyte Island, Phillipines) on Sunday and were in Palo today.  Travel has been extremely slow due to roads clogged with debris. Teams report a large percentage of homes are unlivable. Trees and posts are uprooted and shops and other buildings destroyed. Communication with the Manila office only on a very limited basis through satellite phone with poor signal, as they have not reached any area with cell service yet.

Late yesterday the first information arrived from Samar Island and it is similarly as devastated as Tacloban City, a focus of media reporting.  Initial reports indicate that hundreds are confirmed dead so far and thousands are missing, according to a statement by a local official on November 10th.


Samar Island has approximately 733,000 people. It was the first location that the storm made landfall. Its residents have not been able to get information out or contact loved ones.  Giporlos and Guiuan are reported to be “totally ruined” and 2,000 are listed as missing in Basey alone, according to a member of Samar’s Disaster Management Council.  It is assumed that similar situations will be found in other areas of Southern Samar which took Haiyan’s first direct hit.  UNDAC assessments teams are conducting aerial surveys of Samar today so some additional information will become available.

In addition to 18,000 tarps, CRS support includes water and hygiene supplies and non-food-item kits for 5,000 families. Cash-for-work community clean up and debris removal area also planned.

St Columbkille Parish will hold a Second Collection

this weekend to support Catholic Relief Services.

• $8 provides a water kit for a family. This includes 1 jerry can, 1 pail and aqua tabs for water purification.
• $15 provides an emergency shelter kit. This includes tarps and nails that are combined with local materials to create emergency shelter.
• $22 provides household living supplies. This includes sleeping mats, three blanket, utensils, plastics, glasses, and a cooking pot.
• $28 provides hygiene kits. This includes a two-month family supply of soap, laundry detergent, toothbrush, toothpaste, feminine sanitary napkins, and towels.

Note: Dollar amounts cover items only. They do not include costs associated with distribution, training and monitoring.