Penance Service

Kathy Uncategorized

This coming week we have a wonderful opportunity to take part in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, as we will have the Advent Penance Service on December 12th at St. Valentine Church. This service will begin at 7 p.m. with a little preparation followed by individual confession.

Besides Fr. Kishore and myself there will be Fr. Rick Hartmann and Fr. Sal Briffa from the Clergy Village and Fr. Pat Brennan from St. Paul of the Cross. Advent is a good time to heal all that keeps us from experiencing the divine love and mercy.

 

A Christmas Gift for Your Parish

 I have mentioned it several times how I love being a priest and as a priest I have also mentioned how I dislike asking for money. While I firmly believe in the priority of spirituality over materialism, every year before Christmas I have to ask this of you because it’s something necessary for the parish. So here I come to remind you how important it is to make a generous gift to the parish at Christmas. The Archdiocese gives all parishes a special exemption from the 7% diocese assessment for the Christmas collection, so your Christmas contribution stays right here. And I assure you that every dollar you contribute will be used for the good and betterment of St Valentine  parish community. Thank you for your generosity this Christmas as well as throughout the year.

Fr. Socorro

For Families and Individuals

Prayer is the most powerful way each of us can prepare our hearts and minds to recognize Jesus in each of the people we will encounter at Christmas, and to extend his love and mercy to them. The following are suggestions for ways to pray as families and as individuals during Advent and beyond.

· Read and pray with Luke 2 and discuss how Mary and Joseph went from place to place in hope of being welcomed in Bethlehem, but could not find a room. Pray for the grace to welcome those they do not know, share their seats, smile, and encourage conversation.

· Pray for God’s grace to connect with a family who comes at Christmas, and to welcome them with radical hospitality.

· Pray for the courage to invite another family (or individual) to a Christmas liturgy.

· Pray intentionally for those who wills serve as liturgical ministers at the Christmas liturgies, for those who will assume particular hospitality roles, and for those who will attend the Christmas liturgies.

· For all Saturday/Sunday liturgies during Advent, invite parishioners to pray and fast for the guests who will attend the Christmas liturgies.

· Pray for protection for the parish during the Christmas liturgies. Ask the Lord to place a “hedge of protection” around the parish grounds, the building, all staff, parishioners, and guests: “Lord, place a hedge of protection around our parish grounds, the church building, all of our parishioners, and those who will join us for Christmas. Keep in what is holy and is of you, and cast out what is not. We ask this in Jesus’ holy name. Amen.”

Taken from The AOD Radically Mission-Oriented Christmas Playbook

Honoring, Praying for the Dead

Kathy Upcoming Event, Weekly message

One of the ways we as Catholics remember our dead is to pray for them.  The Bible offers several accounts of prayer for the dead, the earliest of which is seen in the Second Book of Maccabees.  Other early evidence of the Christian practice of praying for the dead can be found in the Roman catacombs, where inscriptions include both prayers for the dead and requests for prayers. Early Church Fathers such as Tertullian and Augustine also witness to the tradition of praying for departed family and friends.

Prayers for the dead begin as soon as the person dies.  Among its various rites, the Order of Christian Funerals includes “Prayers after Death” and “Gathering in the Presence of the Body.”  Both of these rites are to bring comfort to the mourners at the time of death or shortly thereafter.

 As the Order of Christian Funerals (OCF) states, “At the death of a Christian, whose life of faith was begun in the waters of baptism and strengthened at the Eucharistic table, the Church intercedes on behalf of the deceased because of its confident belief that death is not the end nor does it break the bonds forged in life” (4)

The funeral liturgy, especially the celebration of the Mass, is the primary way the community offers prayers for their dead: The OCF states, “At the funeral rites, especially at the celebration of the       Eucharistic sacrifice, the Christian community affirms and expresses the union of the Church on earth with the Church in heaven in the one great communion of saints”(6). 

 After the funeral liturgy, the community continues to remember and pray for the dead at “Masses for the Dead,” on special anniversaries and occasions, on solemnities such as All Saints and All Souls’ Day, and during the Eucharistic Prayer. 

 We offer our prayers for the dead to commend them to God’s   merciful love, to ease their transition from this life to the next, and to keep them close at heart. As the Order of Christian Funerals  states,” Though separated from the Living, the dead are still at one with the community of believers on earth and benefit from their prayers and intercession” (6).

www.PastoralLiturgy*magazine,November/December2018, Kathy Kuczka

First Annual St. Valentine Christmas Holiday Walk

Saturday, December 15th

Dinner 4 pm—7 pm

The Holiday Walk Homes will be open at 5 pm until 8 pm

Come join us back at the gym for caroling, cookies and raffles

8 pm – 9:30 pm

Adults $15

Teens 13-17 – $10

Children 12 and under $5

Tickets may be purchased  in the back of Church after all the Masses.

 

Pope Francis invites the faithful to pray the Rosary in October – Vatican News.

Kathy Weekly message

The Holy Father has decided to invite all the faithful, of all the world, to pray the Holy Rosary every day, during the entire Marian month of October, and thus to join in communion and in penitence, as the people of God, in asking the Holy Mother of God and Saint Michael Archangel to protect the Church from the devil, who always seeks to separate us from God and from each other.

 In recent days, the Holy Father met with Father. Fréderic Fornos, S.J., international director of the World Network of Prayer for the Pope, and asked him to spread this appeal to all the faithful throughout the world, inviting them to conclude the recitation of the Rosary with the ancient invocation “We fly to Thy protection”, and with the prayer to Saint Michael Archangel that he protect us and help us in the struggle against evil (cf. Revelation 12, 7-12).

The prayer – the Pontiff affirmed a few days ago, on 11 September, in a homily at Santa Marta, citing the first book of Job – is the weapon against the Great Accuser who “goes around the world seeking to accuse”. Only prayer can defeat him. The Russian mystics and the great saints of all the traditions advised, in moments of spiritual turbulence, to shelter beneath the mantle of the Holy Mother of God pronouncing the invocation “We fly to Thy protection, O Holy Mother of God. Do not despise our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O Glorious and Blessed Virgin”.

 With this request for intercession the Holy Father asks the faithful of all the world to pray that the Holy Mother of God place the Church beneath her protective mantle: to preserve her from the attacks by the devil, the great accuser, and at the same time to make her more aware of the faults, the errors and the abuses committed in the present and in the past, and committed to combating without any hesitation, so that evil may not prevail.

The Holy Father has also asked that the recitation of the Holy Rosary during the month of October conclude with the prayer written by Leo XIII: Saint Michael Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl through the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

 

Rosary Rally

To celebrate the anniversary of Fatima our parish is having a rosary rally next Saturday on October 13 at 12 noon in front of the Church. All are welcome to join us.