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Twenty-Fourth Sunday of the Year
15 September 2007
Dear Friends in Christ,
A few items for your attention:
1. Each year, the priests of the Diocese of Charleston go on retreat with our bishop to Kanuga Conference Center outside of Hendersonville, NC, and that retreat is this week. Because of Bishop Baker’s imminent transfer to Birmingham, our retreat takes on an added dimension this year, and I ask you to keep in prayer the priests who serve the Church in South Carolina and the bishop who has led us for the past eight years. Pray also for the next Bishop of Charleston who will be chosen by Pope Benedict sometime in the coming months.
2. Because of the retreat, we will not have the 7 am Mass on Wednesday morning or the Holy Hour on Wednesday afternoon of this week, but the rest of the sacramental schedule remains unchanged. Please remember to check the bulletin and the website regularly to be certain of the Mass schedule.
3. This Friday is the Feast of St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist. We learn in Holy Scripture that Matthew (also called Levi) was a tax collector in Galilee, a despised occupation for a Jew in the Roman Empire—closer to a modern loan shark than an IRS agent. The Lord Jesus called Matthew to follow him, and that encounter and conversion changed both Matthew’s life and the course of human history, through the influence of the Gospel which Matthew wrote. One ancient tradition holds that after the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus, Matthew preached the Gospel in Ethiopia and was martyred there.
4. We are now in the middle of Phase Two of our Fifteen Year Master Plan, and this Autumn I will write to the parish about our progress with the capital campaign and with the projects which your contributions make possible. Please remember that our financial needs never diminish and that we count on the regular and generous support of every family in the parish to sustain both our normal operating expenses and our capital improvements. Thank you for your commitment to St. Mary’s, and please be mindful of the parish throughout the year, even when you are traveling.
Praised be Jesus Christ! Now and forever!
Father Newman