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Twenty-First Sunday of the Year
21 August 2011
Dear Friends in Christ,
A few items for your attention:
1. Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is the official overseas relief agency of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. CRS provides immediate and direct support to suffering people all over the world, often in places that have been ravaged by warfare or natural disaster. At this moment, a famine of terrible proportions is endangering the lives of millions of people in Africa, and CRS is our best means of helping to alleviate great suffering for people who cannot help themselves. To make a tax deductible gift to CRS, go to their website at www.crs.org, and just choose the “Donate” link at the top of the page. Also on that website you will find a wealth of information about Catholic Relief Services and their many crucial projects around the world.
2. Three men from our parish have been accepted by Bishop Guglielmone to begin several years of formation in the hope of being ordained to the permanent diaconate. Nestor Acosta, Joe Sanfilippo, and Tom Whalen will all begin their studies in September, along with about 40 other men from around the diocese. During their years of formation, they will spend many hours studying all of the sacred sciences, learning about the interior life, and preparing to serve the Church in a ministry of Word and charity for the rest of their lives. Please remember these men and the other deacon aspirants of our diocese in your prayers. Pray, too, for their wives and families who must support these men in their work by being willing to let them be absent from the family for their formation and future ministry.
3. The Diocese of Charleston organizes periodic medical mission trips to Guatemala, a beautiful but impoverished country that is about the same distance from Greenville as Denver, Colorado. On Tuesday of this week at 6.30 pm, Master Sergeant Edwin Diaz, USMC — who was on the last diocesan mission to Guatemala — will present a photo essay on the places visited and the people served by the team from South Carolina. The presentation will take place in McGrady Hall in the church undercroft, and everyone is welcome to attend. The photos are extraordinary and brilliantly reveal a place that most of us think of as far away and strange but to which we are bound by the Gospel of Jesus Christ as brothers and sisters. Please join MSgt Diaz this Tuesday evening to learn more.
4. This week the sacred liturgy has several items of special interest. Tuesday is the feast of St. Rose of Lima, a beautiful Dominican from Peru who is the first canonized saint of the New World. On Wednesday we keep the feast of St. Bartholomew, one of the Twelve Apostles, which also makes Wednesday Fr. Bart’s name day. And Saturday is the feast of St. Monica, the mother of St. Augustine and a special patroness for those who pray for the conversion of others, particularly their own adult children. St. Rose, St. Bartholomew, and St. Monica: pray for us!
Father Newman