The Annual Bishop’s Appeal has started. Our goal this year has gone up a little to $13,406.64. We may have trouble making it this year because some of our bigger donors have moved out of town to be closer to their families. Illness and death have also taken a toll on the parish this year. So, please pray over your sacrificial gift to the Bishop’s Appeal this week and especially during Mass today. As usual you can give on line, make sure you mention St. Augustine’s to give the parish credit. You can also drop your pledge card in the collection or give it to Father Len.
Today is Respect Life Sunday. We should respect all life from the womb until natural death. October is also the Month of the Rosary. It would be good to pray the rosary everyday as a sign of our respect for all life. We can include in our prayer the Synod on Young People taking place in Rome and Judy Wade, who went home to the Father last week.
Now that school has started in the entire area, please drive safely and watch out for the children. There is a clever sign on Diamond which reads: Drive like your kids lived here! That is good advice all the time.
The hole in the parking lot has been repaired. The cost was $1,750.00
There will be a Rosary for Abuse Victims at St. Joseph High School Football Stadium today, Sunday, Oct. 7, 2018 from 4 – 5 PM. All are invited. For more info contact RosaryCoastToCoast.com or call Fr. Glen Kohrman at 574-282-2317.
Our first reading today from 2 Genesis is one of the biblical creation stories. We usually remember the six days of creation with God resting on the seventh. In today’s version God has created man and then creates the animals, which man names, giving him some power over them. Finally, God creates woman from the rib of the man, making man and woman one flesh. “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one flesh.”
Jesus uses this passage in today’s Gospel while talking about the sacred nature of marriage. If the marriage is sacramental, Jesus says there can not be a divorce. Some people should not marry one another and that is true. The Church has an annulment process to look at such marriages. In the second part of the Gospel, Jesus tells us our faith must be as that of children. “Amen. I say to you, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it.” Faith can be difficult, but it must be simple.
In our second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews, we are called brothers/sisters of Jesus because he became one of us to save us through his suffering and death. Jesus suffers and dies to lead us home to the Father.
On Thursday, the Church celebrates Saint John XXIII. He was elected Pope at a difficult time in the Church. He was very old and not expected to do much. However, he convoked Vatican II and threw open the windows of the Church, letting the Holy Spirit modernize the Church. Vatican II emphasized the role of the laity in the Church and most obviously gave us the Mass and Sacraments in the vernacular, just to mention two.
Let us continue to pray for peace in the world. Let us also pray for vocations to the church. Let us pray for the sick of the parish. Let us pray that all will come to respect life. Let us pray for one another and for the canonization of Father Tolton. Let us also pray for those who are victims of sexual abuse.
A Father Tolton Prayer: Father in Heaven, Father Tolton’s suffering service sheds light upon our sorrows; we see them through the prism of your Son’s passion and death. If it be your Will, O God, glorify your servant Father Tolton, by granting the favor I now request through his intercession (mention your request) so that all may know the goodness of this priest whose memory looms large in the Church he loved. Complete what you have begun in us that we might work for the fulfillment of your kingdom. Not to us the glory, but glory to you O God, through Jesus Christ, your Son and our Lord; Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you are our God, living and reigning forever and ever. Amen.