Mission Co-Op Appeal

My Dear Parishioners,

We are so blessed to have so many Religious Communities of priests in our Archdiocese. There are the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales who minister our high schools and De Sales University as well as our parishes. There are the Jesuit Fathers who minister at St. Joseph’s Prep and St. Joseph’s University. There are the Vincentian Fathers who minister in the inner city while still caring for the Miraculous Medal Shrine. There are the Augustinian Fathers who minister at Villanova University and care for parishes and St. Rita’s Shrine. There are the Redemptorist Fathers who care for the St. John Neumann Shrine. Then there is of course the Pauline Fathers who care for the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa while doing great parish work.

This weekend we are joined by Father John Baptist Opargiw of the Carboni Missionaries as part of the annual Mission Co-Op Appeal.

The Carboni Fathers are a community with which I am not that familiar. There website states: For 150 years, the Comboni Missionaries have traveled to nearly every corner of the world, sharing the good news of Christ and working to protect the dignity of all people.

Founded in 1867 by St. Daniel Comboni, the Comboni Missionaries are an international Catholic organization dedicated to ministering to the world’s poorest and most abandoned people, often working in unstable political climate, in the midst of extreme poverty. Despite these challenges, our missionaries are dedicated to their mission of serving God’s people.

With our founder, St. Daniel Comboni, as an inspiration since our beginning 150 years ago, we work for the full development of the human person. We do this through evangelization, education, and advocacy until those we minister to can take over those roles – not just for themselves but for others in need.

So, together we will learn more about them and the good work that they do.

We will also have an opportunity to support the Office of Propagation of the Faith, and the Mission Co-Op Appeal.

Please be open to Father John Baptist Opargiw’s message and please be open to supporting the Mission Appeal. The second collection this weekend is for the Mission Appeal. The donations collected will be sent through the parish to the Office for the Propagation of the Faith of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. There are special envelopes in the Narthex for those who wish to use them.

Just think of the lives that are transformed by this Mission Co- Op Appeal. Most likely, we will never meet those we have touched through the Appeal in this world, but we will, with great hope, meet them in the world to come. There as we walk through those Pearly Gates, someone whom we had never met before will greet us, and thank us, for making the Good News of the Gospel known to them through the Mission Appeal.

This Friday, August 1, was the Feast of St. Alphonsus Liguori, the Founder of the Redemptorists. I have included in this week’s newsletter a teaching from Pope Benedict XVI on prayer in the eyes of St. Alphonsus.

Let us continue to lay siege to Heaven for the Texas flood victims and all victims of natural disasters and their families, for peace in the Middle East and the protection of our service personnel, for the conversion all of hearts to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, for our fallen away loved ones, for the sick, for those on hospice, for the unemployed and underemployed, and for each other.

St. Joseph, Patron of the Church and our Patron, pray for us!

Fr. Michael J Pawelko, Pastor

 

St Alphonsus Mary Liguori and Prayer Pope Benedict XVI

Let us knock at the Lord’s door with trust

The Holy Father addressed the faithful taking part in the General audience of Wednesday, 1 August [2012], in Piazza della Libertà, the square outside the Papal residence in Castel Gandolfo. Resuming the General Audiences after the summer break — the last was held on 27 June in the Vatican — the Pope focused his Catechesis in Italian on the teaching of St Alphonsus Mary Liguori. The following is a translation.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today is the Liturgical Memorial of St Alphonsus Mary Liguori, Bishop and Doctor of the Church, Founder of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer — the Redemptorists — and patron saint of moral theology scholars and confessors. St Alphonsus is one of the most popular saints of the 18th century because of his simple, immediate style and his teaching on the sacrament of Penance. In a period of great rigorism, a product of the Jansenist influence, he recommended that confessors administer this sacrament expressing the joyful embrace of God the Father, who in his infinite mercy never tires of welcoming the repentant son.

Today’s Memorial offers us the opportunity to reflect on St Alphonsus’ teaching on prayer which is particularly valuable and full of spiritual inspiration. His Treatise on The Great Means of Prayer, which he considered the most useful of all his writings, dates back to the year 1759. Indeed, he describes prayer as “a necessary and certain means of obtaining salvation, and all the graces that we require for that object.” This sentence sums up the way St Alphonsus understood prayer.

First of all, by saying that it is a means, he reminds us of the goal to be reached. God created us out of love in order to be able to give us life in its fullness; but this goal, this life in fullness, has as it were, become distant because of sin — we all know it — and only God’s grace can make it accessible. To explain this basic truth and to make people understand with immediacy how real the risk of “being lost” is for human beings, St Alphonsus coined a famous, very elementary maxim which says: “Those who pray will be saved and those who do not will be damned!” Commenting on this lapidary sentence, he added, “In conclusion, to save one’s soul without prayer is most difficult, and even (as we have seen) impossible… But by praying our salvation is made secure, and very easy” (II, Conclusion). And he says further: “if we do not pray, we have no excuse, because the grace of prayer is given to everyone… if we are not saved, the whole fault will be ours; and we shall have our own failure to answer for, because we did not pray.”

By saying, then, that prayer is a necessary means, St Alphonsus wanted us to understand that in no situation of life can we do without prayer, especially in times of trial and difficulty. We must always knock at the door of the Lord confidently, knowing that he cares for all his children, for us. For this reason we are asked not to be afraid to turn to him and to present our requests to him with trust, in the certainty of receiving what we need.

Dear friends, this is the main question: what is really necessary in my life? I answer with St Alphonsus: “Health and all the graces that we need.” He means of course not only the health of the body, but first of all that of the soul, which Jesus gives us.

More than anything else we need his liberating presence which makes us truly fully human and hence fills our existence with joy. And it is only through prayer that we can receive him and his grace, which, by enlightening us in every situation, helps us to discern true good and by strengthening us also makes our will effective, that is, renders it capable of doing what we know is good. We often recognize what is good but are unable to do it. With prayer we succeed in doing it. The disciple of the Lord knows he is always exposed to temptation and does not fail to ask God’s help in prayer in order to resist it.

St Alphonsus very interestingly cites the example of St Philip Neri who “the very moment when he awoke in the morning, said to God: ‘Lord, keep Thy hands over Philip this day; for if not, Philip will betray Thee’” (III, 3). What a great realist! He asks God to keep his hands upon him. We too, aware of our weakness, must humbly seek God’s help, relying on his boundless mercy. St Alphonsus says in another passage: “We are so poor that we have nothing; but if we pray we are no longer poor. If we are poor, God is rich” (II, 4). And, following in St Augustine’s wake, he invites all Christians not to be afraid to obtain from God, through prayer, the power they do not possess that is necessary in order to do good, in the certainty that the Lord will not refuse his help to whoever prays to him with humility (cf. III, 3).

Dear friends, St Alphonsus reminds us that the relationship with God is essential in our life. Without the relationship with God, the fundamental relationship is absent. The relationship with God is brought into being in conversation with God, in daily personal prayer and with participation in the sacraments. This relationship is thus able to grow within us, as can the divine presence that directs us on our way, illuminates it and makes it safe and peaceful even amidst difficulties and perils. Many thanks.

August, 2012

Taken from: ewtn.com