Order of Christian Initiation for Adults
My Dear Parishioners,
Are you someone who isn’t Catholic but would like to become Catholic? Are you someone who isn’t Catholic but married to a Catholic and would like to receive the Sacraments with them? Do you know someone who would like to become Catholic?
Are you a Catholic who needs to complete your Sacraments, such as to be Confirmed? Do you know a Catholic who needs to complete their Sacraments?
Very soon we will begin OCIA (formerly RCIA), which is the Order of Christian Initiation for Adults.
OCIA is a way for someone to learn more about our Catholic Faith and so to learn more about Jesus. As the Saints tell us, the more we learn about Jesus, the more we learn how much He loves us. In return, we grow more in love with Him as we learn about Him.
If you have a tight work schedule or a great deal of home responsibilities, please do not fret. We can work with you.
Please contact me at sjc18976@verizon.net or at frmichaelpawelko@gmail.com. We can begin a discussion that will allow you to fall more in love with Jesus.
Our first reading this weekend is from the Prophet Amos. Amos was a priest at Bethel in the 8th Century B.C. Bethel was the center of worship in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, as Jerusalem and the Temple were the center of worship in Judea.
At the time of Amos, the Northern Kingdom of Israel was wealthy and prosperous. It also seems that it was consumed by the Capital Sin of Pride. The nation’s pride was preventing it from keeping the Law and following the Prophets. Hypocrisy and injustice replaced the virtues. False worship intermingled with the Worship of Our One True God.
Amos was commissioned by God and sent on mission by God to call a nation back to right mindedness, repentance, and fidelity to the Law and the Prophets. He was also called by God to warn Israel that its present path of sin and unfaithfullness would be its downfall.
The virtue of Justice is the virtue by which we treat each other in accord with what is due. It’s not simply being fair or nice to someone, but it is an obligation to give each their due—what they are owed. From our Catholic Christian perspective, justice is to render to God and neighbor their due.
Specifically, from our Catholic Christian perspective, justice requires us to treat each other in accord with God’s Law, most especially in accord with that greatest of commandments: to love the Lord our God with our whole minds, hearts, and souls, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Thus, we owe God His due above all else. He has created us and breathed the gift of life into us. He has shed His Blood for our salvation. He has given us the promise of Eternal Life. He has given us the gift of the Holy Eucharist and the other Sacraments and the Saints and the teachings of the Church. He has provided all we need so that we can attain Eternal Life. We owe Him His due by keeping Him at the very center of our hearts and by keeping the Commandments and by living the Beatitudes. As we are also reminded, we continually receive more than we give when we give God His due.
We are then bound to give proper due to our neighbors. We are bound to treat them with love and virtue and to encourage them in love and virtue and to set good example by our own love and virtue. Justice demands that we treat them in accord with God’s Commandments and His Beatitudes, to treat them as fellow
children of God and Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus, to encourage them to also keep God at the center of their own hearts. The sin of injustice is the failure to give God and neighbor their due. The Parable of the Dishonest Steward has layers of injustice. The parable also warns us that when our hearts are in the wrong place, we will love the things we should hate and hate the things we should love.
The injustice that exists in our world exists because people continue to ignore God and His Commandments. They continue to lead others astray.
They continue to treat each other as objects to be used rather than as fellow children of God to be loved.
The Prophet Amos and Our Blessed Savior Himself, warn us that a failure to repent of the sin of injustice leads to disaster. However, they also remind us that it is never too late, because repentance brings forgiveness and God’s forgiveness restores us to justice.
So let us continue to work for justice in this world, starting with our own homes and families, as we reflect on the words of this week’s Collect (opening prayer of Mass): O God, who founded all the commands of Your Sacred Law upon Love of You and neighbor, grant that, by keeping Your precepts, we may merit to attain Eternal Life, Through Our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever, Amen!!!!!!!!!!!
St. Joseph, Patron of the Church, and our Patron, pray for us! Fr. Michael J Pawelko, pastor
This Tuesday, September 23, is the Feast Day of one of our most popular modern Saints, St. Padre Pio. In preparation for observing his Feast Day, I thought that I would share excerpts of the homily of St. John Paul II on the canonization of St. Padre Pio: “But may I never boast except in the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians 6:14).
Is it not, precisely, the “glory of the Cross” that shines above all in Padre Pio? How timely is the spirituality of the Cross lived by the humble Capuchin of Pietrelcina. Our time needs to rediscover the value of the Cross in order to open the heart to hope.
Throughout his life, he always sought greater conformity with the Crucified, since he was very conscious of having been called to collaborate in a special way in the work of redemption. His holiness cannot be understood without this constant reference to the Cross.
In God’s plan, the Cross constitutes the true instrument of salvation for the whole of humanity and the way clearly offered by the Lord to those who wish to follow him (see Mark 16:24). The Holy Franciscan of the Gargano understood this well, when on the Feast of the Assumption in 1914, he wrote: “In order to succeed in reaching our ultimate end we must follow the divine Head, who does not wish to lead the chosen soul on any way other than the one he followed; by that, I say, of abnegation and the Cross.” (Epistolario II, p. 155).
“I am the Lord who acts with mercy” (Jeremiah 9:23).
Padre Pio was a generous dispenser of divine mercy, making himself available to all by welcoming them, by spiritual direction and, especially, by the administration of the sacrament of Penance. I also had the privilege, during my young years, of benefiting from his availability for penitents. The ministry of the confessional, which is one of the distinctive traits of his apostolate, attracted great crowds of the faithful to the monastery of San Giovanni Rotondo. Even when that unusual confessor treated pilgrims with apparent severity, the latter, becoming conscious of the gravity of sins and sincerely repentant, almost always came back for the peaceful embrace of sacramental forgiveness.
May his example encourage priests to carry out with joy and zeal this ministry which is so important today, as I wished to confirm this year in the Letter to Priests on the occasion of Holy Thursday. “You, Lord, are my only good.”
This is what we sang in the responsorial psalm. Through these words, the new Saint invites us to place God above everything, to consider him our sole and highest good.
In fact, the ultimate reason for the apostolic effectiveness of Padre Pio, the profound root of so much spiritual fruitfulness can be found in that intimate and constant union with God, attested to by his long hours spent in prayer and in the confessional. He loved to repeat, “I am a poor Franciscan who prays” convinced that “prayer is the best weapon we have, a key that opens the heart of God”.
Prayer and charity, this is the most concrete synthesis of Padre Pio’s teaching, which today is offered to everyone.
“I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike”(Matthew 11:25). How appropriate are these words of Jesus, when we think of them as applied to you, humble and beloved Padre Pio.
Teach us, we ask you, humility of heart, so we may be counted among the little ones of the Gospel, to whom the Father promised to reveal the mysteries of His Kingdom.
Help us to pray without ceasing, certain that God knows what we need even before we ask Him.
Obtain for us the eyes of faith that will help us recognize in the poor and suffering, the very face of Jesus.
Sustain us in the hour of trouble and trial and, if we fall, let us experience the joy of the sacrament of forgiveness.
Grant us your tender devotion to Mary, the Mother of Jesus and our Mother.
Accompany us on our earthly pilgrimage toward the blessed Homeland, where we too, hope to arrive to contemplate forever the glory of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.