Readings:
Isaiah 55, 1-5, All you who are thirsty, come to the water. (Ever wonder why I love Isaiah so much!!)
Psalm 145, The hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs.
Romans 8, 35, 37- 39, What will separate us from the love of Christ?
Matthew 14, 13-21, They all ate and were satisfied and they picked up the fragments left over. (Terrifically positive readings this Sunday! Wow!)
Thanks to the Team
Music, Ben & Shonda
Readers, Mary Jane & John, & Buddy, the candle blesser
Gospel & Homily, Deacon Mike & Stack
Eucharistic Prayer A & B, Stack & John Cade
The Magic Zoom makers, Mike & Richard, Ben & Hue (welcome Hue!)
Final Blessing, Rosemary
The Best Music, Ben & Shonda.
Please Remember these special people:
For our Bill & his family, Patty, Bobby & Lisa, Melinda, Amy & Bret; For Becky's dad just discovered with the virus; For Cindy recuperating from a procedure some weeks ago; For Carrie Bieda's son; For Esparzas, Frank & Mary, For all the medical personnel struggling to treat the tsunami of sick people, in particular, locally, Cindy's staff at Presby, Dallas, and at Frisco Presby, the mother of Harper and Betsy, Kendle, working in labor & delivery; For Joe Hogan with cancer; For Loretta's aunt Alicia; For Sydney; & For Sir Charlie & Jan; Shonda's mom & Cody & Ben & all of Shonda's dear family; for Michelle;
John Schanot reads Romans today.
For Jackie's mom; For a friend, a neighbor, & a doctor, Karen, with brain cancer; For Rick Turner searching for a kidney donor, Type O neg; For Meredith, cancer free; For Hue; For John O'Donnell; For Dee, and for her daughter, Lisa; For John Schanot's continued health; For Anthony & Sabrina; For a young man who is suffering from depression; John Cade's mother in law, Kalliopi Piskiouli and Lambrini; for Virginia Mattingly.
Download Readiongs Week 8-2
Birthdays: Linda Beavers, Eric Wittek, Lynda Fleming 60, Souls Harbor's birth (Brent wants a cupcake), born 1956 (64 years ago!)
Anniversary: Mike & Judy, 56th
Brian Bambaneck & Kendall, 15th (parents of Harper & Betsy)
Today Mary Jane reads from Isaiah.
John's Homily, In Memory of Bill
Matthew has presented to us this morning one of my favorite Bible stories. The point is usually made that Jesus just multiplied the bread. As I’ve said all the times I have spoken on this little vignette over the years, my read is that Jesus created such a spirit among the people that they shared what they had with each other. That was the miracle of sharing.
I saw this in Tanzania the ten years I lived there. I would be riding my motorcycle down a hot, dusty road, & come across a half a dozen Tanzanian women waiting for a country bus. They all wore robes from their heads to their sandals. Under those robes they had food. And they did not reveal a crumb.
The brain trust.
What did Jesus do? He created a spirit of trust and invited them to share. Imagine you are there. You are provident and conceal your rations. Suddenly, after having a good meeting with these people, Jesus takes a loaf of bread, breaks it, takes a piece, and passes it to you. In the spirit of sharing, you take a piece of the bread and you put some of your bread into the basket.
Can’t you see Bill Hammond doing this! It is September and Bill is standing up here inviting us all to help with the Love for Kids special picnic day at the Circle K Farm in Flower Mound one Saturday in October. 20-30-40 members of our community would show up every year.
The Brain Trust?
Initially I found it difficult to spend Saturday morning at the picnic because I used Saturday to get my ideas sorted out for our Sunday Masses. Little did I need those ideas because I came home and devoted all my homily time to how I was touched by the kids, by our community, and by Bill for touching my heart again.
Because of Bill & Bona Responds, Bill and I spent a week in Galveston helping to clean up after the hurricane. Bill frequently relayed opportunities to community members to join him and other Bona Responds kids in tornado clean up. Bill got us into these sharing events and we were incredibly richer.
Hey, Mike, we got audio this morning. Hooray! In fact, if you missed it the first time, it even repeats.
The second event that showed me how special Bill was came with our early September 8-9 day back packing trips to Yosemite. 8-9 campers loaded up and came along. Bill was one camper & hiker that I knew I could rely on to help me out if someone was having trouble with the altitude or weight of a back pack. We had 8 dinners & deserts, like freeze dried peach cobbler, which Rose Banzhaf prepared & freeze dried. This meant 1 bear canister for each camper. We ate well and we had to tote all that up the trail. Bill always generously offered to help out with the load, especially the pint of Jack Daniel we all carried for the evening feast.
Sacra Couer, Paris
The third way that Bill touched me was the famous Hotter ‘N Hell Bike Ride out of Wichita Falls, the last week end of August, yes, usually the hottest week end of the calendar. The year was probably 2011.
So along comes Bill inviting me to ride. Trouble was, I was a runner, not a biker. No problem. He had everything I needed, Helmet, shorts, shirt, and even a bike (which I discovered later was Bobby’s bike). I must have hesitated, to say the least. But you know how hard it was to turn Bill down.
Chain Bridge, Budapest
So I agree and ride up with Bill to Wichita Falls. We camp out on the college campus. There are thousands of these crazy people. We get up in the dark about 5:00. Bill wants to leave before the huge crowd takes off all together. I get into these clothes in the dim light of the parking lot. We take off. It does not take long for Bill & his buddies to speed off down the road. I trail along. Yes, I did finish but Bill never let me forget that I spent the first 20 miles with my bike pants on backward.
Sunset, At Sea
Thank you, Bill, for blessing my life and the lives of so many. You have been and still are a very special gift.
Using John Lewis' Blessing, So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers & sisters, and let the spirit of peace & the power of everlasting love be your guide.
Is City of Dallas giving us a little hint?
Cindy Cramer:
John has been in touch with Cindy Cramer’s son and daughter. Cindy has healed from the heart surgery.
She is presently in Encompass Health Rehab Hospital, 3351 Waterview Parkway, Richardson, TX 75080, Room 110. Cindy needs physical therapy to learn to walk again due to Guillain-Barre.
She is not allowed any visitors but would LOVE to receive some cards and notes. Also, since she is on the first floor you can window visit. The windows are numbered with the room numbers, so you should be able to find #110. Also you can make her a home-made dinner and deliver it to the front desk! She is currently on a special diet due to her blood thinner which requires that she not go crazy on Vitamin K. It's not that she can't have any at all; she just shouldn't have large amounts. Check out the Mayo Clinic's list of foods to avoid. If you include any of those items mixed into a casserole or something, be sure to include a note with how much is in there.
She’s very busy between three meals a day, and physical therapy twice a day at times that change daily, scheduling your visit may be a challenge. Rather than set a particular time for all window visits, it will probably be easiest if you just sign up for a day, and then contact her about when would be a good time to come by. Here is the signup sheet if you want to do that.
Some years ago after I had returned to Dallas in the 80’s and my mother was still alive, she had to go to the hospital for some procedure. The hospital was the one on LBJ near Webb Chapel, called Deadman in those days. 