6th Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 11, 2024

Isaiah 60:  Get out of bed, Jerusalem! Wake up. Put your face in the sunlight. God's bright glory has risen for you.

Ephesians 3:  The mystery is that people who have never heard of God and those who have heard of him all their lives (what I've been calling outsiders and insiders) stand on the same ground before God.

Matthew 2:  They entered the house and saw the child in the arms of Mary, his mother. Overcome, they kneeled and worshiped him. Then they opened their luggage and presented gifts: gold, frankincense, myrrh.

 

 

 

Another Reminder for the Baptism of the Lord, January 5, 2025

Rosemary's Blessing of  The Week: next week

 

Special Thanks to these special people:

•    For  the Readings:  
•    For hosting us Thursday & Friday, Marlene  
•    For The Team:   Buddy & Georgie & Kevin
•    For the Communion Bread:   Alison
•    For the Special Communion Cups:  Jan
•    For the Pictures:   Rick & Connie, Mike & Beth
•    For the coffee and extras:   next week 
•    For the altar & sound:  Jackie & Hue
•    For the Music:   Ray and David and Shonda
•    For all who helped with Communion 

 

 

Birthdays:   David Dinsmore (Thursday)

Anniversaries:

 John & Alison (23^rd, Sunday, today)

Randolf & Michelle (20^th Tuesday)

 

 

Please Remember these special people:

 For Connie Bresson's mom;  For Rose Banzhaf who broke some bones in a skiing accident;  For Ron Ackerman with cellulitis;   For Carol's recuperation;   For Tom Good;     For Dee and her daughter, Lisa;    For John Schanot's continued recuperation;   For Nadia's recuperation;   For a young man who is suffering from depression;    For Claire's mom;   For Grace's mom and brother in Alberta ;       For Cliff & Jean;    For Laura's sister Claudia;   For Dawn;   John Simari’s friend, Ron;    For Anthony;   For John & Jean's son John Louis;   For our good friend Kay in Ontario;    For Jackie Urbanzyk's continued recovery; Connie Bresson's mom & friend struggling with cancer;

 

 

For Rosemary's sister, Patty and her husband, Lou;  For Cathy's uncle, Jim Wright at 92;   For Connie's nephew, Fred; For Mary Jane Stevenson's son Philip, 34, sick & don't know why;    The Quinn’s granddaughter, Mikayla;   For Maureen’s daughter, Kathleen, with cancer;      For Jackie's friend, Barbara, plus Angela & her mom;    For Sr. Patricia Otillio, a nun I worked with for years in Grand Coteau;   John Cade's mother in law, Kalliopi Piskiouli;    for Franks brother with advanced Parkinsons;     Diane McClurg's mom in Fort Dodge;   For Steve Barrett, Rose, & Katie;

 

 

Dick Thompson's daughter, Teri Jill, and Judy's aging parents & daughter of her best friend, Mekala plus her baby, and Stephanie, and Barbara;  Barb & Warren's grandbabies, Leighton Elizabeth and Warren Phillip and Ethan Michel, & their friend Chris, plus Barb's dad & niece & Annie & Kyler & Kaitlen;

 

 

Tom and Teresa Quinn's niece, Chawna, with cancer, plus Neva Flynn, Angel, and Diane Kreeitzer;   Connie Doherty's mom and her sister, plus Kevin's cousin, Peter; for Mary Ellen & her Margaret, Jim, & Christopher;  For a number of David McKeon's family who are having a rough time with health issues; for our friends, sons, and daughters in the military, including Ryan McClurg and Chebino; cure for autism from Laura Chollick; for our President.

 

 

Your Finances, April 23, 2017

Expenses:   $ two Sundays from now.

Outreach:   $

Thanks for your Generosity, Everybody.

 

 

Have a Great Week, J.S

(214-783-0443)

 

 

JSM Mission-Faith Statement  

      Help create a Catholic Community that welcomes all God’s People,  provides for & challenges spiritual & total growth.  

      Reaches out to help people who are disadvantaged & make the world  we live in a better place to live.

Acts of the Apostles 15: It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us not to place on you any burden beyond these necessities,  namely, to abstain from meat sacrificed to idols, from blood, from meats  of strangled animals, and from unlawful marriage.

Revelation 21:  The city had no need of sun or moon to shine on it, tor the glory of God gave it light, and its lamp was the Lamb.

John 13:  Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. 

 

Georgie is home from college
 

 

Thanks…

Music,    Ben 

Readers, Tom & Denni

Gospel,   John Cade

Homily,  John Cade

Eucharistic Prayer A & B,  John Stack & John Cade

The Magic Zoom makers,      Hue & Richard

Final Blessing, Rosemary

 

Loretta and Dawn (Welcome back Dawn)

 

 

 

Readings:  Download 5-22-22 – Readings – 6th Easter

Homily:  

 

 

Ben

 

 

 

Remember these special people:

For Sandra who has been diagnosed with Large B Cell Lymphoma;   For Lambrini, John Cade's wife who is dealing with cancer;  For John's sister, Kathey in the hospital after a fall; For Tom Good;  For a young man, 19 struggling with a brain tumor and cancer;    For all the medical personnel struggling to treat the tsunami of sick people;   For Mary Hall's friend Cadence still suffering from a serious medical condition;   For Sir Charlie & Jan;  All of Shonda's dear family;

                           

 

The Kiss of Peace

 

Jackie's mom, sister, & friend, Lynn;  For Rick Turner searching for a kidney donor, Type O neg.; For Meredith, cancer free & John Schanot;    For John O'Donnell & Jean;   For Jean & Cliff Wright;  For Dee, and for her daughters, Lisa & Lauren;     For a young man who is suffering from depression;  John Cade's mother in law, Kalliopi Piskiouli and Lambrini, plus John's daughter, Joey, with cancer; from Barbara, a little baby boy named Ford recuperating from an operation & friends, Annie, a mom of 3 kids and Michael ;    for the medical staffs, teachers, and coaches in our public & private schools.

 

 

The Kiss of Peace

                   

                  

Birthdays:   Ray Occhipinti 5/24

Anniversaries:   

      

Community Finances:   

Expenses: $ 853.00

Outreach: $  100.00

Thanks again, Folks, for doing what you can.

                               

Rosemary's Blessing:  

 

Sez Betsy, "Hi, Everybody.  Welcome in!"

 

Readings

Genesis 12, 1-4, I will make of you a great nation.

Psalm 33, Lord, let your mercy be upon us, as we put our trust in you.

2 Timothy 1-10, Bear your hardship.

Matthew 17, 1-9, The transfiguration.

 

 

Fist bumps for a healthy welcome.

 

Homily by John Cade                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             The Gospel of Matthew and the Jewish Synagogue—Talk Two

Last week we talked about how, as Jewish, the disciples and followers of Jesus continued as members and participants in the life of the synagogue and the Sabbath liturgy. Also, how these followers of Jesus remembered him in the synagogue, and preserved the stories of his life, teachings and deeds. An example of the general pattern of worship on the Sabbath is in Acts 13.

 

 

What a team!

 

It says, “On the Sabbath Paul went to the synagogue. After the reading of the Scriptures—God’s Law and the Prophets—the head of the meeting asked Paul, Friend, do you have anything you want to say? Paul stood up and said, Fellow Israelites and friends of God, listen.” Then he told how God led their ancestors out of Egypt and gave them their own land. He traced their history through King David, and how, from David’s descendants, God sent a Savior for Israel. And that this was the gospel, the good news, they were bringing: that what God promised their fathers has come true for their children—for them.

 

Our Super, All Girls, Sisters Candle Lighting Team.

 

This passage in Acts provides the basic pattern of synagogue worship on the Sabbath: mainly lots of long scripture readings.

First, a reading from the Law of Moses (the Torah, first 5 books of Jewish Scripture) in 1-yr cycle. Then readings from the Prophets, in three parts:  The “former prophets” (stories of Israel before and after the death of Moses, their greatest prophet—7 books of Joshua thru II Kings) in 1-yr cycle. Then more reading from what they called the “latter prophets” (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel—what we call the major prophets) in 1-yr cycle.  Then more reading from the ‘Book of the Twelve’—the last 12 books of Hebrew Scripture, that we call the minor prophets (Hosea to Malachi) in 4-yr cycle. [We use abbreviated 3-yr cycle]

 

 

Buddy, our special reader of the Candle Blessing

 

The psalms were read or chanted between the readings, sometimes for specific feasts of the liturgical year, but also to break things up with so many long readings, (and maybe to wake people up).

I counted, and the weekly Sabbath readings averaged over 16 pages every week, using this type print. After all the readings, the leader of the synagogue would preach on those scriptures or he might ask a visiting preacher to do so, as in the example of Paul. This is how the story of Jesus was passed on and preserved in the synagogue, for 55 years after Jesus’ death.

 

 

John reading his homily explaining the milieu of Matthew's Gospel.

 

So the written gospels are deeply Jewish books, capable of being understood only by those who lived and shared the Jewish mindset. If Jesus’ followers ever moved out of the Jewish world in which they was born, and if their gospels ever came to be read entirely or primarily by those who didn’t understand the Jewish authors’ meaning, they would be misread or misunderstood.  That is exactly what seems to have happened.  Step out of the Jewish world into the Greek and Roman world around the Mediterranean; the gospels would most likely be assumed by non-Jewish readers to be a literal account of what Jesus said and did.

 

Presenting the Gifts, Hue, Patricia, and Linda.

 

 A growing number of Jesus’ followers were beginning to be from urban centers around the Mediterranean—like Corinth, Thessalonica, Galatia, Rome—where they interacted with non-Jewish people and culture.  As the Jewish followers of Jesus became more cosmopolitan, they began to attract the non-Jewish Gentiles, and early Christianity became more and more a Gentile movement.  Near the end of the 1^st century CE, in the year 88CE, a split occurred between the synagogue and the followers of Jesus.  Orthodox Jews came to think of Jesus’ followers as “revisionists” and excommunicated them from the synagogue. So, by the middle of the second century (about 150 CE), there were practically no Jews left in the Christian movement.  Missing that Jewish context, Gentile Christians began to literalize the words and miracle stories, a practice the original Jewish gospel writers could never have imagined. For 55 years the Jewish people had been relating Jesus to the Hebrew Scriptures and incorporating his memory into Jewish liturgical practices. 

 

 

Minor Elevation time.

 

The followers of Jesus, including the authors of the gospels, had been speaking, then writing down, Jewish interpretations of the ‘Jesus experience’, not biographical accounts or historical stories.  As Gentiles throughout the Roman Empire gradually became a Christian majority, Christian literalism or fundamentalism was born.  This way of reading the gospels is the result of misunderstanding their Jewish context and meaning.  E.g., we read Jesus being referred to as “the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”  First-century Jews would have known this was a reference straight out of the Yom Kippur liturgy, not a literal reality.  They would never have imagined that these very familiar Jewish liturgical words could ever be so distorted. 

Next Sunday we dive into Spong’s basic thesis: the Gospels, Matthew in particular, were written explicitly for the Sabbath liturgy, and followed the synagogue’s annual liturgical calendar.

Amen.

 

 

Who dat peeking in the door?

Wisdom 6:  Resplendent and unfading is wisdom, and she is readily perceived by those who love her, and found by those who seek her.

1 Thessalonians 4:  For if we believe that Jesus died and rose, so too will God, through  Jesus, bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

Matthew 25:  At midnight, there was a cry, "Behold, the bridegroom!  Come out to meet him!" Then all those virgins got up and trimmed their lamps.

 

 

Isaiah 60: Caravans of camels shall fill you, dromedaries from Midian and Ephah; all from Sheba shall come bearing gold and frankincense, and proclaiming the praises of theLord.

Ephesians 3:  … the Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same body, and copartners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

Matthew 2:  … and on entering the house, they saw the child with Mary  his mother.  They prostrated themselves and did him homage.  Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.